Emerson introduced new Ovation AI Agents for the power and water industries, expanding the AI capabilities of its Ovation Automation Platform 4.0 release with five new agents. 

The new release includes a Sequence Assistant Agent; Alarm Insight Agent; Predictive Maintenance Agent; Root Cause Agent and Loop Performance Monitor Agent. Emerrson aims to empower plant personnel with critical insights by continuously monitoring, analyzing and recommending actions across critical plant operations. 

This expansion builds on the success of Ovation Virtual Advisor and delivers new capabilities to Ovation’s growing portfolio of AI solutions for the power and water industry. While Ovation Virtual Advisor provides real-time, AI-driven insights through natural language interaction, the new AI Agents are time synchronized with the Ovation 4.0 system and work autonomously in the background, continuously monitoring plant and equipment conditions and recommending optimizations.

"Ovation AI Agents deliver a major step change in our AI portfolio, representing a significant advancement in how we help our customers build more intelligent, efficient and resilient operations," said Bob Yeager, president of Emerson's power and water solutions business. “The AI-enabled agents handle complex data analysis and pattern recognition to monitor asset health, run simulations, forecast failures and prioritize interventions. These powerful tools enable operators to shift from reactive to proactive planning without disrupting daily workflows.”  

The Ovation AI Agents will be deployed in phases, with the following included in the first wave:  

• Sequence Assistant Agent: Provides AI guidance for sequence-function-driven control logic tools by generating context-aware prompts from real-time deviations and historical failures. 
• Alarm Insight Agent: Prioritizes and summarizes alarm context during alarm floods, helping operators focus on the most critical alarms and recommended actions rather than being overwhelmed by hundreds of alerts simultaneously. 
• Predictive Maintenance Agent: Acts as an early-warning system for critical plant equipment, detecting degradation, prioritizing maintenance and helping prevent unplanned failures. 
• Root Cause Agent: Performs real-time root cause analysis that goes beyond the control system itself to analyze the running plant process. 
• Loop Performance Monitor Agent: Continuously analyzes control loop performance to identify poor-performing loops, including for issues such as oscillation, deadband and deficient tuning, and generates evidence-backed recommendations for engineering review. 

The five new Ovation AI Agents will launch this fall, enabling customers to start deploying individual agents tailored to their operational priorities and expand their portfolio over time as needs evolve, according to Emerson.