By Jim Montague, Executive Editor of Control magazine and Contributing Editor to The Journal
It’s always nice to travel with someone who knows a new town or the local terrain — and the metaverse and its neighboring ecosystems are no exception.
So, as part of his opening address at the 2023 Automation Fair® event last November, Rockwell Automation chairman and CEO Blake Moret talked with Judson Althoff, chief commercial officer at Strategic Alliance Partner Microsoft, about artificial intelligence (AI), generative AI, ChatGPT and other forms of digitalization that Rockwell Automation is quickly turning to its advantage for the benefit of its customers.
“The industrial metaverse can have real-world impacts on manufacturing to build better products and processes,” Althoff said. “The metaverse is the culmination of combining technologies that can simulate any manufacturing request and do it in the cloud or elsewhere.”
Generative AI Is Here
He added that Microsoft has seen measurable performance gains from using generative AI. These were achieved in 13-week engagements, where Microsoft moved into brownfield and greenfield applications in plants and improved sensing, reduced use of resources and achieved other gains.
“This isn’t just the hype cycle, and if you don’t engage, you’ll likely fall behind,” he continued.
“A year ago, many people were treating generative AI like black magic and hogwash. However, that disbelief quickly turned to fear because three months ago, they were all saying, ‘the AI robots are taking over the world!’ Now, many users are coming in with hundreds of ideas about what they can do with generative AI and ChatGPT, whether it’s individual productivity or democratizing data.”
Althoff reported that consequently, Microsoft is integrating generative AI into all its products. It’s even using generative AI to write its own code, so it can get those products to market quicker.
Likewise, Moret added that Rockwell Automation is adding generative AI copilots to its configurations and other tools.
