Industrial companies are under pressure to boost efficiency and resilience — while navigating unprecedented technological change. AI offers promise in this context, unlocking new levels of optimization, insight and autonomy.
Yet, for tech executives, CIOs and IT professionals who are steering industrial enterprises, realizing the full value of AI is not a matter of simply “bolting on” new software. It requires a thoughtful, coordinated approach that bridges legacy infrastructure, eliminates organizational silos and satisfies the unique demands of operational technology (OT).
Drawing from my 30+ years of working with clients in essential industries, here are three strategies for unleashing the power of industrial AI to move companies toward autonomous operations in a way that maintains operational stability, makes use of real-time, valuable data to deliver sustainable, effective results.
1. Modernize without disruption: Evolve, don’t overhaul
The phrase digital transformation often conjures visions of seismic change, tearing down old systems to make way for the new. In the industrial world, that’s a recipe for risk. Many plants and facilities run on a patchwork of automation systems, some of them decades old. Removing and replacing isn’t feasible when uptime, safety and reliability are nonnegotiable.
Instead, companies should pursue nondisruptive modernization; advancing their automation architectures by layering AI and software-defined solutions on top of their existing installed base. The goal is to create a flexible and secure platform, one that connects legacy assets with modern technologies to deliver continuous, enterprise-wide visibility and optimization.
For example, deploying an OT-ready automation platform on top of your current automation systems enables you to gradually incorporate AI-driven analytics, predictive maintenance or process optimization, all without halting production. It’s about enabling disruptive technology without disrupting your operations. This approach minimizes risk and protects existing investments.
2. Connecting IT and OT: Build a unified front
In industrial AI adoption, effective partnership between IT and OT is essential. While IT brings cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity and enterprise-scale thinking, OT holds the domain expertise crucial for plant reliability, safety and throughput.
Too often, these teams operate in silos. IT might build a robust data highway, but without OT’s insight into plant operations, those pipelines fail to deliver actionable value. Conversely, legacy OT systems are often fragmented and difficult to connect. Without IT’s tools, essential data remains locked away in proprietary systems.
The real breakthroughs happen when IT and OT work together, integrating and contextualizing OT data and co-designing data management strategies. The result? An OT platform that both IT and OT can champion: secure, reliable and primed for AI-driven innovation.
A strong partnership enables companies to identify the right use cases and develop a data management system that is resilient and trusted by both camps. The combination of enterprise IT’s scale and OT’s domain knowledge makes industrial AI truly transformative.
3. A robust data management foundation with a data fabric
A robust industrial data fabric unifies and contextualizes data from all sources — legacy and modern, IT and OT. It enables organizations to not only move and aggregate data, but also to build models and analytics around evolving use cases. The right data fabric allows for the creation of AI applications that are adaptive and insightful, and improving as more data becomes available.
The next era of automation will require legacy systems to be integrated with modern automation technologies, with the help of an industrial data fabric or data management system, to facilitate real-time data access and improvements in business efficiency and intelligence. With every new data set integrated, an organization’s ability to generate insights — and competitive advantage — grows.
Having an industrial data fabric to connect all OT data to IT, instead of connecting each OT system independently, offers a more secure and easy-to-maintain solution that will not only bring a partial amount of the operational data, but also make all the data available to the enterprise IT data lakes and applications.
Looking ahead: AI that grows with you
The top industrial AI use cases today boost agility and throughput, guiding operators through complex situations and automating workflows. They are just the beginning. As data management matures and IT-OT collaboration deepens, organizations will unlock entirely new opportunities for optimization, resilience and ultimately predictive capabilities.
The key to successful industrial AI is not radical reinvention, but thoughtful evolution: modernizing without disruption, uniting IT and OT expertise and building a flexible data foundation. Industrial AI isn’t just about technology; it’s about creating an architecture and culture that can adapt, scale and thrive as the future unfolds.
Learn more about AI and IT strategy three times a week with the InformationWeek newsletter.
