IFS advances industrial AI with Digital Workers to transform operational workflows

IFS, the enterprise software vendor best known for industrial asset and service management, has pushed further into what it calls “Industrial AI” with the release of IFS Cloud 25R2, a platform update that embeds agentic artificial intelligence and deployable “Digital Workers” across ERP, EAM and Field Service workflows.

According to the original report, the release centres on IFS Loops Digital Workers , software agents designed to “think, decide, and act” across systems and processes , with the company positioning them as operational colleagues rather than generic AI tools. IFS says the aim is to tackle acute capacity shortfalls facing heavy industry: millions of open roles, an ageing workforce and large sums of capital being channelled into factories, infrastructure and supply-chain stabilisation. The company claims that, when scaled, its Industrial AI can multiply human capacity and free frontline experts to focus on higher-value judgement work.

IFS describes the Digital Workers as a new generation of automation that addresses so-called “invisible work” , the repetitive, low-value tasks that industry staff spend an estimated 40–60% of their time on. The vendor lists five initial Digital Workers available at launch , Customer Order Manager, Supplier Order Manager, Inventory Replenisher, Operations Analyst and Material Replenisher , and says they operate within governed, auditable parameters to execute complex cross-system workflows 24/7.

IFS and customer voices at the vendor’s Industrial X event were deployed to illustrate the business case. Speaking at Industrial X, New York, Pedro Buhigas, CIO at Kodiak Gas Services, IFS customer, said: “If half of our workforce engages with the [IFS Loops] agent once per day, that’s three million dollars a year of ROI. More importantly, that’s ninety thousand hours we can give back to field service technicians to do their job.” Tony Alloway, VP North American Operations, BGIS, IFS customer, speaking at Industrial X Unleashed, said: “[With IFS] it wasn’t just about the technology, it was about business processes, operating best practices, and business acumen. My team was totally energised; we had junior through to senior members all in the same room, and it allowed us to stop, innovate, and streamline processes in flight. Through that transition and technology partnership, we drove 30% savings to the bottom line, proof of how simplifying complexity pays off.”

IFS positions industrial context and domain knowledge as the differentiator from consumer-grade models. Christian Pedersen, Chief Innovation Officer, IFS, said: “The strength of our solutions lie in their application, AI deeply embedded into the complex processes and workflows of industry to work autonomously, intelligently, and profitably. Generic, consumer-grade, AI tools simply can’t cut it in these environments. This is what attracts world-leading AI partners to work with us as they seek to expand in the industrial space. It’s why customers trust us to transform their operations. This is the next frontier in Industrial AI, and IFS is defining it.”

Beyond individual agents, the release extends embedded AI across service and maintenance processes: field technicians gain IFS.ai Copilot assistance, AI-generated work briefings and service-report summarisation; asset management receives AI-driven template optimisation, voice- or text-populated work order data and FMECA (failure mode, effects and criticality analysis) augmentation; manufacturing gets MRP simulation for multi-scenario planning and First Article Inspection enhancements. The company also highlights AI features aimed at sustainability and compliance, including KPI narrative generation and improved emissions tracking to bring environmental data into day-to-day operational decisions.

Independent coverage and IFS materials indicate the Loops initiative builds on the vendor’s acquisition and integration activity. Industry reporting notes theLoops integration enhanced IFS’s ability to deliver agentic AI that adheres to customer-defined security, data access and compliance policies, and to operate as functional digital teammates out of the box. The vendor has also announced plans to expand agent capabilities: a corporate release states an initial set of ten Digital Workers with 50 agentic skills, with a target to grow to more than 100 skills by December 2025, extending autonomy across higher-volume operational tasks such as dispatch, supplier coordination and inventory replenishment.

IFS is also pushing a migration narrative: the company has launched an accelerator aimed at helping SAP customers move to IFS Cloud, framing migration as a route to unlock Industrial AI value and escape monolithic legacy landscapes. The company said the service provides a “proven, low-risk” approach to modernisation, pointing to composable, multi-vendor architectures as the path to rapid adoption of embedded AI capabilities.

For industrial buyers and operators, the claims in 25R2 are pragmatic and quantified: IFS frames the Digital Workers as capacity multipliers rather than headcount replacements, emphasises auditability and human-in-the-loop exception handling, and ties AI features to specific operational outcomes (improved first-time fix, lower downtime, tighter inventory control, faster compliance workflows). Industry data shows that adopters face a near-term window in which workforce attrition and capital deployment make automation-led augmentation commercially urgent; the vendor’s customers at the launch presented cost and time savings as validation of the approach.

At the same time, IFS’s argument that consumer-grade generative models are insufficient in industrial contexts reflects a broader market tension: vendors now differentiate on domain embedding, governance and systems integration rather than raw model capability. The commercialisation challenge ahead will be proving reliable, auditable outcomes at scale across regulated and safety-critical environments, and demonstrating that autonomous agents can coexist with complex human workflows without introducing new operational risks.

Cathie Hall, Chief Product and Customer Officer, IFS, commented: “Our commitment to customers is to embed industrial-focused AI where it matters most, in the daily workflows of field technicians, maintenance planners, and operations teams. We’re ensuring that what we build is immediately adopted and delivers measurable impact, all with AI at the core. This reflects confidence in our technology and our ambition to lead the market by operating with deeper customer connection than anyone else.”

IFS Cloud 25R2 is now being made available to customers. The release signals how incumbent industrial software vendors are moving from generative novelty towards domain-specific, governed automation, and will be watched closely by operators seeking to convert AI experiments into measurable productivity and sustainability gains.