Exhibitors & Products

Marketing buzzwords have become so interchangeable that everyone is using Sepp Hochreiter , who first spoke of talking or conversational machines here at HANNOVER MESSE, without citation. But it puts much-needed money into the pockets of startups. I have already commented on this. Other companies will be responsible for the "magic" in the future, and not all of them will come from Europe.

However, what I have realized over the last few weeks, after many conversations and recordings, is that the future of industrial AI is with the integrators. We are going to see a boom in AI integrators. A few reasons:

  • SMEs do not have the resources to implement AI projects on their own. Ideas are hopefully there, but time and specialized staff are lacking. Standard AI applications will most likely be outsourced to integrators with AI and automation expertise. Customers expect hardware and software expertise, automation knowledge, and the ability to connect the solution to the existing installation, including MLOps pipelines. Not everyone can do this, but it promises a good order situation. Project business alone is not a SaaS business. Everyone should be aware of this, even if the term AI is mentioned somewhere.
  • Companies want a certified system. The integrator is supposed to set up an "AI system": wire it up, accept it and "stick" the necessary certifications on it (AI Act, CRA) – off to the documentation – so integrators need to have both security and AI Act & Co. expertise.
  • The price has to be right. Every AI application must achieve ROI at some point. Standardized solutions with a few individual adjustments will benefit from this.
  • Manufacturing companies cannot keep up with the speed of development. They need a partner who provides advice, analyzes and implements use cases and is at the cutting edge of technology. They need a specialist.
    •

    Do such integrators already exist? I am sure they would call themselves something else, but I count Elunic and Evoptima among them.