By Jasmeet Singh
Artificial intelligence (AI) deployment in manufacturing is moving at a fast pace. According to a report by Google Cloud and National Research Group, 56% of sector leaders are actively using AI agents, and over a third are running 10 or more AI agents. However, software deployment alone doesn’t guarantee productivity. According to a recent research by Gartner, nearly one in five employees with access to AI did not feel that they saved time in their day-to-day work.Deployment is increasingly outpacing impact. Manufacturing leaders know why — the technology is rarely the bottleneck. Most often, it’s workforce readiness.
As it moves from pilot programmes into value chain-wide systems, what drives sustainable progress is an environment where technology deployment and workforce development move in parallel.
Equip the manufacturing workforce with purpose-built AI tools: The tools matter less than the moment they show up in the workflow. For example, think about where decisions actually happen on the floor. A maintenance technician needs a quick diagnosis before a component fails, not a dashboard to navigate. A quality inspector should be working with real-time AI-analysed data, not just last shift’s report. Production planners should be able to adjust schedules on the same day that demand signals change, not days later. When those capabilities sit inside the workflow, they actually get used.
AI increasingly stops being just a reporting layer. It becomes part of how manufacturing decisions are made, and as a result, the repetitive monitoring and manual reviews that have consumed hours every shift start to shrink.
Connect workers sooner to the operational intelligence that drives decisions: Better decisions in manufacturing depend on getting the right data to frontline workers before the window to act closes.
In this context, “decision latency” is a key factor to address. It is the time between spotting an operational anomaly and getting a fix in place. This is where the operational advantage compounds. AI surfacing signals in real time give employees a chance to address problems before they escalate. Shorter latency is what separates the reactive floor from the proactive one. And it comes down to how quickly information reaches the person who can act on it.
Organisations that move from batch-style reporting to real-time AI-driven next best action cut this lag significantly. Unplanned downtime drops. Production throughput stabilises and becomes more predictable.
Build AI fluency into workforce development: AI capability continually builds upon itself as long as the people using it continue to develop. It stalls when they stop. That would be a business risk as much as a technology gap. Building AI fluency means connecting training directly to the tools and workflows employees use every day. Theoretical modules matter less than hands-on context. Manufacturers who embed AI literacy into their development road maps increasingly build a more capable workforce. They also build an organisation that gets better at applying AI over time, not just at maintaining what was deployed.
As employees transition into more of judgement-intensive roles, manufacturers gain the capacity to scale AI impact across the value chain. And it’s a virtuous circle, in the sense that capacity increases significantly as the workforce keeps pace with the technology. Success in modern manufacturing comes down to two things that must move together — technology and the people using it. Neither works without the other.
Strongest manufacturing operations often share a pattern: Employees have purposeful tools integrated into their workflow, they can access live operational data when decisions need to be made, and they have the fluency to act on AI insights without hesitation. Getting ahead in this environment requires the workforce to keep pace with what technology makes possible. That is the investment that compounds.
The writer is EVP & Global Head of Manufacturing, Infosys.
Disclaimer: The views expressed are the author’s own and do not reflect the official policy or position of Financial Express.