Why Factories Are The New Proving Ground For AI

InnovationWhy Factories Are The New Proving Ground For AIByChris Turlica,Forbes Councils Member.for Forbes Technology CouncilCOUNCIL POSTExpertise from Forbes Councils members, operated under license. Opinions expressed are those of the author. | Membership (fee-based)May 18, 2026, 07:30am EDTChris Turlica is the CEO of MaintainX — a leading AI-powered CMMS and EAM platform for maintenance and reliability teams. gettyWhen an AI system misreads a sensor on a production line, the cost isn’t a subpar email draft; it's tens of thousands of dollars per hour in lost output and a workforce that may never trust the technology again. To build transformative AI, we need to tackle tough problems—and that means pushing beyond routine knowledge work tasks and bringing AI to bear on the far bigger challenges found in America’s industrial facilities. It’s impressive, of course, that LLMs can summarize emails, draft ad copy or write code. But these are unconstrained problems: For most such work, there’s no single right way to execute a task. “Probably right” is good enough; with enough data to train on, it’s relatively trivial to build AI models that pass the sniff test.Models can fudge their way through routine tasks (and deliver real productivity gains) without ever fully solving fundamental challenges such as eliminating hallucinations, ensuring reliable decision-making or securing worker buy-in. Startups can create workable AI tools without really breaking a sweat; the market is flooded with products that are basically fine but seldom truly excellent.Except “probably right” doesn’t work in industrial environments; it needs to be absolutely right.To take AI to the next level and overcome lingering doubts about ROI, we need to aim higher. The best way to do that is by building industrial solutions—and turning the world’s factories into proving grounds for AI technologies. Factories As AI LabsWhat makes factories so special? It’s the combination of three things: huge potentia...