# Event Highlight: ASSA ABLOY — Manufacturing Gets Real About AI
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## Article Content
When I returned to ASSA ABLOY’s global leadership summit in Charlotte, the conversation about AI had changed. The first wave of the AI discussion in many organizations was dominated by questions such as: Should we be looking at this? How significant is it? Is the hype real? By the time of this session, the discussion was becoming much more practical: Which applications should we scale first? That is a much more useful question. My keynote focused on the industrial impact of AI — robotics, digital twins, machine vision, predictive maintenance and connected manufacturing. Manufacturing leaders need to maintain a difficult balance. They need enough urgency to avoid falling behind. But they also need enough skepticism to avoid chasing every fad. That means moving beyond generic AI discussions and focusing on places where intelligence changes real products, real processes and real operating decisions. Robotics are becoming more capable and more common. Digital twins allow physical operations to be modeled and tested virtually. Machine vision can identify defects and inefficiencies that traditional inspection may miss. Predictive maintenance uses data to reduce downtime and improve asset life. Connected manufacturing brings more of the production environment into a common data system. None of these developments require an abstract argument about whether AI is transformative. They are practical. They can be measured. They can be tested. And they can be scaled. That was the core message I brought to the ASSA ABLOY leadership team: Get out in front. Do not adopt AI because it is fashionable. Adopt it where it creates real industrial value. It was my second visit to an ASSA ABLOY leadership summit, and the shift in tone was telling. The conversation had moved from “Should we explore AI?” toward “Which of these applications should we scale?” That is what real industrial adoption looks like. Read the full keynote case study, or explore more event highlights.

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Source: https://jimcarroll.com/2024/10/event-highlight-assa-abloy-2024/