From early-stage startups to established firms, companies are racing to develop AI agents & copilots across the industrials sector.
While AI copilots — which work alongside humans to speed up their workflows — currently comprise 90% of company activity, the tech will serve as a stepping stone to more autonomous solutions in the coming years. Eventually, AI agents could manage entire industrial processes, shifting human roles from operational tasks to strategic oversight.
To help industry leaders understand the current landscape and identify key players, we mapped 68 AI agent & copilot developers across 12 markets. There are several key themes to watch:
- 75% of deals in the space go to early-stage startups, suggesting high development potential in the years ahead, especially as copilots gain more agent-like capabilities. The nascent space has no clear leaders yet, signaling a window of opportunity for industrials players to gain an early edge.
- Manufacturing is seeing the most activity compared to verticals like defense, warehousing, and semiconductors. The most crowded markets are manufacturing optimization and digital work instructions, where vendors are building copilots on top of existing technologies like analytics platforms and augmented reality headsets. Improving on current workflows with a copilot likely offers the quickest path to commercialization vs. developing autonomous agents as standalone products.
- Big tech is laying the groundwork for industrial AI agents & copilots, with Microsoft forming partnerships with all 14 of the public industrials companies in this map. Google has also inked notable partnerships here. By owning the infrastructure, these tech giants will control how AI develops across industries, creating both dependencies and efficiencies for businesses adopting their solutions.
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