At ITMS 2026, AI is everywhere in manufacturing but mostly as marketing; big tech booths shrink
fortnow · x · 2026-09-18
Computer scientist Lance Fortnow revisits the International Manufacturing Technology Show in Chicago. Two years after finding little AI, it's now everywhere — though one exhibitor calls it more marketing than deep modern AI. Real uses: vision for robotic arms, backend bid/invoice/document software, predictive maintenance, and assembly/cutting/welding robots. Notably absent: humanoid robots, digital twins, LLM applications. OpenAI and Anthropic had no presence, Microsoft/Google/Amazon scaled down, and "describe a product, get it shipped" remains far off.
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