NTT DATA, a global leader in digital business and technology services, unveiled new research revealing that manufacturing organisations increasingly leverage GenAI to establish smart factories, drive innovation, enhance productivity, build resilience, and gain a competitive advantage.
The report – "Feet on the Floor, Eyes on AI: Do You Have a Plan or a Problem?" – also highlights significant challenges in workforce readiness, infrastructure maturity, and the development of ethical frameworks for AI governance.
The study surveyed over 500 manufacturing leaders and decision-makers across 34 countries. Key findings include:
- 95 per cent (APAC: 97 per cent) of respondents stated that GenAI is already directly enhancing efficiency and bottom-line results.
- 94 per cent (APAC: 99 per cent) expect that integrating Internet of Things (i.e., IoT/edge) data into GenAI models will significantly boost the accuracy and relevance of AI-generated outputs.
- 91 per cent (APAC: 97 per cent) believe that combining digital twins with GenAI will improve both physical asset performance and supply chain resilience.
- The most common use cases cited were supply chain and inventory management, knowledge management, quality control, research and development, and process automation.
"AI is streamlining processes and redefining what's possible across the entire manufacturing value chain—from supply chain forecasting to quality assurance," said Prasoon Saxena, Co-Lead, Products Industries, NTT DATA, Inc. "GenAI offers much-needed flexibility in rapidly evolving business environments, especially amid global tariff uncertainties."
Challenges to Success
While satisfaction with AI initiatives has grown significantly over the past year, manufacturers still face several critical obstacles:
- Outdated Infrastructure: 92 per cent (APAC: 91 per cent) acknowledged that legacy technologies are hampering critical initiatives, yet fewer than half have carried out a full infrastructure readiness assessment.
- Technology Integration: Although 94 per cent (APAC: 99 percent ) see strong value in integrating IoT/edge data with GenAI, not all are confident in their organisation's ability to execute such integrations.
- Ethical Frameworks: Only 47 per cent (APAC: 48 per cent) of manufacturing leaders strongly agree that their organisation has a robust AI governance framework in place to balance risk with value creation.
- Skills Gap: Two-thirds (APAC: 53 per cent) reported their workforce lacks the necessary skills to use GenAI effectively—resulting in operational inefficiencies and risk exposure.
- Data Management: Just 41 per cent (APAC: 46 per cent) strongly agree their organisation has sufficient data storage and processing capacity to support GenAI workloads, creating bottlenecks to scalability.
"The most successful manufacturing companies are already embedding GenAI into their critical operations," added Saxena. "Those without a clear, governed strategy for GenAI adoption risk not only falling behind—but planning to fail."
