Specialized AI brains for physical industry

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Apr 4, 2025

In this discussion, Sam Smith-Eppsteiner, a partner at Innovation Endeavors focusing on specialized AI for industries, shares insights on the limitations of general-purpose models. She highlights the unique needs of physical sectors with siloed data, showcasing innovations like AI tools for electrical engineering and automated truck scheduling. The conversation delves into the hurdles of deploying specialized models, data access strategies, and the balance between selling technology and providing informed solutions. Sam emphasizes how these advances can enhance efficiency and knowledge retention in industrial environments.

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INSIGHT

Specialized AI in Physical Industries

Sam Smith-Eppsteiner believes specialized AI tools are needed for physical industries.
This is due to the nature of data in these sectors.

INSIGHT

Data Challenges in Industrial Sectors

Industrial data is fragmented, siloed, and stored in legacy systems.
This makes it difficult for general AI models to access and process.

INSIGHT

Unstructured Data in Industry

Much industrial data is unstructured, including PDFs, blueprints, and 3D models.
General AI models struggle with this data type due to limited training.

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Everyone wants a piece of general purpose models. Instacart has deployed ChatGPT for recipes and meal planning. The Mayo Clinic is using it to summarize patient records. Schneider Electric is using an OpenAI LLM to generate sustainability reports.

With such powerful models, what’s the need for specialized models built for specific industries, especially in climate tech?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Sam Smith-Eppsteiner, partner at Innovation Endeavors. She recently wrote a blog post arguing that there may be a market that general purpose models struggle to meet: physical industries where training data is siloed, unstructured, and private. She talks through climate-relevant examples like Cadstrom’s copilot for electrical engineers, Hubflow’s automated trucker scheduling, WeaveBio’s AI-powered platform for regulatory approvals. Shayle and Sam also cover topics like:

Applicable cases, like cross referencing complicated technical manuals, repetitive manual work that employees dislike, and technical compliance
The technical knowledge lost when workers retire and how specialized AI could help
What it takes to build specialized models, including data access, vector embedding, prompt engineering, and fine tuning
What budget categories businesses might use to pay for specialized models
Selling the technology (i.e. the traditional SAAS model) vs selling the work (i.e. answers informed by models)

Recommended resources

Innovation Endeavors: Specialized brains for industry: the immense potential for domain-specific AI
Innovation Endeavors: The next industrial unicorn: Where is AI rapidly transforming the physical economy
Catalyst: The coming robotics wave
Latitude: How utilities are designing and embedding AI operating models

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Daniel Woldorff. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is executive editor.

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