THINKING
Collectives ++
Bots and Robots
AI & Industry Agent
Under the direction of Xavier Comtesse & Nabil Ouerhani
Co-authors:
Amandine Evard, Loïc Jeanneret, Johan Wüthrich, Nadim Mottu, Elliot Vaucher, Gauthier Ménard, André Aymon, Francesco Carrino, Gregory Mermoud, David Courtet, Giovanna di Marzo-Serugendo and Lamia Friha, Sarah Dégallier-Rochat, Dominic Gorecky, Nadim Maamari, Giorgio Pauletto, Nabil Ouerhani, Marco Aloe, Marco Piermartiri, Damian Chiossone, Gilles Burnier, Christophe Saam, Stéphane Perret, Jean-François Krähenbühl,
Delphine Seitiée, Pascal Eichenberger, Philippe Grize, Maria Sokhn, Bertrand Loison, Nathalie Nyffeler, Christophe
Taramarac, Eric Fromentel, Bastien Paratte, Nicolas Rosat, Florian Németi, Luca Albertoni and Xavier Comtesse
2025, Georg Publisher
Book summary
Bots and robots are no longer mere executors. We are on the cusp of the Agentic era, where artificial intelligence is evolving from automation to autonomy, from simple execution to decision-making. Forget what you thought you knew about AI, because the future will be very different. This book is not just another collection of buzzwords. It's a pragmatic guide that decodes the explosive integration of AI agents in businesses, with a focus on the industrial sector. Powerful theories, concrete examples, and above all: AI agents ready to be tested that will challenge your processes and expose your competitors' weaknesses.
Are you ready to entrust artificial intelligence with the management of your production lines, the optimization of your inventory, and the design of your products? Or will you let others do it for you? The choice is no longer "if," but "when." Yours is to decide whether you will be the one leading the way or the one who watches helplessly as the world changes around you, without you.
The factory of the future
Digital - Dark - Adaptive - Creative
Under the direction of Xavier Comtesse, Maria Sokhn & Delphine Seitiée
Co-authors: Sarah Dégallier Rochat, Norman Urs Baier, Giorgio Pauletto, Jean-Philippe Lorinquer, Christophe Jouffray, Nabil Ouerhani, Marco Aloe, Fabrice Bertin, Damian Chiossone, Christophe Saam, Stéphane Perret, Pascal Eichenberger, Takahiro Hamaguchi, Christopher Bouzas, Florian Stauffer, Jonathan Besse, Sébastien Gard, Francesco Carrino, Silvan Zahno, Philippe Grize and Gilles Robert
Photographs by ©Dimitri Känel
2024, Georg Publisher
Book summary
This book offers a discussion about the factory of the future and its development, supported in particular by AI.
From the "Dark Factory" to the "Creative Factory," industrial history can be summarized as a long quest for manufacturing automation. Increasingly sophisticated and digitized machines will bring this quest to a close. Even today, industrial plants operate autonomously for hours, even days. What will be interesting to discover in the next phase of the industrial revolution is the extent to which we will rely on AI to invent the world of tomorrow.
Tomorrow, AI will be a machine for designing the day after tomorrow.
Prompt Future
Having thought about tomorrow, knowing how to think about tomorrow
Under the direction of Xavier Comtesse and Giorgio Pauletto
Foreword by Gilles Robert and Philippe Grize
Main authors: Nathalie Nyffeler, Delphine Seitiée, Giorgio Pauletto, Damian
Chiossone, Dominique Genoud, Dimitri Percia, David and Xavier Comtesse
Images created by © MidJourney
2023, Georg Publisher
Book summary
Prompt Future Thinking is an English expression that can be translated into French as "stimuler la pensée future" or "engager la réflexion prospective." This expression refers to a technique used to encourage individuals to proactively think about the future and make decisions that take into account how situations might evolve.
The idea behind prompt future thinking is to guide people's thinking to anticipate possible future changes and events, so they can make more informed and better-prepared decisions. This technique can be used in various contexts, such as strategic business planning, project management, personal decision-making, or even to imagine future scenarios for a given situation.
By encouraging individuals to think forward and consider different future options, prompt future thinking can help reduce uncertainty and prepare people to face future challenges. This technique is often used in strategic decision-making contexts, where it is important to consider possible long-term changes and adapt one's strategy accordingly.
School 4.0
Places to act; words to think
by Séverine Maeder, Nathalie Nyffeler, Sandrine Barrucand, Delphine Seitiée, Cédric Pompei, Paul Merz, Christophe SAAM, Giorgio Pauletto, Christophe Bianchi, Jerome Mizeret, Damian Andres Chiossone, georges renaudet, Yannis Comtesse, Gaetan Cherix, Philippe Grize, Jean-François Krähenbühl, Nicolas Rosat, Grégoire Ramuz, Assia Garbinato, Robert Balanche, Raphael Rollier, Beatriz Tur, Thierry Linder, Christophe Jouffray, Vincent Lavanchy, Romuald Boillon, Marco Piermartiri, Joao-Antonio Brinca, Dominique Duay, Hugo van Buel
Under the direction of Xavier Comtesse
Photographs by ©Thierry Parel
2022, Georg Publisher
Book summary
While the first industrial revolution laid the foundations of modern education, today digital transformation is poised to permanently alter the way we think and act in the processes of knowledge transmission. The school as we know it is undergoing a profound evolution, increasingly experimenting with new technologies and practices. This upheaval goes hand in hand with the emergence of a new vocabulary and the development of redesigned learning spaces. In French-speaking Switzerland, some institutions are already experimenting with these profound changes; here's a closer look at 18 of them.
Book summary
Unfathomable AI? Artificial intelligence (AI), or rather, as we should say today, machine learning, fascinates us as much as it worries us. This unknown of modern times fuels all sorts of fantasies. At the crossroads of science fiction and augmented reality, AI is an enigma.
Imagine for a moment a program that, while feeding on data, learns from that data. Simply magical. The most surprising thing is that it works perfectly and AI is becoming ubiquitous. Visual recognition (including facial recognition), self-driving cars, predictive maintenance, precision medicine, chatbots, intelligent assistants, automatic text generation (GPT3), and computer-assisted programming (GitHub Copilot) are all AI tools that we will soon (or already) be using in our daily lives.
According to the computer scientists and lawyers gathered in this book, the rules of work and work itself need to be completely revisited.
The code is law.
Book summary
Industry 4.0 is underway and is shaking things up... But what is this concept and who are the players in it today?
At the crossroads of the digital and the physical worlds, the fourth industrial revolution promises a radical transformation of production methods, our economy, and our consumption habits, not to mention its social and environmental impact. From smart production to the Internet of Things, the digital revolution is now a reality, and the most astute entrepreneurs will have understood that they must ride this tidal wave and prepare for the great change.
This book describes the fourth industrial revolution with passion and precision. Numerous examples drawn from the industrial world of French-speaking Switzerland give this work a detailed view of the current industrial transformation and its influence on society. The result of extensive field research, Xavier Comtesse presents us with the true face of the revolutionaries of Industry 4.0, whose portraits he paints.
Book summary
A collaborative work involving more than sixty people, this two-volume book is the result of numerous reflections, discussions, and interviews on the digital transition and the emergence of a new economy linked to it, conducted by the Manufacture Thinking think tank, composed of leading figures from the industrial, economic, technological, and scientific worlds. This two-volume work offers a wealth of emerging ideas in a world undergoing profound transformation and represents a significant contribution to the thinking of a learning territory, French-speaking Switzerland, within a new geo-global context (PENSER).
In parallel, this book aims to enrich business models with a dynamic approach that reflects the current digital revolution, represented by the transition from environment 1.0 (partners) to 2.0 (e-customer), then to 3.0 (IoT-data) and 4.0 (AI-algorithms). This approach enables every business leader to target their transformation efforts in anticipation of the new era emerging before our eyes (ACT).
AI
Augmented enterprise;
Augmented medicine
by Lev Kiwi, Assia Garbinato, Dominique Genoud, Giorgio Pauletto, Grégoire Ramuz, Daniel Walch
2018, Editions G d'Encre
Book summary
All socio-economic sectors will be affected by AI in one way or another. We are interested in digital advancements and the use of new technologies that transform data into "smart data." This is also an important policy objective for our manufacturers, who must first and foremost respond efficiently to new customer needs. This undeniably involves capturing diverse data, structuring it, and using it intelligently. To this end, and to create value at every level of the supply chain, it will be necessary to master AI in all its forms, starting with machine learning. This is a challenge.
Electricity plays a crucial role in the city of the future, not only for lighting, heating, and powering all kinds of electrical appliances, but increasingly for transportation. Electricity is at the heart of the smart city, just like the Internet of Things, Big Data, and AI.
These are four major development pillars for the smart city. In this book, we will primarily examine the fourth one, AI, while keeping in mind the strong interconnectedness between these areas.
Thus, the combined use of large amounts of data with relatively simple learning algorithms makes it possible to solve problems that were considered impossible not so long ago, for example: energy consumption, especially electricity, and instantaneous energy balance at the local and regional level.
This brief overview of AI advancements across various economic sectors should encourage entrepreneurs to explore the enormous potential of this technology and continue reading this book. The widespread enthusiasm for this discipline, which has surprised everyone in the tech world, is yet another reason to delve into the underlying concepts of this revolution.
Book summary
The Internet of Things, IoT for Internet of Things, has been the subject of much discussion.
But is it already changing our daily lives? Quietly, the Internet of Things has already crept into many everyday situations. Because it's definitely there: in any object that can potentially be connected to the internet.
Mobile phones, vehicles and transportation, household objects, buildings, offices or residential homes, neighborhoods and cities are all equipped with sensors, transmitters, integrated circuits and communication devices. RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chips, SIM cards, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth are now so miniaturized that they often go unnoticed.
Even if not every object is meant to be connected, it is highly likely that soon we will no longer care which ones are or are not – provided that users appreciate these new functions.
Without a doubt, sensors will multiply considerably. In every ecosystem – home, building, office, factory, street, city – they will be able to communicate with each other or within “local neural” networks in order to perform precise tasks in service of humans.
A team from ETH Zurich has estimated that there will be 150 billion connected objects by 2025. This is a considerable increase since, in 2017, only 15 billion objects were connected, the majority of which were mobile phones (7 billion), cars (1 billion) and televisions (1 billion).
Whether or not reality matches these projections, the growth of the IoT represents in any case a huge lever as well as a unique growth opportunity for companies.
Book summary
The future will belong first and foremost to Data Entrepreneurs!
Businesses today face one of the most exciting and critical opportunities: the ability to analyze and leverage Big Data. This data, and the algorithms capable of processing it, particularly those of artificial intelligence—which can learn on its own—are of great interest to major technology companies. Their applications are as numerous as they are crucial. For example, it is becoming possible to rapidly analyze large amounts of medical data, as IBM did with its Watson system. Furthermore, companies have the opportunity to improve their products and evolve them toward greater interactivity and more intuitive use, like Apple's smartwatches or personal assistants such as Alexa and Echo from Amazon.
Every entrepreneur will be affected by the arrival of new, powerful tools capable of managing this previously unstructured data. The digital revolution continues… And eventually, we will all become “Data Entrepreneurs.”
Book summary
The digital economy is a veritable tsunami: everything will be submerged, disrupted, swept away. Personalized algorithms will control volumes and generate profit margins. The path to the future will depend on mastering this: collective intelligence will be its foundation. This "user guide" presents the work of such a collective, brought together in the CréAteliers in the digital age.
Book summary
In an enthusiastic and compelling argument, Xavier Comtesse passionately advocates for a modern, efficient, and connected production facility, ready to meet the challenges of the third millennium under optimal conditions: that of the renewed manufacturing sector. He thus pays tribute to this renowned manufacturing tradition, born from the 200-year history of the highly industrialized canton of Neuchâtel, but above all, he offers a fresh and insightful perspective on its future evolution.
Even though history reveals our industrial heritage and whispers some answers to questions about the future, the many challenges that companies will have to face tomorrow are only just beginning to emerge today!
Contributors since 2014
Adrian Dillier, Agnès Deroy, Alain Marietta, Albert Pélissier, Alen Arslanagic, Alex Buerli, Alexandra Toledo, Alexandre Pauchard, Alexandre Staub, Alexis Moeckli, Alfredo Hofmann, Anaïs Avila, Andrea Dunbar, Anna Soederlind, Anthony Chenevard, Antoine Pélissier, Arnaud Maitre, Assia Garbinato,
Bahaa El Roustom, Beatriz Tur, Bertrand Kiefer, Boris Saulnier, Boris Zürche, Brigitte Bachelard, Catherine Valon, Cathy Strahm, Cécile Muench, Cédric Pompeï, Céline Auberson, Céline Bernasconi, Christian Frère, Christian Freymond, Christian Riba, Christian Wipfli, Christophe Bianchi, Christophe Crelier, Christophe Jouffray, Christophe Ruedin, Christophe Saam, Christophe Zaretti, Christopher Bouzas, Claude Oggier, Claude-Alain Glauser, Claude-Alain Roten,
Claudia Nash, Corinne Toedtli, Cynthia Uelligger, Damian Chiossone, Danick Bionda, Daniel Kraus, Daniel Walch, David Pihen, David Talerman,
David Wannier, Delphine Seitiée, Didier Mesnier, Dimitri Percia David, Dominique Duay, Dominique Genoud, Edouard Mignon, Elmar Mock,
Emmanuel De Salis, Emmanuel Vuille, Emmanuelle Rognon, Eric Barchechath, Eric Röthlisberger, Etienne Guerry, Etienne Sauze, Fabien Noir,
Fabien Robert-Grandpierre, Fabienne Kaufmann, Fabio Padovani, Florian Nemeti, François Meylan, Frédéric Chautems, Frédéric Matthey, Frédéric Pichon, Gaëlle Rey, Gaëtan Bussy, Gaetan Cherix, Gaetano Manzo, Geogres Renaudet, George Kontrotsios, Georges Renaudet, Géraud De Laval, Gianluca Rizzo, Gilbert Vuillemin, Gilles de Preux, Gilles Robert, Giorgio Pauletto, Grégoire Ramuz, Guido Schmutz, Guillaume Brochet, Guillaume Estoup, Harry Heinzelmann, Hugo van Buel, Hugues Jeannerat, Hugues Monnier, Ien Arslanagic, Isabelle Tasset, Ivan Villar, Jacques Blanc, Jacques de Hillerin, Jacques Hainard, Janelise Favre, Jean-Daniel Dubois, Jean-Dominique Decotignie, Jean-François Bauer, Jean-François Chèvre, Jean-François Hugues, Jean-Francois Krähenbühl, Jean-Kley Tullii, Jean-Louis Raisaro, Jean-Luc Babel, Jean-Marc Wiederrecht, Jean-Noël Duc, Jean-Philippe de Toledo, Jean-René Gonthier, Jeanne-Pascale Simon, Jeffrey Huang, Jérome de Nomazy, Jérôme Mizeret, Joao-Antonio Brinca, Joas Sigg, Joël Fuchs, John Elbing, Jonas Richiardi, José Demetrio, Joseph Muhlhausen, Juan Franco, Julien Guex, Julien Salamin, Julien Von Kaenel, Juliette Muller, Jürgen Schmidhuder, Katia Della Pietra, Laura Tocmacov Venchiarutti, Laurent Chatelanat, Laurent Sciboz, Léa Jouffrey, Leila Delarive, Lev Kiwi, Lezgin Polater, Lionel Pousaz, Loïc Laurent, Loris Comtesse, Luc Dufour, Luc-Olivier Erard, Luca Juillerat, Marc Butey, Marc Junet, Marc-Alexis Grétillat, Marco Aloe, Marco Piermartiri, Maria Assunta Cappelli,
Maria Sokhn, Mario El-Khoury, Maurice Kaag, Maxime Salardi, Michel Gagnebin, Michel Perrin, Michel Raffin, Michka Comtesse, Mirjana Vianin, Muriel Favarger, Narcisse Niclass, Nathalie Nyffeler, Nicolas Capt, Nicolas de Toledo, Nicolas Loeillot, Nicolas Nova, Nicolas Rosat, Nicolas Rossat, Nicolas Thibaudeau, Nicolas Vradis, Nord Compo, Norman Lefevre, Oscar Palmadès, Oscar Prado, Paco Prada, Paola Orlando mocolot, Pascal Eichenberger, Pascal Rose, Pascal Schlaeppi, Patrick Graf, Patrick Sercomanens, Patriz Zwicky, Philippe Cudrè-Mauroux, Philippe Durr, Philippe Grize, Philippe Labouchère, Pierre Bustamante, Pierre Mercerat, Pierre Roduit, Pierre-Alain Leuenberger, Rapahël Rollier, Raphaël Gasser, Raphael Rollier, Raphaël Thiébaud, Raymond Lorétan, René Fell, Reto Wyss, Robert Balanche, Roland Hirschi, Romuald Boillon, Ruud Riem-Vis, Sabrina Cohen Dumani, Sacha Mourier, Samuel Vuadens, Sandra Wirth, Sandrine Barrucand, Sébastien Mabillard, Sébastien Perros, Serge Rossel, Séverine Maeder, Sonja Betschart, Sylvie Reinhard, Takahiro Hamaguchi, Thierry Baglan, Thierry Dagaeff, Thierry Linder, Thomas Jomini, Timon Zimmermann, Tyler Kleinbauer, Urs Gasser, Valérie Herisson-Andouart, Véronique Athané, Vincent Gremaud, Vincent Lavanchy, Vincent Mani, Wolf Zinkl, Xavier Comtesse, Xavier Seyfroed, Yann Bocchi, Yann Bocchi, Yannis Comtesse, Yasmine Calisesi, Yves de Montmolin, Yvon Cosandier