AI's impact on manufacturing will be architectural, not incremental. Similar to how the steam engine forced a complete redesign of factories, "LLM orchestrators" will become the central nervous system, prompting a fundamental rebuilding of manufacturing processes around this new AI core to manage physical operations.

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AI's biggest enterprise impact isn't just automation but a complete replatforming of software. It enables a central "context engine" that understands all company data and processes, then generates dynamic user interfaces on demand. This architecture will eventually make many layers of the traditional enterprise software stack obsolete.

Founders are breaking down complex societal challenges like construction and energy into modular, repeatable parts. This "factory-first mindset" uses AI and autonomy to apply assembly line logic to industries far beyond traditional manufacturing, reframing the factory as a problem-solving methodology.

The most significant societal and economic impact of AI won't be from chatbots. Instead, it will emerge from the integration of AI with physical robotics in sectors like manufacturing, logistics (Amazon), and autonomous vehicles (Waymo), which are currently under-hyped.

Don't just sprinkle AI features onto your existing product ('AI at the edge'). Transformative companies rethink workflows and shrink their old codebase, making the LLM a core part of the solution. This is about re-architecting the solution from the ground up, not just enhancing it.

Enterprises will shift from relying on a single large language model to using orchestration platforms. These platforms will allow them to 'hot swap' various models—including smaller, specialized ones—for different tasks within a single system, optimizing for performance, cost, and use case without being locked into one provider.

The 'agents vs. applications' debate is a false dichotomy. Future applications will be sophisticated, orchestrated systems that embed agentic capabilities. They will feature multiple LLMs, deterministic logic, and robust permission models, representing an evolution of software, not a replacement of it.

AI tools like LLMs thrive on large, structured datasets. In manufacturing, critical information is often unstructured 'tribal knowledge' in workers' heads. Dirac’s strategy is to first build a software layer that captures and organizes this human expertise, creating the necessary context for AI to then analyze and add value.

The current model of a developer using an AI assistant is like a craftsman with a power tool. The next evolution is "factory farming" code, where orchestrated multi-agent systems manage the entire development lifecycle—planning, implementation, review, and testing—moving it from a craft to an industrial process.

Just as electricity's impact was muted until factory floors were redesigned, AI's productivity gains will be modest if we only use it to replace old tools (e.g., as a better Google). Significant economic impact will only occur when companies fundamentally restructure their operations and workflows to leverage AI's unique capabilities.

The next evolution of biomanufacturing isn't just automation, but a fully interconnected facility where AI analyzes real-time sensor data from every operation. This allows for autonomous, predictive adjustments to maintain yield and quality, creating a self-correcting ecosystem that prevents deviations before they impact production.

Future Factories Will Be Reorganized Around "LLM Orchestrators" as their Central Engine | RiffOn