In a sprawling warehouse in a Shanghai suburb, dozens of humanoid robots are maneuvered by their operators to carry out tasks like folding a T-shirt, making a sandwich and opening doors, over and over again. Operating 17 hours a day, the site's goal is to generate reams of data that its owner, Chinese humanoid startup AgiBot, uses to train robots it hopes will become ubiquitous and change the way humans live, work and play. "Just imagine that one day in our own robot factory, our robots are assembling themselves," said Yao Maoqing, a partner at AgiBot.

For manufacturing enterprises, the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) will reshape the source of value creation, the formation of new business models, and the delivery of value-added services such as mass customization, predictive maintenance, and "product servitization" (i.e., the process of building revenue streams for manufacturers from services related to your products). As AI becomes more prevalent in various aspects of business management and operations, investing in people will become even more important. AI and automation will not displace people but rather combine their capabilities in new ways to create new forms of value and new opportunities. The manufacturers that identify how to empower their workforces through AI applications will create the greatest value going forward. For manufacturers who fear they are behind the curve in preparing for this AI revolution, you are not alone: Just 5% of MAPI member companies have mapped where AI opportunities exist and developed a clear strategy for sourcing the data that AI requires.

We are on the verge of transforming one of society's most fundamental building blocks: manufacturing. As new technologies enable manufacturers to customize everything, these same agents are quickly turning consumers into inventors. Following the agricultural revolution some 5,000 years ago, humanity made a huge breakthrough that allowed complex societies to flourish: we specialized. It made no sense for each of us to make all our everyday products and bear the cost of necessary building equipment. So soon enough, we had our neighborhood shoemaker, carpenter, silversmith, and tailor.