The Nokia press release introducing this most recent addition to its MX Industrial Edge offering is full of acronyms and technical jargon. Fundamentally, however, this is a means of adapting the clever generative AI that has been the talk of the town for the past year to operational technology (OT) settings.
Using GenAI to meet the specific needs of the telecom sector is a topic of much discussion in the field. Because off-the-shelf LLMs are not industry-specific, they must be “taught” with more specific information if they are to be utilized in specialized settings. Contextually relevant real-time information and the additional security and robustness needed for mission-critical use cases appear to be the main priorities in this instance. It’s also mentioned as a potential means of closing the never-ending “skills gap.”
VP of Enterprise Solutions at Nokia Stephan Litjens stated, “AI is a key element of industrial transformation.” “MX Workmate utilizes the combined advantages of our One platform to provide OT-compliant on-premise compute edge for I4.0 applications and worker devices, along with business wireless connectivity.”
“With the ability to fully integrate IT/OT operations and improve team productivity, MX Workmate Generative AI LLM capabilities will transform the OT environment and allow industries to improve workforce skills.” While the lack of workforce expertise presents challenges, it is a great opportunity for businesses looking to advance their digitalization strategy.
According to the press release, Reece Hayden, an analyst at ABI Research, “the enterprise market has shown continued interest in generative AI adoption since 2023.” Manufacturers are no different; a large number of them are seeking to make in technologies that lower expenses or open up new avenues for revenue. Nevertheless, deployments on the production floor have been thus far due to stringent operational technology (OT) requirements.
The first Gen AI product made specifically for manufacturing floors, Nokia MX Workmate, successfully tackles a lot of these issues. It offers safe, dependable, contextually relevant, real-time information exchange using natural language between networked workers and complex OT-systems. According to ABI Research, deployers will benefit from major cost optimization and safety opportunities as well as observable time savings for staff.
The fact that augmented reality was left out at this point is interesting. AR has frequently been mentioned as a use-case in the, thus far, mainly fruitless hunt for the 5G “killer app.” It is obvious that there would be great value in AR goggles that show the kind of context-specific, GenAI-infused data that MX Workmate to have. Instead of overly promising utopian applications, perhaps Nokia is wisely moving cautiously and taking things one step at a time. If so, this should be noted by other marketing departments.