At Additive Manufacturing Strategies (AMS) in New York City (February 6-8, 2024), Nexa3D CEO Avi Reichental gave a presentation entitled, “How Artificial Intelligence Will Transform AM.” The day before he gave the talk, Reichental — sitting alongside Blake Teipel, Nexa3D’s Chief Strategy Officer and former CEO of Essentium — shared his thoughts with me on that same topic in an interview:
Reichental has never been one to shy away from publicly making bold predictions. That particular prediction, though, doesn’t feel that far off to me, and one reason for that has to do with another point Reichental made towards the end of our conversation:
Much like AM, AI is a technological realm that feels brand new, but really isn’t. During a panel discussion at the end of the last day of AMS, in response to a question from an audience member, one of the panelists referenced Reichental’s talk on AI and said that in his opinion, the incorporation of AI into AM won’t have an impact until somewhere “down the road.” Even if that is the case, however, the companies that do make that impact down the road will have to have started planning the drive to their destination well in advance.
It is symbolic that Nexa3D released Nexa AI, its automated workflow software platform for the XiP Pro, at the same time as the company was announcing its acquisition of Essentium, right at the start of Formnext 2023. Both news items marked Nexa’s entry into the next phase of its existence—a phase that looks like it will be defined by the company’s adoption of precisely the sort of new capabilities that allow it to lean into its core strengths most effectively.
In addition to leaning into the automation of workflow management with AI, Nexa3D is also leaning into the speed of product development enabled by its technology through leveraging Essentium’s deep expertise in materials science. Teipel explained to me how he envisions AI playing a role in the formulation of materials:
Teipel described a similar scenario in regards to another 2023 material release, Altitude:
The ways in which Reichental and Teipel are envisioning the incorporation of AI into the Nexa3D workflow may be ahead-of-the-curve, but they’re in no way far-fetched. Original equipment manufacturer (OEM) Inkbit has been using AI for in-situ 3D printing quality control for some time now, while MIT researchers recently released a study concerning the use of AI for material qualification in a manner very similar to what Teipel touched upon.
But beyond any specificities, these executives just demonstrated a strategic grasp of the nature of the opportunity that is presenting itself— with Reichental astutely framing AI’s potential the same way that Microsoft is—as a “copilot”:
There was something especially compelling about that particular way of framing the stakes involved, insofar as the message was being delivered by two executives who have clearly come to see each other as wingmen. And their experience in successfully executing a complicated merger process together may in fact provide relevant data for continuing to incorporate AI into their operations: thinking long-term, learning on the fly, not being afraid of a challenge.
The optimization of AI’s incorporation into AM may indeed be a ways down the road, but that means no one is going to get there by standing still.
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