The best of both worlds: Combining Gen AI and human ingenuity

While the focus of Industry 4.0 was on adding intelligence and collaboration to machines and systems at the heart of manufacturing activities, Industry 5.0 emphasizes the combination of human and machine intelligence. This includes a shift from a cost, efficiency and visibility viewpoint to a scenario where both sides augment each other.

How do you empower people to be prepared for this shift then? It’s urgent; according to the World Economic Forum's 2023 Future of Jobs Report, 44 percent of worker skills will be disrupted over the next five years. The same report states that skills gaps in the local labor market are the no. 1 barrier to business transformation. Currently, there are several interesting upskilling programs targeting the skills gap, like the European EIT Deep Tech Talent Initiative and the Swedish Ingenjör 4.0. Another forward-thinking arena is the Stena Industry Innovation Lab (SII-Lab), a national test bed for industrial digitization and the jobs of the future at Chalmers University of Technology. It’s a sandbox for collaboration, innovation and research.

Creating people-friendly systems

What about designing tech solutions with human needs and behavior at center? Ultimately, human-centric solutions and human-machine-interaction technologies interconnect and combine the strengths of humans and machines. And one this is for sure: people ignore systems that ignore people. 

This is the starting point for the three guiding principles of Cognizant’s DX team (Design & Strategy). Quite commonly, according to the DX team, the human factor is introduced too late in the process, but by involving cross-functional teams in digital acceleration pods, including people from the factory floor, following a set design process (the double diamond) to nail down the problem, and by applying a holistic people-process-tech lens, initiatives are more likely to succeed. 

Examples of human-machine-interaction

Within Cognizant sphere, many exciting solutions are either being used or are underway. Here are a few current initiatives where AI and other technologies augment human capabilities:

• VERA, the AI-based driving assistance. VERA, the Very Enhanced Road Assistant, is a new AI system for smart cars developed by Cognizant Mobility to bridge the gap between the autonomous state and human presence. Be it in public transport without human drivers or in people movers, the assistant can provide driving information and interact with passengers personally and individually. In the future, the system will also be able to recognize medical emergency situations to ensure greater passenger safety. 
• NextGen driving experience with Gen AI. Mobica, an IoT software engineering services provider and part of Cognizant, is developing a platform in collaboration with Qualcomm/Cognizant to deliver Gen AI-based solutions to vehicles. Be it booking services, traffic and route optimization, vehicle maintenance alerts or entertainment management, the intelligent in-vehicle assistants can offer context-specific and personalized services to increase the productivity of drivers. 
• Industrial metaverse. Cognizant partner PTC focuses on solutions that address the integration of humans working alongside robots in a collaborative manufacturing process, like spatial real-time collaboration, digital twins and motion analytics. By blending the digital and the physical world, using IoT, AI and big data, the solutions empower human work and capabilities in engineering, manufacturing and field service operations.

To learn more, download the Industry 5.0 e-book and visit our manufacturing section of the web.