What Industrial AI Actually Looks Like | Kriti Sharma, Nexus Black
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Who is Kriti Sharma and how did she come to lead Nexus Black at IFS?
I'm Craig Smith with I on AI on the sidelines of IFS's Industrial X conference in New York City. IFS is the leading provider of industrial AI software. It provides AI solutions for asset-centric industries, think energy, utilities, manufacturing, and aerospace. I'm interviewing Kriti Sharma, CEO of IFS's new unit, Nexus Black, which builds solutions for hard problems. Okay, Priti, uh great to meet you. Lovely to see you in in New York. Yeah. Uh can you introduce yourself to listeners to begin? Tell us your background how you got to IFS and how you got to Nexus Block.
Yeah, sure. I'm Kriti. I grew up in India. As a kid I used to build robots. Um They didn't solve very important things. The first robot I built as a kid, it helped um fetch Snickers the candy from the snack bar at 3 p.m. every day. Wow. Much to my parents' delight, I do better things with my life now. I'm a computer scientist by background. And then started building AI businesses and products in the last 10 to 15 years. Um for the most part in my career, I've built AI businesses and products. for people who work at their desks, accountants and lawyers and and so on. A counter. But um I was fascinated by building businesses, products, experiences for people who were not at their desk. Yeah. And that's what brought me to IFS.
We started Nexus Black earlier this year. It is a business inside of IFS that works with the most strategic clients, boots on ground. If you think about AI with a hard hat on hard hat on, that's us. Um we go on the ground, we spend weekends in hangars, we spend our days in refineries and factories and we travel along with the field technicians so that we build things where failure is not an option.
Yeah. And given your your background in in robotics, I'm just curious where where did you study? Where did you uh study computer science?
Um at Saint Andrews in the UK on the east coast of Scotland. Um lovely tiny small town. It's a
wonderful school, yeah.
Yeah, thank you. Um I I've always loved building things and I'm so glad I get to do that now in the physical world. It every day is a joy.
Why does Nexus Black focus on building AI for workers on the shop‑floor instead of desk‑bound users?
Um and and yeah, you start to learn how different it is to build things for people at their desks versus in factories and hangars and plunks and sites and in the field. It's um it's much more challenging and more fun.
Yeah. And and I was talking to Mark Moffat earlier about uh some of the the uh work that you guys are doing with uh Boston Dynamics and One X uh on I I guess it's still called spot on the robot dog and uh and with Neo, the humanoid robot. Uh uh how uh and and is that your focus at Nexus Black or I I know you're also working with Resolve. Was that a Nexus Black uh product?
Yeah, so Nexus Black products are Um regardless of the form factor. So we're very focused on building the right tool for the right problem that needs to be solved. And we have a team of elite engineers, so these are Um, maybe perhaps the the most um rare people on the planet right now who've built production grade AI products already before, and we combine that with deep subject matter expertise and having talk of what that really means 'cause everyone comes and says, you know, they're building deep subject matter expertise AI products. Um so I'm having to talk about that. But we're um ign agnostic of the form factor. Whether you're deploying it in a humanoid or you're deploying it in a robotic environment or uh much more digital form factors.
Yeah. And on the digital form factor, uh, which isn't really a form, I guess. It's uh is uh the uh you're doing a lot with agents, I imagine.
Yeah.
how y you see the agent workflows developing, uh, because from what I understand there's a lot of excitement, a lot of promise, but most of the pilots out there are not going into production uh for various reasons. And and how do you how do you see agents developing?
So we focus purely on the job to be done in Nexus Wack and by that I mean We go on the ground and we yeah, we'll make a bold claim and I'll back it up with facts. Um, we start to see value for our clients in about three weeks.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Who is Kriti Sharma and how did she come to lead Nexus Black at IFS?
0:00–2:24
2
Why does Nexus Black focus on building AI for workers on the shop‑floor instead of desk‑bound users?
2:24–5:48
3
How does the team turn AI pilots into production‑grade solutions for industrial environments?
5:48–8:15
4
What is the Resolve platform and how does it prevent equipment failures in factories?
8:15–12:51
5
How does the airline air‑worthiness compliance tool automate safety directives and avoid costly fines?
12:51–17:06
6
In what ways does the disaster‑response coordination system help utilities restore power after wildfires and hurricanes?
17:06–20:01
7
How is the Nexus Black team organized and what skills are needed to build industrial AI?
20:01–22:31
8
What future opportunities and challenges does Kriti see for AI in hard‑core industrial sectors?
22:31–22:57
Speakers
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