Shaping the future of engineering with Industrial AI
AI is quickly becoming a trusted partner in engineering and manufacturing. Only last year, many manufacturers began deploying LLMs to fill in knowledge gaps and bridge human and machine operations. Now, with the advent of agentic AI, AI is posed to further revolutionize industrial manufacturing and unlock new functionalities that will propel the industry further beyond.
In our Digital Industries podcast on Digital Transformation, subject matter expert, Shirish More, senior product manager at Siemens Digital Industry Software along with Rahul Garg and Chris Pennington discussed how top players are driving this transformation by embedding AI into the very core of design workflows. During this conversation, Shirish shared how Siemens is leveraging AI to solve real-world challenges and empower engineers across industries.
Building context-aware models
For quite some time, Siemens has been working on what we call industrial foundational models. Unlike general-purpose AI, industrial foundation models are trained on structured and unstructured engineering data—such as CAD files, simulation results, and validation reports. They’re designed to understand the language of engineering and manufacturing, making them context-aware and capable of interpreting geometry, intent, and process data.
These models have also been trained on customer-specific IP, allowing organizations to harness their historical data securely. Many companies have decades of legacy data in the form of 2D drawings and product manufacturing information (PMI). Siemens’ AI tools can learn from this data to automate annotation, predict standard notes, and even generate PMI directly from geometry. To protect customer IP, Siemens ensures that these models are deployed on-premises, maintaining data privacy while enabling tailored AI solutions.
Once these industrial foundation models have been properly trained, manufacturers can use them to not only generate 2D drawings but 3D drawings as well. This flexibility allows engineers to streamline workflows without sacrificing compatibility with downstream processes.
Industries like automotive, electronics, semiconductors, and medical devices are already adopting similar AI-powered tools. Automotive OEMs and suppliers make good use of the on-premises deployment model, which ensures data security while delivering productivity gains. Electronics and semiconductor companies also benefit from LLMs’ ability to onboard users quickly and assist with repetitive design tasks.
Facilitating AI adoption
Contrary to the assumption that AI is only for large enterprises, Siemens is making AI accessible to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). These organizations often lack dedicated data science teams, so Siemens provides out-of-the-box AI models trained on its own IP and best practices. This allows SMBs to adopt AI quickly and effectively, without the need for extensive customization.
AI adoption comes with challenges—especially around data privacy, IP protection, and regulatory compliance. Siemens addresses these by ensuring AI decisions are explainable, traceable, and aligned with engineering standards. Human oversight remains central, with AI acting as a support tool rather than a replacement. Siemens is also exploring integration with tools like RapidMiner to help customers build and deploy custom AI models. The goal is to make AI not just powerful, but practical and secure.
Looking ahead: AI as a design partner
AI is no longer an experiment—it’s a trusted design partner. Siemens is embedding AI responsibly into workflows, ensuring it reflects the creativity and expertise of the engineers it supports. Top organizations from across industries have already implemented foundational models which will act as the base for more advanced agentic AI tools in the future.
The future is clear: companies will be using intelligent tools to drive efficiency, innovation, and transformation across every aspect of engineering. To learn how your organization can get started on their Ai adoption journey to ameliorate their processes and stay ahead of the competition, check out our Digital Transformation podcast.
Siemens Digital Industries Software helps organizations of all sizes digitally transform using software, hardware and services from the Siemens Xcelerator business platform. Siemens’ software and the comprehensive digital twin enable companies to optimize their design, engineering and manufacturing processes to turn today’s ideas into the sustainable products of the future. From chips to entire systems, from product to process, across all industries. Siemens Digital Industries Software – Accelerating transformation.
