IFS has introduced the Industrial AI Harness as the operational foundation of IFS Intelligence to help industrial organizations move from AI experimentation to trusted execution. Announced at IFS UNLEASHED in Orlando, the new framework is designed to help enterprises put AI to work within the permissions, policies and operational realities that govern their business. The Industrial AI Harness builds on and extends the existing security, safety, governance and trust controls already embedded across IFS.
The Industrial AI Harness addresses a growing challenge as AI moves from answering questions to performing work. While AI can generate intelligence, it may not be trusted to operate inside real-world processes. IFS Intelligence tackles this through the Industrial AI Harness, which provides the context, permissions, governance and operational controls that allow Digital Workers to execute work within established business rules and operational boundaries.
The framework is designed so AI operates through the customer's existing identity, permissions, business rules, approvals, and audit controls. It inherits permissions and access controls from connected systems, using IFS Cloud as the foundation source - no raw data is sent to external AI providers. IFS Intelligence users can only access information and execute actions they are authorized to access.
Frontline adoption is accelerating faster than governance. According to new IFS research, 43% have trained and introduced agentic digital workers into their day-to-day operations over the past 12 months. Meanwhile, only 11% have validated AI outputs for safety, quality, or mission-critical processes, and 11% have established control mechanisms for AI use with sensitive or export-controlled data.
Research from Futurum also found that while 66% of enterprises plan to invest in digital workers within the next 12 months, just 5.7% trust AI to act fully autonomously. Control gaps are unacceptable in mission critical environments where failure is not an option. Industrial companies shouldn't have to choose between safety and innovation speed, but general-purpose AI models lack the industrial context needed to act reliably on core operations.
Mo Dawood, CIO, Eight Group, commented: "We decided against building AI agents in house purely because of the level of governance, technical expertise and knowledge that's needed and the speed of how things are advancing. We're a field service business, not a software business. The IFS Industrial AI Harness supports the governance underneath, monitors the orchestration and gets the digital workers to act safely."
IFS's Industrial AI Harness brings together six components, each built to prevent a specific failure:
Planning and Orchestration for Industrial AI Workflows
Breaks goals into steps and coordinates agents and tools to ensure structured execution of complex industrial tasks.
Skills and Connectors for Secure System Integration
Defines and validates the systems agents can use, ensuring controlled access across enterprise systems.
Memory and Context for Operational Continuity
Carries progress forward and assembles only the information relevant to each task to maintain efficiency and accuracy.
Guardrails and Permissions for Enterprise AI Control
Enforces identity, approvals, and limits on risky actions to ensure AI operates within authorized boundaries.
Verification and Escalation for AI Compliance
Checks work for correctness and policy compliance, escalating when needed to maintain quality and governance.
Observability and Auditability for Trusted AI Operations
Logs every decision and action for review, so nothing happens that cannot be traced back after the fact.
The Industrial AI Harness is designed to work across AI models and services, giving IFS the flexibility to use the right technology for the task rather than locking customers into a single provider. It also allows customer requirements, such as where data can be processed, to remain part of how AI is deployed.
With the introduction of the Industrial AI Harness, IFS Intelligence delivers four key differentiators. Sovereignty ensures all data stays within the system of record with no raw data sent to external AI providers. Staged Autonomy enables workers to start with copilot assistance, progress to recommendations, then to autonomous action, with escalation on uncertainty. Industrial Context combines domain expertise and curated tooling that prevents agents from being paralyzed by 70,000 available APIs. Multi-Layer Governance provides security at the cloud level, the harness level, and the model level for aggregated assurance.
Toby Rees, Global Head of AI Trust, IFS, said: "From auditable processes and transparent governance to the ethical use of AI, IFS treats trust as a fundamental requirement, not an ambition. As organizations scale AI across critical assets, supply chains, service operations and enterprise workflows, success will depend on the ability to combine intelligence with context, control, accountability and operational discipline. The Industrial AI Harness provides that foundation for IFS Intelligence, helping customers turn AI potential into measurable industrial outcomes."
The launch marks a significant step in enabling industrial organizations to operationalize AI with trust, control and accountability. By embedding governance into the core of AI execution, IFS is helping enterprises turn AI potential into measurable industrial outcomes without compromising safety or compliance.
