2024 was the year of "Generative AI Hype," AWS re:Invent 2025 was the moment the cloud officially got physical.

Fresh off the event in Las Vegas, Colin Masson, Director of Research for Industrial AI, ARC Advisory Group sat down with Steve Blackwell, Leader of the Worldwide Manufacturing Center of Excellence at AWS, to compare notes. He had just published ARC’s Top 10 Takeaways for Industrial AI, and Steve came prepared with his own list: the Top 7 Strategic Announcements that he believes will reshape the manufacturing landscape.

Colin's conversation zeroed in on the practical realities of deploying AI—from the "silicon to the edge." They discussed the massive potential of AWS Transform to pay down technical debt, the shift to "Frontier Agents" like Kiro, and the critical need for a new kind of talent through the Physical AI Fellowship.

You can listen to the full conversation Here on Buzzsprout or watch the video episode on the ARC Advisory Group YouTube Channel.

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Do you have an intriguing or thought provoking topic you'd like to discuss on our podcast? Please contact Our Producer Tom Cabot at: Tcabot@Arcweb.com

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The energy at AWS re:Invent 2025 in Las Vegas was undeniable. The narrative has shifted decisively from the passive "Industrial Copilots" of last year to active, autonomous Agentic AI. Everywhere you looked, the talk was of autonomous swarms, "Supervisor Agents," and the new Strands Agents SDK empowering developers to build digital workers that can reason and act.

However, as I (Colin Masson of ARC Advisory Group) noted in my recent Top 10 Takeaways for Industrial AI from AWS re:Invent 2025, there is a stark divergence between the "hyperscaler dream" and the "brownfield reality." For manufacturers dealing with 20-year-old assets, proprietary protocols, and disparate silos, building these agents often hits a brick wall—the "Factory Wall." An AI agent is only as intelligent as the context it is fed, and in most factories, that context is trapped in the machine layer.

To explore how the industry is breaking through this barrier, I sat down at re:Invent with Joe Rosing, Worldwide Head of Smart Manufacturing at AWS, and Torey Penrod-Cambra, Co-Founder and Chief Communications Officer at HighByte. We discussed the critical role of Industrial DataOps in untangling the mess of industrial data to fuel the next generation of AI.

Would you like to be a guest on our growing podcast?

Do you have an intriguing or thought provoking topic you'd like to discuss on our podcast? Please contact Our Producer Tom Cabot at: Tcabot@Arcweb.com

View all the episodes here: https://thedigitaltransformationpodcast.buzzsprout.com

It's impossible to ignore the tidal wave of excitement and hype surrounding Generative AI. However, at ARC Advisory Group, we consistently advise our Industrial Sector clients that success in this new era requires understanding the entire Industrial AI Toolbox, not just the newest, shiniest instrument. This ongoing Industrial AI (R)Evolution is fundamentally reshaping operations and architecture across IT, OT, ET, and Data Science domains.

To cut through the noise and provide clear guidance, I've been hosting a detailed podcast series on Industrial AI with thought leaders across the ecosystem. In this context, Colin Masson, Director of Research for Industrial AI was thrilled to welcome Dustin Johnson, CTO of Seeq Corporation, back for their third conversation.

Would you like to be a guest on our growing podcast?

Do you have an intriguing or thought provoking topic you'd like to discuss on our podcast? Please contact Our Producer Tom Cabot at: Tcabot@Arcweb.com

View all the episodes here: https://thedigitaltransformationpodcast.buzzsprout.com