CHARLOTTE, N.C.—Honeywell and Google Cloud have announced a collaboration connecting their respective artificial intelligence (AI) agents with assets, people and processes to accelerate autonomous operations for the industrial market.
The newly announced partnership will bring together the multimodality and natural language capabilities of Gemini on Vertex AI – Google Cloud’s AI platform—and the massive data set on Honeywell Forge, an Internet of Things (IoT) platform for the industrial sector. Both companies boast this will unleash easy-to-understand, enterprise-wide insights across a multitude of use cases. Honeywell‘s customers across the industrial sector will benefit from opportunities to reduce maintenance costs, increase operational productivity and upskill employees through the use of the partnership’s autonomous operations. The first solutions built with Google Cloud AI will be available to Honeywell‘s customers in 2025.
“The path to autonomy requires assets working harder, people working smarter and processes working more efficiently,” says Vimal Kapur, chairman and CEO of Honeywell. “By combining Google Cloud’s AI technology with our deep domain expertise–including valuable data on our Honeywell Forge platform–customers will receive unparalleled, actionable insights bridging the physical and digital worlds to accelerate autonomous operations, a key driver of Honeywell’s growth.”
Autonomous Operations Fills Gap in Industrial Market Labor Shortages
Honeywell and Google Cloud point out that with the mass retirement of workers from the baby boomer generation, the industrial sector faces both labor and skills shortages, and AI can be part of the solution as a revenue generator, not job eliminator. More than two-thirds (82%) of Industrial AI leaders believe their companies are early adopters of AI, but only 17% have fully launched their initial AI plans, according to Honeywell’s 2024 Industrial AI Insights report. This partnership will provide AI agents that augment the existing operations and workforce to help drive AI adoption and enable companies across the sector to benefit from expanding automation.
The autonomous operations will be built on Google Cloud’s Vertex AI Search and tailored to engineers’ specific needs. The solution will also utilize a new AI-powered agent that will help automate tasks and reduce project design cycles, enabling users to focus on driving innovation and delivering exceptional customer experiences.
Additional agents will utilize Google’s large language models (LLMs) to help technicians to more quickly resolve maintenance issues with examples such as, “How did a unit perform last night?” “How do I replace the input/output module?” or “Why is my system making this sound?” Honeywell and Google Cloud explain that by leveraging Gemini’s multimodality capabilities, users will be able to process various data types such as images, videos, text and sensor readings, which will help its engineers get the answers they need quickly to go beyond simple chat and predictions.
Other elements the autonomous operations will feature include Google Threat Intelligence with frontline insight from Mandiant that will be integrated into current Honeywell cybersecurity products, including Global Analysis, Research and Defense (GARD) Threat Intelligence and Secure Media Exchange (SMX), to help enhance threat detection and protect global infrastructure for industrial customers.
Looking ahead, Honeywell will explore using Google’s Gemini Nano model to enhance Honeywell edge AI devices’ intelligence multiple use cases across verticals, ranging from scanning performance to voice-based guided workflow, maintenance, operational and alarm assist without the need to connect to the internet and cloud.
“Our partnership with Honeywell represents a significant step forward in bringing the transformative power of AI to industrial operations,” adds Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. “With Gemini on Vertex AI, combined with Honeywell’s industrial data and expertise, we’re creating new opportunities to optimize processes, empower workforces and drive meaningful business outcomes for industrial organizations worldwide.”
