Caterpillar reveals Cat AI Assistant

Caterpillar has unveiled Cat AI Assistant, an AI-based solution that allows Cat customers to engage with Caterpillar's equipment and portfolio of digital applications in new ways.

With Cat AI Assistant, Caterpillar combines data, AI and heavy equipment to help customers improve productivity, efficiency and safety. Cat AI Assistant unifies Caterpillar's portfolio of digital applications and amounts of data into one conversational experience. It operates against the entire Caterpillar knowledge base and serves as a proactive partner for customers, providing personalized data and insights and enabling faster, smarter decisions.

"Caterpillar's strong digital foundation, including our Helios data platform that manages over 16 petabytes of data, is helping us move fast and deploy new AI capabilities to help our customers succeed," says Ogi Redzic, Caterpillar chief digital officer. "Cat AI Assistant is a major leap forward in how Caterpillar supports customer success through best-in-class digital solutions, whether they're working from corporate headquarters or at a remote jobsite."

For business owners, Cat AI Assistant is an extra set of eyes on their equipment — evolving alongside their operations, continually refining insights and recommendations to help turn unplanned incidents into planned maintenance and to match the pace of their growing businesses. For a technician, Cat AI Assistant can, with a simple voice command, and without interrupting the task at hand, quickly access the right section from a library of thousands of instruction manuals. It provides step-by-step guidance on repairs, highlights common issues and suggests additional parts needed to complete the job, saving valuable time and resources.

For an operator, Cat AI Assistant connects every step of the workday — from machine startup to shift handoff. It's a coach in the cab, providing operators with information to work smarter and safer without switching screens, returning to the yard or losing focus. Cat AI Assistant leverages the NVIDIA Jetson Thor platform to run speech recognition and advanced AI models and can even assist with directing the machine — at the edge, where work is done.

Caterpillar plans to bring the off-board Cat AI Assistant live in the first quarter of this year and is in the final stages of validation for in-cab applications, which will help machine operators work more safely and efficiently.