Industrial leaders across North America, Europe, the Middle East and Australia – surveyed for AVEVA’s Industrial Intelligence: Manufacturing Industry Insights report – cite a range of obstacles that are limiting efficiency and impact. Disparate systems, poor real-time collaboration and limited visibility across the product or process lifecycle all continue to hold organisations back. Yet the consensus – shared by 97 per cent of respondents – believes that industrial AI will be essential to staying competitive in an increasingly challenging landscape. And for nearly three-quarters of those leaders (74 per cent), investing in industrial intelligence will be a priority in 2026. Fabio Terezinho, vice president of integration and technology partners at AVEVA, explains more.
As ‘industrial intelligence’ gains momentum, what does this concept mean to you personally, and how do you see it shaping the future of industry?
In simple terms, industrial intelligence is the method that allows customers to execute their digital transformation with a clear return on investment (ROI), leveraging current technologies, including software-as-a-service and AI. It’s the evolution of what we’ve been doing in industrial automation for decades.
We’re still talking about technology, but the stack has moved on. Industrial intelligence is about applying AI, IoT and Industry 4.0 concepts to deliver the same core values we’ve always aimed for: improving productivity, reducing waste and increasing safety in industrial processes. The main difference is the scale of the impact and the speed at which ROI can be realised when the project has clear achievable business goals.
Without technologies like ubiquitous internet, cloud computing, large language models and AI agents, industrial intelligence as we know it today wouldn’t exist. These components have transformed isolated systems into integrated networks that deliver real-time insights and predictive capabilities.
How will industrial intelligence guide our future?
These technologies – AI, cloud, connectivity – are reshaping everyday life. I genuinely believe that in the next five to ten years, they’ll transform how humanity operates, and at a much faster pace than anything we’ve seen before.
That impact is just as profound in our industry. I don’t believe humans are being replaced anytime soon, but our roles will change dramatically.
We’ll still make the big decisions, but we’ll do it with far better support: real-time insights, context-rich data and tools that help us act with unprecedent precision.
So, would you say companies that don’t embrace industrial intelligence risk falling behind or becoming obsolete?
Yes, at multiple levels. On the personal level, professionals who don’t embrace this evolution will become obsolete.
At the company level, AVEVA has already made a top-down commitment to embracing industrial intelligence in our products, processes and how we deliver value. Organisations that don’t do that will lose competitiveness and, eventually, become irrelevant.
For our customers, the choice is clear: evolve or fall behind. Without industrial intelligence driving operations, they risk ceding market share to competitors who are dramatically more efficient and effective.
History proves that when major disruptions arrive, you either pivot or perish. We saw it with the internet; those who hesitated were left behind. AI-driven industrial intelligence presents the same ultimatum. Today’s hesitation is tomorrow’s obsolescence.
Here are some mind-blowing facts to marvel at. The pace of technological adoption today isn’t just fast; it’s accelerating at an unprecedented rate. The telephone took 71 years to reach 100 million users, followed by mobile phones at 16 years and the internet at seven. Smartphones compressed the cycle to three years, while Instagram did it in 2.5. Then came TikTok, which needed only nine months, ChatGPT just two months and Threads shattered all records at a mere five days. This dramatic acceleration reveals a simple truth: technology evolves faster than ever, and companies that fail to adapt risk being left behind. What once took decades, now happens in weeks – the future doesn’t wait, and neither should companies when it comes to adopting the concept of industrial intelligence.
Another core theme is the ‘ecosystem of ecosystems’. How does this term tie into industrial intelligence?
Industrial intelligence thrives on collaboration. Gone are the days of proprietary, isolated systems. Today’s architectures demand openness and interoperability across vendors, platforms, and partners.
Cloud and AI are driving disruptive changes. We’re no longer just integrating machines within a factory or plant. We are integrating global enterprises and their supply chains. Customers want a single version of the truth across multiple sites, with hybrid architectures that combine on-premises systems and cloud services.
To deliver that, isolated proprietary systems are simply inadequate. We need deep openness and interoperability with partners like Microsoft, Databricks, Snowflake and others. The ‘ecosystem of ecosystems’ and radical collaboration are about recognising that today’s architectures demand broad, strategic interoperability.
This ecosystem extends beyond technology – it’s about connecting people and organisations to solve global challenges, from sustainability to supply chain resilience.
Can you give a couple of real-life examples of industrial intelligence in action?
AVEVA, in partnership with Microsoft is delivering industrial intelligence at scale. This collaboration combines AVEVA’s deep industrial expertise with Microsoft’s cloud and AI leadership to accelerate digital transformation globally.
Our CONNECT industrial platform is built on Microsoft Azure. We’re not reinventing the wheel; we’re leveraging Microsoft’s platform and infrastructure and then building our own value layer on top, which is the same strategy used to deliver sustainable value in a cost-effective manner, and time to market to our customers across our entire portfolio.
Let’s take the chemicals sector, for example, SCG Chemicals in Thailand is using AVEVA’s asset performance management tools, AI and machine learning to predict failures before they happen. They increased plant reliability from 98 to 100 per cent, which, in practice, meant zero catastrophic failures during that period. The ROI was remarkable: the system delivered about nine times the investment in just six months.
Another example is in energy and sustainability. Protium, a major UK energy company that operates hydrogen plants used AVEVA Process Simulation on Azure, and is in the process of deploying AVEVA PI Vision, PI Server and System Platform to collect, contextualise, analyse, and visualise asset performance and operations data. This includes deploying a digital twin to optimise its end-to-end green hydrogen production, compression and logistics network. They reduced carbon dioxide emissions by double-digit percentages and achieved a 295 per cent ROI in the first year alone.
When you use AI for predictive maintenance, you continuously avoid failures, downtime and cumulative losses. And in operations where an hour of downtime can mean millions of dollars, the gains add up very quickly. This is why I say that companies that don’t take advantage of industrial intelligence will simply not be able to compete in the years to come.
What advice would you give to industrial leaders of the future?
As a vendor, whenever we bet on a technology, there’s a real risk of losing the investment. On the other hand, taking too long to make decisions, jeopardises our time-to-market and market-share. Our customers face the same questions today: where should they invest, in which technologies, and with which vendors and partners?
Partnering with AVEVA turns technology adoption into a strategic advantage rather than a gamble. The AVEVA advantage lies in our ability to guide smarter technology decisions, grounded in a proven track record and unmatched industry experience. We de-risk innovation by taking an evolutionary approach: we build upon and enhance your existing implementations instead of forcing a full replacement. This ensures you stay on the cutting edge while minimising disruption and lowering total cost of ownership. With AVEVA’s unique portfolio and the largest industrial ecosystem of the world, customers don't just buy software, they secure their future.
The future of industrial intelligence is clear: evolve, adapt or become obsolete. It won’t replace humans, but it will redefine roles and demand new skills. Companies should start small but with an appropriate sense of urgency and a plan for enterprise-scale integration from day one.
Industrial intelligence must be intentional. It’s not technology for technology’s sake, it’s about delivering measurable value to customers. Those who embrace it will lead; those who don’t risk being left behind.
Discover more insights from these partners and others, in the Winter 2025 issue of Technology Record. Don’t miss out – subscribe for free today and get future issues delivered straight to your inbox.