Artificial intelligence is all the rage in 2025, but according to supply chain software vendor IFS, commercial generative AI products are far from delivering practical results in real-world applications such as factories, supply chains, and plants.
Instead, Linköping, Sweden-based IFS says its “industrial AI” brand can provide the business knowledge and sector-specific context needed to move AI from the back office to critical applications such as manufacturing, utilities, and enabling on-site repair operations.
This approach could allow industrial AI to move beyond basic demonstrations and marketing to practical applications, IRL (an acronym for text message meaning “real life”) said IFS CEO Mark Moffat in a keynote address at the company’s conference in New York City today.
“The opportunity to leverage AI to drive economic growth and have a positive impact on society and the planet is now,” Moffat said in a release. “But importantly, it’s the application of AI in industrial settings that will make a difference.” “While the headlines to date have been about the general productivity gains that AI brings to office-based workers, IFS is uniquely positioned to bring contextual, industry-specific AI to front-line workers, and that is where we will see the most impactful innovations and efficiency gains.”
According to Moffat, specific applications of industrial AI in the transportation sector include logistics network validation, shipping simulation and revenue discovery, and port equipment failure detection. Additionally, manufacturing use cases include anomaly detection for critical assets, dynamic production planning and scheduling, and enhancing supply chain agility.
And beyond logistics and transportation, this technology has many more applications in telecommunications (first-time repair prediction and enhancement, cell phone tower structural health prediction, automated fault detection and triage), construction and engineering (certification delay prediction, project margin prediction and simulation), energy operations and resources (autonomous inspection, disaster simulation and response, crew preparation and optimized dispatch), and aerospace and defense (dynamic line maintenance scheduling and assisted troubleshooting and repair).
Further support for the IFS approach came from speaker Mohamed Khande, global chairman of consulting firm PWC. According to Kande, 12 months ago, most conversations around AI adoption focused on applying the technology to back-office functions such as finance, human resources, and information technology. But now, future applications will go beyond simply streamlining existing tasks to transforming workflows into new patterns.
In Kande’s words, the ultimate function of AI is “not to eliminate frontline workers, but to empower them and enable them to do their jobs in completely different ways.”
