IFS pushes Industrial AI with real customer results and hands-on tools
IFS rolled out new AI programs at its Nashville IFS Connect event, including the Nexus Black sprint-based co-creation and the IFS.ai Activation Pass with full platform access for AI use cases in IFS Cloud.
The company pushed its “Industrial AI” angle hard, setting itself apart from generic LLM chatbots like ChatGPT by integrating machine and shop floor data. A live demo showed AI agents pausing for human approval—no runaway autonomous AI here. 
No buzzword “digital worker” hype either. IFS focuses on augmenting human talent and first-time fix efficiency, not cutting headcount. IFS claims 30% productivity gains for customers using its AI-powered field service scheduling engine, which factors in skills, route, traffic, and vehicle type.
A key highlight: the AI Value Studio tool. It lets customers plug in parameters to assess which AI projects make sense—and which don’t. IFS Chief Product Officer Christian Pedersen said customers use it not only to greenlight projects but also to opt out when the math doesn’t add up.
“They really like it, and they use it. They use it to validate things, and sometimes even to opt-out.
We have customers where they did the Value Studio exercise on things they were really excited about, and the Value Studio showed them: this is not really a good idea for you – you should focus over here instead.”
TOMRA North America, an early IFS Cloud adopter, backs the 30% productivity claim. Daniel Basile, VP Field Service, says TOMRA improved operational efficiency by 27% overall with IFS AI, boosting first-time fix rates from 84% to 96–97%.
“It’s the most quiet way that we can control our cost. We get there the first time, and fix it the first time.
We’re saving the money. We’re making the customer happy. We’re improving our uptime, which is also increasing our revenue too.”
TOMRA’s gains came from better supply chain visibility and van-level auto-replenishment in IFS. Basile said identifying inventory gaps and seasonal adjustment needs helped reach their fix rate goals.
They’re adding IFS tools like WISE (What-if Scenario Explorer) for real-time planning simulations and IFS Copilot for faster tech knowledge access. Basile:
“With Copilot, our field technicians will soon have instant access to our technical knowledge base – cutting onboarding time in half and capturing the expertise of our most seasoned employees.”
IFS made a point to show all 200+ embedded AI capabilities are live now for customers on the latest IFS Cloud with Industrial Cloud Services—not “coming soon.” This defies the usual AI roadmap hype.
CTO Kevin Miller acknowledged some customer nervousness about deploying AI but said yesterday’s presentations showed an “easily adoptable plan” baked directly into user workflows.
IFS is pushing customers to join its Pioneer Program to tackle problems together and share breakthroughs.
“Being part of the Pioneer Program, we’re able to say to IFS, ‘Hey, here’s a problem, and we have it,’ and maybe some other people have it as well too.
And then, boom – we end up solving a problem for more companies as well too. So it’s a community sort of environment, where we can also work to help each other out.”
IFS still faces the challenge of balancing AI growth with sustainability—a topic it skirted but didn’t fully address beyond CO2 savings in field service routing. The AI Value Studio combined with their Digital Business Value Assessment framework could be a game-changer for measuring AI ROI from start to finish if fully integrated.
For now, IFS is staking its claim on delivering practical Industrial AI that users can adopt today, backed by real-world results with customers like TOMRA.
