Finishing Agent Week at The Manufacturing Connection with this news from Siemens introducing agents for automation on its Xcelerator platform They claim up to 50% increase in productivity. I guess this would involve productivity across five disciplines detailed below.
The agents are designed to work across its established Industrial Copilot ecosystem.
This new technology represents a fundamental shift from AI assistants that respond to queries towards truly autonomous agents that proactively execute entire processes without human intervention. Siemens’ new AI agent architecture features a sophisticated orchestrator. Like a craftsman, it deploys a toolbox of specialized agents to solve complex tasks across the entire industrial value chain. These agents work intelligently and autonomously – understanding intent, improving performance through continuous learning, and accessing external tools and other agents as needed. Users retain complete control, selecting which tasks they wish to delegate to AI agents.
Siemens’ approach distinguishes between Industrial Copilots, the interfaces users interact with, and the AI agents that power them behind the scenes. Furthermore, the company is developing digital agents, and integrating physical agents, including mobile robots. This way, Siemens is creating a comprehensive multi-AI-agent system where agents are highly connected and work collaboratively.
Here’s a question I often ask only to receive unsatisfactory answers. What makes your offering different?
What sets Siemens’ approach apart is the orchestration of these agents utilizing a comprehensive ecosystem. These agents not only work with other Siemens agents but also integrate with third-party agents, enabling unprecedented levels of interoperability.
The five parts of Siemens ecosystem:
- Design Copilot: Currently available for NX CAD, helps users break new ground in creativity by accelerating the product design process. The AI-powered assistant enables users to ask questions in natural language, quickly access detailed technical insights, and streamline complex design tasks – all leading to significant efficiency gains in product development. Siemens is also currently developing a Hydrogen Configurator for designing hydrogen production plants.
- Planning Copilot: Currently in pre-release with customer testimonials already available, this solution optimizes production planning, resource allocation, and scheduling through generative AI-powered insights, helping manufacturers maximize efficiency and minimize waste.
- Engineering Copilot: Available for TIA Portal with Managed Service coming in 2025, it enables engineering without repetitive tasks. As the first generative AI-powered product for automation engineering, it empowers engineers to generate automation code through natural language inputs, speeding up SCL code generation while minimizing errors. In process industries, the copilot for P&ID Digitalization has already been tested by several customers. It’s an AI-assisted P&ID detection cloud service to digitalize and consolidate legacy P&ID diagrams.
- Operations Copilot: Currently available for Insights Hub, the Copilot provides holistic insights into the entire plant. In addition, at the machine level, Siemens is planning to introduce an Operations Copilot for shop floor workers, which will be available by the end of 2025. This new product is designed to empower shop floor operators, service technicians, and maintenance engineers to work more efficiently by querying machine data and receiving error resolution guidance through natural language. The Operations Copilot can be easily implemented at the machine level to provide machine instructions and operator guidance. For the process industries, the generative AI-based assistant Simatic eaSie, enables technicians and maintenance personnel to access relevant plant and equipment data via chat or voice interaction. This makes operations and maintenance more reliable and safer both in the control room and in the field.
- Services Copilot: The Maintenance Copilot Senseye provides maintenance teams with expert-level equipment diagnostics without the need for specialized technical knowledge. Recently expanded beyond predictive maintenance to cover the entire maintenance lifecycle, this solution supports everything from reactive repairs to predictive and preventive strategies, with pilot implementations demonstrating an average 25% reduction in reactive maintenance time.
