FEATURE
The launch also advances Dassault Systèmes’ long-term vision for Virtual Twin Factories, where human expertise, artificial intelligence and virtual models operate together within a unified digital environment. Instead of treating AI as a separate productivity application, the company intends to embed intelligent assistance directly inside every stage of industrial development, helping organisations innovate faster while reducing project complexity. This vision reflects a future where engineering teams interact naturally with intelligent digital collaborators that understand products, processes and operational objectives as comprehensively as experienced human specialists.
The three Virtual Companions collectively introduce 19 specialised competencies spanning programme management, engineering, simulation and bioscience. These capabilities allow the assistants to guide users through complicated workflows, identify relationships hidden within vast engineering datasets and recommend alternative approaches that may improve performance, efficiency or sustainability. Rather than replacing technical specialists, the technology is intended to amplify human expertise by automating repetitive analysis while allowing professionals to concentrate on higher-value innovation, creative problem solving and strategic decision-making.
As engineering projects continue to become more interconnected, organisations increasingly require tools capable of coordinating information across multiple disciplines simultaneously. The Virtual Companions are designed to bridge these knowledge gaps by connecting engineering data, simulation results, manufacturing processes and scientific research within a common collaborative environment. This integrated approach helps eliminate information silos while ensuring decisions remain consistent across complex development programmes involving thousands of components, suppliers and stakeholders.
The technology has been designed to support every phase of the industrial lifecycle, from strategic business planning and concept development through engineering, simulation, manufacturing and operational management. By combining AI reasoning with trusted industrial information, Dassault Systèmes believes organisations will be able to make better-informed decisions,
As Virtual Twins are missioncritical and well-accepted in all industries, we are revealing the future of our Virtual Twin Factories.
accelerate development cycles and reduce the time required to bring increasingly sophisticated products to market. The company believes embedding intelligence directly into industrial workflows creates a stronger foundation for long-term Digital Transformation, enabling enterprises to respond more rapidly to changing market demands while maintaining engineering excellence and operational resilience.
The announcement reflects the growing momentum behind agentic AI, where software systems can plan activities, reason through problems and complete multi-stage tasks with minimal human intervention. Rather than relying solely on prompts and responses, agentic AI is capable of understanding objectives, coordinating actions and adapting as new information becomes available. This capability is expected to play an increasingly important role across industries facing growing technical complexity, competitive pressure and mounting demands for faster innovation. Instead of replacing skilled professionals, these intelligent systems are designed to strengthen human expertise by reducing repetitive tasks, improving collaboration and providing recommendations based on trusted engineering knowledge.
Dassault Systèmes says its Virtual Companions are powered by an AI-native platform supported by industrial knowledge models capturing scientific expertise alongside deep sector-specific know-how. These knowledge foundations enable the assistants to generate recommendations grounded in established engineering principles rather than depending exclusively on statistical language models. As a result, responses remain connected to validated industrial processes while maintaining the flexibility expected from modern AI technologies. The combination of reasoning, contextual awareness and industry-specific knowledge enables the assistants to deliver practical guidance that engineers and researchers can trust throughout product development.
The company has also placed significant emphasis on security and trusted deployment. The Virtual Companions operate on AI factories provided by OUTSCALE, Dassault Systèmes’ global cloud and AI operator, with infrastructure deployed across three continents. This sovereign cloud environment has been designed to give organisations access to www. intelligentcio. com
INTELLIGENT CIO EUROPE
27