These 8 powerful trends are transforming how factories operate, how products are made, and how businesses grow. From intelligent agents to dark factories and sustainable materials, each trend opens the door to new commercial opportunities.
To stay ahead, manufacturers must reimagine their role across the value chain—by building capabilities that are smarter, cleaner, faster, and human+AI ready.
Rise of AI-driven cognitive industrial knowledge hubs: Combining internal factory data with real-time external insights.
Opportunities for business
Building the industrial brain
Evolution of manufacturing agents: AI agents integrating across operations and managing diversity of systems.
Opportunities for business
Agent based factories
Growing use of combinatorial technology applications: Accelerating factory construction using combined tech.
Opportunities for business
Giga Factories as well as Dark Factories
The rise of unified intelligent systems: Human supervisors, AI and digital infrastructure working as one.
Opportunities for business
On demand production as well as maturing of ‘as-a-service’ business models
Rise of the manufacturing knowledge worker: New roles around AI data and shopfloor integration.
Opportunities for business
The ‘human+agent’ shopfloor
Growing cybersecurity threats: More digital entry points and Generative AI expand attack vectors.
Opportunities for business
AI-driven real time security
Rapid unfolding of the materials revolution: New materials open new markets and innovation in products.
Opportunities for business
Cost-effective smarter + Sustainable products and experiences
Sustainability will be a given and not a choice: Compliance pressure will force sustainable systems end to end.
Opportunities for business
Decarbonisation of supply chains, power sources, and cleaner product lifecycles
