Manufacturing Dive collected views on AI and automation from five industry figures. Praveen Rao of Google Cloud argues factories should use sound, vibration and video directly. He says Google's tools read those inputs natively rather than converting them to text. He also describes reading CAD drawings to check whether a design can be made. Brett Velicovich of Powerus says robotics there aims at throughput, not job cuts. Ignacio Basualdo of Watson-Marlow uses AI to share internal know-how across sales and support. He also reports rising demand for systems integration and data skills. Kathie Mahoney of MassMEP says smaller manufacturers still lack the knowledge to start. Ali Miller of Furnace Record Pressing rules out automation, calling records a human craft. The quotes come from summer interviews.