When I asked James Greaves what the first job for Industrial AI should be in defence and aerospace, his answer came without hesitation. He wants it doing the intensive analysis and giving the expert a sharper, faster basis for the decisions they are accountable for.

James is the SVP of Global Industries and Solutions at IFS. He spent his early career in defence and aerospace before moving into software leadership, and he has held a variety of roles across IFS over more than ten years. That combination gives him a rare vantage point: the operational rigor of some of the world’s most unforgiving industries, paired with a deep understanding of how technology delivers value across all of them.

IFS Voices of Industry is a podcast that grounds the conversation around Industrial AI in real experience. Each episode brings together people across IFS who have spent time in the field, in hangars, on construction sites, and who now shape how AI is built and applied through IFS.ai.

For Episode 8, I sat down with James to talk about what makes Industrial AI truly trustworthy, and why the industries he knows best hold the answer.

What should Industrial AI do first in defence and aerospace?

In defence and aerospace, the most valuable role for Industrial AI is decision support: doing the intensive analysis where compliance and reliability checks matter, then delivering a clear, evidence-backed answer to the expert who carries the authority for the decision. The AI does the demanding work, and the expert brings the accountability that these regulated environments require.

James’s defence background shaped this view completely. In those environments, reliability, safety, and traceability are built into every process because the consequences of getting them wrong are so high. He described managing traceability across thousands of items, where a single report could take months to compile. Industrial AI produces that kind of analysis quickly and accurately, giving those teams enormous value and giving the accountable expert a strong, evidence-backed basis to act on.

“Where the data is really strong, that’s where AI has an absolute part to play.”

I found this a reassuring way to think about AI in high-stakes settings. It shows a technology powerful enough to carry the hardest analysis, applied with the discipline these industries require. That combination of capability and rigour is what earns the trust of leaders in defence and aerospace, and it is exactly how IFS builds its Industrial AI.

How does Industrial AI earn the trust of industry leaders?

Industrial AI earns trust when it is built for the specific context of an industry, with deep domain knowledge engineered into the technology itself. James was clear that a generic model does not fit the reality of these businesses. Supply chain in aerospace looks very different from supply chain in manufacturing, and the AI has to understand that difference to deliver value.

This is where IFS is at its strongest. Its Industrial AI is built on a deep understanding of both the data and the business problem underneath it, so it delivers value that a general-purpose tool cannot.

“A generic approach to this just won’t work.”

James spoke with real passion about how deeply industry knowledge is embedded in the IFS solutions, and how it is now being applied in the right AI spaces to deliver the most value to customers. For someone whose defence heritage taught him a healthy respect for risk, that combination of built-in expertise and precision is what makes the Industrial AI from IFS a technology he trusts. It is what makes the AI fit the work exactly, delivering results a customer can rely on.

Where can Industrial AI make the biggest difference for core industries?

Industrial AI makes the biggest difference when it is applied to the real business challenges facing core industries: ageing workforces, skills shortages, cost pressures, and supply chain complexity. These are the problems keeping leaders awake, and they are where the value of AI becomes most tangible.

James framed this so well. When you take those business challenges and view them through an industrial lens, that is the key to unlocking the value AI can bring. It is a way of thinking that keeps the focus on outcomes rather than technology for its own sake.

“These are business challenges, and we apply them through an industrial lens.”

This is the thread that runs through everything James talked about. Whether it is a platform capability, an industry solution, or an agentic digital worker, the value comes from solutions that are tangible and ready to deliver from day one. That is what IFS is built to provide for customers across its core industries.

What I learnt from this conversation

James brings a clarity to Industrial AI that comes from having worked where failure was never an option. What stood out is how completely the Industrial AI that IFS builds matches that standard. It is powerful enough to carry the hardest analysis, built on deep knowledge of the industry it serves. And it is pointed directly at the problems leaders most want solved.

It also captured something I have seen across the Voices of Industry series. Industrial AI delivers the most when it is built for the industry it serves, with that understanding engineered into the technology from the ground up. James described his own measure of success simply: when a customer implements IFS well and gets true value from it, that is the outcome he is accountable for.

For any leader weighing up how to move forward with AI in a high-stakes industry, that is the standard worth holding to. Choose Industrial AI that is built for your industry and powerful enough to carry the real work, applied with the rigour high-stakes decisions demand. That is what IFS delivers for customers every day.