AI agents in manufacturing: reshoring production?

Is AI the secret sauce that lets the West deglobalize supply chains and bring factories back home? In this episode of TechFirst, I talk with Federico Martelli, CEO and cofounder of Forgis, a Swiss startup building an industrial intelligence layer for factories. Forgis runs “digital engineers” — AI agents on the edge — that sit on top of legacy machinery, cut downtime by about 30%, and boost production by roughly 20%, without ripping and replacing old hardware. We dive into how AI agents can turn brainless factory lines into adaptive, self-optimizing systems, and what that means for reshoring production to Europe and North America. In this episode, we cover: • Why intelligence is the next geopolitical frontier • How AI agents can reshore manufacturing without making it more expensive • Turning old, offline machines into data-driven, optimized systems • The two-layer model: integration first, vertical intelligence second • Why most manufacturing AI projects fail at integration, not algorithms • How Forgis raised $4.5M in 36 hours and chose its lead investor • Lean manufacturing 2.0: adding real-time data and AI to Toyota-style processes • Why operators stay in the loop (and why full autonomy is a bad idea… for now) • Rebuilding industrial ecosystems in Europe and North America, industry by industry • What Forgis builds next with its pre-seed round and where industrial AI is headed Guest: 👉 Federico Martelli, CEO & cofounder, Forgis (industrial intelligence for factories) 🔗 More on Forgis: https://forgis.com/ Host: 🎙 John Koetsier, TechFirst podcast 🔎 techfirst.substack.com If you enjoy this conversation, hit subscribe, drop a comment about where you think factories of the future will live, and share this with someone thinking about reshoring or industrial AI. 00:00 – Intro: AI, deglobalization, and the battle for industrial power 01:20 – Why intelligence is the next geopolitical frontier 02:13 – Applying AI agents to legacy machinery (not just new robots) 03:10 – Integration first, intelligence second: the “digital engineers” layer 03:58 – Early results: +20% production, –30% downtime 05:39 – The Palantir-style model: deep factory work, then recurring licenses 06:28 – Raising $4.5M in 36 hours and choosing Redalpine 08:17 – Lean manufacturing, Toyota, and giving operators superpowers (not replacing them) 10:18 – Big picture: reshoring production to Europe, the US, and Canada 12:48 – Competing with China’s dense manufacturing ecosystems 15:29 – What Forgis’ digital engineers actually do on the shop floor 17:06 – How Forgis will use the pre-seed round: sales, product, then tech 18:32 – Flipping the traditional stack: sales → product → tech 19:22 – Wrap-up and what’s next for industrial intelligence