The industrial landscape of 2026 has evolved beyond “growth at all costs” to a focus on technological survival. As we navigate a sluggish business cycle, rising power costs, and a staggering labor gap of 425,000 workers, automation is a macroeconomic necessity. According to the Association for Advancing Automation (A3), 86% of employers now view AI, machine […]
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When people talk about AI in manufacturing, the conversation often jumps straight to results. But in a recent interview with Alec Glenn of JSW Steel USA and Karthikeyan Natarajan of Infinite Uptime, we decided to get a different approach, so the conversation felt different —more grounded, and closer to what actually happens when AI enters […]
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In 2025, many manufacturers implemented artificial intelligence across forecasting, logistics, and supplier risk scoring, expecting breakthroughs. By year-end, though, a pattern had emerged: AI improved awareness and decision support, but it did not eliminate uncertainty or deliver automatic resilience. AI doesn’t replace judgment — it augments it Procter & Gamble’s Jamie McIntyre Horstman explained that machine […]
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Factories today don’t struggle to collect data — they struggle to make sense of it. Machines measure everything from pressure to vibration, but most of it lacks meaning. Without context, even the most advanced dashboards can’t explain what’s happening on the floor.That’s starting to change.A new generation of AI agents at the edge is learning to understand […]
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On Wednesday, September 10, 2025, IIoT World will host AI Frontiers 2025: Driving the Next Revolution in Smart Manufacturing, a free online event bringing together global leaders in AI, industrial data, IIoT, and digital transformation.This one-day virtual conference explores how manufacturers can move beyond pilots and proofs of concept to achieve scalable, AI-driven operations. Sessions will highlight the technologies […]
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The manufacturing skills gap continues to widen, with an estimated 3.8 million positions expected to go unfilled in the coming years. Rather than viewing AI as a wholesale replacement for human labor, forward-thinking manufacturers are deploying it as a skill multiplier, amplifying the expertise of existing workers so that a single operator can perform at […]
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Most conversations about AI in manufacturing focus on algorithms, data pipelines, and compute infrastructure, but the evidence increasingly points to a different success factor: leadership. According to industry research, over 70% of AI pilot projects in manufacturing fail to scale, and the root cause is rarely technical. In this article, IIoT World explores why executive […]
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AI is moving faster than most industries can digest. According to data cited during a recent IIoT World session, AI capability is now doubling every 3.5 months—a 100x improvement in a single year. That’s not evolution; that’s exponential transformation. For industries like manufacturing and energy, the real question isn’t whether AI will shape the future, but […]
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You can tell something’s shifting in manufacturing—not by the headlines, but by the way small teams are solving problems that used to be ignored. At IIoT World’s Manufacturing Day in May 2025, a group of founders and CEOs joined a refreshingly candid discussion about what it really takes to move the needle in industrial innovation. […]
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Interview with Andreas Dick, Member of the Board for Production & Logistics at Škoda AutoŠkoda Auto, a Volkswagen Group brand, was founded in 1895—making it one of the oldest car manufacturers still in operation today. This year, Škoda celebrates its 130th anniversary, a milestone that honors not only its heritage but also its continued commitment […]
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At the MES & Industry 4.0 Summit in Porto, May Yap, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Jabil, offered a clear message for manufacturers navigating global digital transformation: technology isn’t the hard part—alignment is.Across dozens of production sites and functions, the challenge isn’t just implementing tools like MES or AI; it’s coordinating them to […]
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Traditional Manufacturing Execution Systems were designed for a world where data flowed in one direction, from the shop floor up to enterprise dashboards, in batch intervals measured in minutes or hours. That architecture cannot support the real-time AI inference, closed-loop control, and edge analytics that modern smart factories demand. In this IIoT World analysis, we […]
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