Industrial manufacturers have long wrestled with the bogeyman of downtime, losing an astonishing 800 hours, or 15 hours per week, every year. That translates to a whopping $50 billion dent in their pockets from unscheduled troubleshooting activities and lost productivity. Fresh off a $10m But Austin-based tech startup ControlRooms.ai envisions a future where AI leads the charge in slashing these numbers.

In a bold move to transform the antiquated troubleshooting processes that heavy industries like chemical and energy sectors still grapple with, ControlRooms.ai recently showcased its AI-infused analytics application. This comes hot on the heels of the company announcing an oversubscribed $10 million Series A funding round. Origin Ventures took the helm, with notable investors such as Amity Ventures, Tokio Marine Future Fund, and S3 Ventures, among others, throwing their weight behind the startup.

Omar A. Talib, co-founder and president of ControlRooms.ai, in a chat with TechCrunch, lamented the static state of troubleshooting in heavy industries, likening it to processes from the 1980s. The limitations of traditional alarms often thrust engineers into exhausting hunts for problematic “trends”, sapping time and efficiency.

The groundbreaking solution by ControlRooms.ai promises companies a seamless transition, claiming a swift integration “within a week without changes to their current systems”. It’s not just about detection – their AI proactively forecasts manufacturing plant behaviors, spotting anomalies before they become pressing issues.

Led by Monte Zweben, an AI maven and serial entrepreneur, and Omar Talib with robust experience in AI solutions for the energy sector, ControlRooms.ai is already making waves. Their maiden product, launched just last year, boasts five industrial behemoths as clients. Talib shared insights into one such client, a chemical enterprise, which leverages their platform to monitor over 10,000 real-time asset metrics, achieving significant reductions in reliability violations.

But what truly makes ControlRooms.ai stand out? Talib believes it’s their laser-focused approach: an application specifically tailored for professionals in heavy industry facilities, distinguishing it from one-size-fits-all AI platforms.

With a team of 15 and a war chest from the latest funding round, the company is gearing up for aggressive expansion across key markets in the U.S., Asia, Germany, and the Middle East. Furthermore, they are actively exploring how generative AI could be integrated into their platform. Zweben teased the potential of leveraging techniques that power chatbots like ChatGPT-4 to transform industrial time-series data, enabling industry pros to preemptively act and dodge unforeseen challenges.

It’s clear that with ControlRooms.ai, the future of industrial troubleshooting is not just automated, but also prescient.