IMTS 2026 Conference: Bringing Conversational AI to the Manufacturing Floor

The manufacturing floor is about to get a lot more talkative. At the IMTS 2026 Conference, a session titled "Making Machines Conversational: Connecting Manufacturing Equipment to AI Chat Agents" will show engineers how to link industrial equipment directly to AI chat agents — a capability that has already transformed office productivity and is now reaching production environments.

The Data Is Already There

Modern CNC machines, assembly systems, and process equipment generate vast amounts of operational data — machine status, process parameters, part-level diagnostics, quality data, and real-time performance metrics. That data is accessible through industrial protocols including OPC UA, MTConnect, fieldbus systems, and HTTP-based APIs, depending on the controller architecture.

The missing link has been a practical way to make that data useful through plain conversation. That's where AI tooling frameworks come in — particularly the Model Context Protocol (MCP), which allows chat agents like ChatGPT and Claude to interface directly with manufacturing equipment. By creating custom tools that bridge communication protocols, AI agents can access real-time machine data, historical performance records, and technical documentation to answer operator questions, diagnose issues, and generate actionable insights.

What the Session Covers

The presentation, scheduled for Thursday, September 17 at 9:00 A.M. in IMTS52 Room W192-A, will be delivered by Andy Joseph, Vice President of Engineering at Promess Incorporated. Joseph will demonstrate how to build an AI-ready technical corpus for manufacturing equipment, combining machine-specific documentation, real-time data feeds, operational context, and historical data.

He'll also share optimization strategies to improve response accuracy, minimize AI hallucinations, and increase explainability — considerations that are critical on the shop floor, where a wrong answer has real consequences. The session includes lessons learned from a real-world implementation connecting a Promess electromechanical assembly press to Claude AI, followed by a live demonstration of natural language interaction with production equipment.

Who's Presenting

Joseph brings more than 28 years of experience in software, controls, and manufacturing systems. He holds several U.S. patents in industrial automation and smart manufacturing technologies, and his current work focuses on applying machine learning, cloud technologies, and conversational AI to manufacturing equipment. He holds a B.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan and an M.S. in Engineering Management from Kettering University.

The Takeaway for Attendees

Attendees will leave with practical knowledge for implementing conversational AI on their own manufacturing floors, including architecture considerations, data preparation strategies, and integration approaches that work with existing machine communication standards. For engineers weighing whether LLM-driven interfaces are ready for production equipment, this session offers something rare: a working implementation, demonstrated live.

The session was published by GIE Media's Manufacturing Group on September 12, 2026.