AI on the Factory Floor: Real Value or Marketing Gimmick?

A roundtable discussion on the reality of AI in the industrial space.

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As AI rapidly enters industrial platforms, teams are left asking an uncomfortable question: is Artificial Intelligence solving real problems, or just adding complexity?

In this roundtable discussion, the panel takes a critical look at how AI is currently being marketed, how it’s actually being applied across manufacturing, energy, and IoT systems, and how the API landscape is evolving to support it.

The conversation focuses on practical design and architectural decisions that industrial teams can make to invest in AI with confidence — avoiding solutions that look impressive but fail in production.

As artificial intelligence continues to enter industrial platforms, engineering and operations teams are facing a critical question: is AI genuinely solving real-world industrial problems, or simply introducing new layers of complexity? With AI increasingly positioned as a default feature rather than a carefully considered capability, many organizations are struggling to separate meaningful innovation from marketing-driven hype.

This roundtable session takes a grounded look at how AI is being promoted versus how it is actually deployed across manufacturing, energy, and industrial IoT environments. The panel dives into this complex problem from the perspective of people working close to real systems.

The discussion explores how the supporting API and integration landscape is evolving, what architectural patterns are emerging, and where common implementation gaps continue to surface.

Focusing on practical design and decision-making, the panel examines how industrial teams can invest in AI with confidence by prioritizing reliability, interoperability, and long-term maintainability. Viewers will gain insight into how to identify solutions that deliver measurable value in production environments, while avoiding systems that appear impressive in demos but break down under real operational demands.

Learn how AI fits into real Node-RED and industrial workflows

Explore FlowFuse Expert — our approach to bringing LLMs into production environments with control over data, access, and long-term maintainability.

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Presented by:

Solutions Engineer
Developer Relations Advocate
Chief Community Officer @ Naftiko
Innovator in Residence @ Maryville University of Saint Louis