"For all the energy being spent on whether AI will eliminate white-collar jobs, I believe that business leaders are missing a much bigger story: AI won't replace skilled trades-it will require more of them, and most importantly, make them better. That's not a nice-to-have. It's a necessity as the trades workforce ages, retirements accelerate, and fewer new workers enter the pipeline."
"I'm a founder with decades of experience in what's increasingly being called "physical AI," and I strongly believe that AI should be used to support, not replace, workers. As labor constraints tighten and the cost of downtime climbs, the fastest path to resilience isn't automating people, it's up-leveling them: giving frontline teams continuous visibility and decision support where work actually happens."
Essential infrastructure systems have little margin for failure and are largely maintained through reactive, manual methods that dispatch crews after breakdowns. AI can augment frontline trades by providing continuous visibility and decision support at the point of work, increasing effectiveness rather than replacing workers. Aging workforces, accelerating retirements, and shrinking pipelines create urgent labor constraints in maintenance roles. Business focus on automating white-collar tasks overlooks the greater economic impact achievable by applying AI to physical operations. Power grids, data centers, battery plants, EV infrastructure, water systems, and industrial facilities all depend on constant skilled maintenance to keep services running.
Read at Fortune
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