AVEVA collaborates with Microsoft on industrial AI assistant

AVEVA, in a collaboration with Microsoft, has previewed its industrial AI assistant. The industrial AI assistant, running on Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, is a virtual subject matter expert that the company said represents a paradigm shift in how industrial organisations answer complex questions in mission-critical environments. AVEVA said the AI assistant acts as a virtual expert, simplifying the task of extracting insights from scattered datasets to answer complex, multi-stage questions.

Industrial teams can take advantage of large language models (LLM) and generative AI through an intuitive interface that leverages AVEVA’s 50+ years of expertise in industrial software and analytics. Security and trust are built in from the ground up. Analytic quality is enhanced by strict engineering prompts and cross-critique methodologies to ensure that the AI assistant’s answers are robust and transparent, referencing sources and citations. To protect data security and ownership, proprietary data is not blended with the LLM or any other third-party sources.

“When designing AI for industrial settings, we are conscious of the huge responsibility that industries bear to deliver safe, secure and sustainable processes and results,” said Rob McGeevy, CPO, AVEVA. “That is why, as we infuse AI capabilities across our portfolio, we always enrich it with domain-specific expertise that recognises the requirements and rigours associated with industrial settings. Our industrial AI assistant draws on integrated data combined with the highest levels of security and expertise so that customers can confidently interrogate their information in real time.”

“AVEVA has combined LLM, generative AI (GenAI) and our own patent-pending AI technology to analyse customer data, find issues and help solve problems,” said Jim Chappell, Head of AI & Advanced Analytics. “By leveraging the customer’s industrial data and an LLM with the power of AVEVA’s AI capabilities, the user can ask our industrial AI assistant natural language questions with minimal set-up required. The user can also ask objective-driven questions, which means more complex, multi-step requests can be completed in one single action.”

Matt Kerner, CVP, Microsoft, said: “Bringing together the AI and cloud capabilities of Microsoft Azure with AVEVA’s expertise in industrial AI has the power to transform how industries can operate at scale. With the intuitive AI assistant interface, it’s easier for operators and executives to benefit from insights, interrogate results and optimise performance.”

Image credit: iStock.com/Shutthiphong Chandaeng