Business

Ford VP says AI tools lacked training to replace veteran engineers

Published

1 month ago

29 June 2026

Ford VP says AI tools lacked training to replace veteran engineers

Ford’s limited-edition Super Duty Proud to Honor package features patriotic styling, with a portion of proceeds supporting Blue Star Families. (Credit: Ford Motor Company)

Ford has rehired experienced human engineers to help address the shortcomings of artificial intelligence (AI) tools meant to tackle quality issues in the automaker’s production processes.

The hiring push helped Ford top the JD Power 2026 U.S. Initial Quality Study (IQS) for the first time since 2010 amid improvements in the quality of its new vehicles, and follows some hard-learned lessons about the ability of AI to replace human knowledge in production processes.

“Artificial intelligence is a fantastic tool, but it’s only as good as the information you use to train it,” Charles Poon, Ford’s vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, said on a press call Wednesday, according to a report by Bloomberg.

“Over prior years, we didn’t pay as much attention as we should have to the experience of our most knowledgeable engineers that have been with us through many product cycles,” he said.

FORD TEAMS UP WITH OUTDOOR OUTFITTER FILSON TO LAUNCH NEW BRONCO SUV

US-ECONOMY-TRANSPORT-MANUFACTURING-AUTOMOBILE-FORD

Ford rehired veteran engineers to help guide AI systems that weren’t sufficient to improve production quality on their own. (Jim Young/AFP via Getty Images)

“Mistakenly, we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and ingesting the design requirements that we had, that would produce a high quality product,” Poon said.

He also noted that the AI tools lacked the training and expertise that veteran technicians have, and many of the company’s veteran technicians left Ford before their knowledge could be used to improve the performance of the AI tools.

“We recognized that for us to enhance some of our automation and machine learning and artificial intelligence tools, we needed to ensure that they were trained by the most experienced individuals,” Poon said.

FORD CEO SAYS ‘CUSTOMER HAS SPOKEN’ AFTER EV SHIFT DRIVES MAJOR QUARTERLY LOSS

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
F	FORD MOTOR CO.	14.13	+0.02	+0.14%

The Detroit giant said that it has hired about 300 veteran engineers to work in its vehicle engineering division in the last few years.

“Free from daily production schedules, these engineers now act as internal auditors, running mandatory weekly design reviews to hunt for and eliminate potential failure points before blueprints ever reach the factory floor,” Ford said in a release.

Ford Chief Operating Officer Kumar Galhotra said that the experienced engineers and technical specialists were “at the heart” of the company’s efforts to improve production quality by addressing process issues before they’re incorporated into workflows.

FORD RECALLS MORE THAN 255,000 FOCUS VEHICLES OVER ENGINE STALL RISK

Ford CEO Jim Farley said the quality improvements are helping Ford’s bottom line. (Nic Antaya/Getty Images)

Ford CEO Jim Farley told Bloomberg TV that the shift is helping improve the company’s financial performance, with spending on warranty coverage and recalls coming down, which in turn is boosting the automaker through cost reductions.

JD Power’s 2026 IQS not only placed Ford at the top of the list for the first time in 16 years, but it also ranked the Ford F-150, Ford Mustang and Ford Super Duty at the top of their respective segments for the second straight year.

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Additionally, the Ford Escape, Ford Explorer, Ford Expedition and Ford Maverick also ranked among the top three in their segments – which meant that seven of the company’s top 10 models ranked in the top three of their categories.

FOX Business reached out to Ford for comment.

Business

8 ETF Winners in the ‘Pay Me Now’ Trade

Published

15 seconds ago

2 August 2026

NewsAdmin

8 ETF Winners in the ‘Pay Me Now’ Trade

Business

lastminute.com N.V. 2026 Q2 – Results – Earnings Call Presentation (OTCMKTS:LSMNF) 2026-08-01

Published

8 minutes ago

2 August 2026

NewsAdmin

OneWater Marine Inc. (ONEW) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Seeking Alpha’s transcripts team is responsible for the development of all of our transcript-related projects. We currently publish thousands of quarterly earnings calls per quarter on our site and are continuing to grow and expand our coverage. The purpose of this profile is to allow us to share with our readers new transcript-related developments. Thanks, SA Transcripts Team

Business

Six Indian cos among BusinessWeek’s top 100 Infotech firms

Published

14 minutes ago

2 August 2026

NewsAdmin

NEW DELHI: Notwithstanding the turmoil in global economic environment, as many as six Indian firms, including Reliance Comm and Bharti Airtel, have been named among top 100 best-performing infotech companies in the world by a US magazine BusinessWeek.

The BusinessWeek’s latest annual list ‘The Infotech 100’, which ranks the firms on the basis of shareholder return, return on equity, total revenues and revenue growth, has ranked telecom major Bharti Airtel at the 21st position followed by Reddington India (55th) and RCom (66th).
The list is topped by US firms –Amazon.com and Apple– who have taken the top two spots this year. However, the magazine said in an accompanying report that “the dominance of US companies is in decline, the country has 33 companies among the IT 100 this year, down from 43 in 2007.”

Other Indian firms on the list, includes — Azim Premji-led Wipro at the 74th position, Satyam at 91 rank and HCL Technologies has been ranked at the 95th position among the list of 100 firms.

South African telecom firm MTN Group, which is in exclusive talks with Anil Ambani Group flagship firm Reliance Communications, has been ranked at the 12th position in the global list even ahead of global IT giants IBM and Microsoft, which are at 13th and 23rd ranks in the list, respectively.

Besides, the other fast emerging country China also has six companies among the top 100 Infotech companies in the world.
The magazine has compiled the information for the list by sorting through the financial results of 30,500 publicly traded companies and has ranked the technology players on four criteria –shareholder return, return on equity, total revenues and revenue growth.

The companies leading the list are those with the lowest aggregate ranking.

The companies which qualified had to have revenues of at least 300 million dollar then the collection of about 800 companies was divided into eight industry categories, such as software and semiconductors.
“Companies whose stock price has dropped more than 75 per cent, whose sales shrank, or where other developments raised questions about future performance were eliminated from contention.
“We also dropped some phone companies whose monopoly or near-monopoly power gives them an unfair advantage over competitors,” the magazine added.

Business

Treasury Warns Banks It Might Intervene in Dollar-Yen Exchange Rate

Published

22 minutes ago

2 August 2026

NewsAdmin

Treasury Warns Banks It Might Intervene in Dollar-Yen Exchange Rate

The U.S. Treasury Department has informed banks that it might make currency trades on Friday to support the Japanese yen and strengthen its exchange rate against the dollar, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The message was delivered by the Treasury to major banks on Friday via the New York Fed, which acts as the Treasury’s agent for trades in financial markets. Some banks were told to have executable trades ready to exchange Japanese yen for euros, according to people familiar with the matter. The U.S. holds some of its foreign-currency reserves in euros.

Business

Chip Stocks Are on Pace for Worst Month Since 2008

Published

28 minutes ago

2 August 2026

NewsAdmin

Stocks Little Changed After Fed Decision

Chip stocks are on track for their worst monthly performance in nearly two decades.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, or SOX, was up 2% on Friday, extending Thursday’s tech-dominated relief rally.

However, Friday’s gains were far from enough to offset what’s been a tough month for the semi group. In fact, the SOX is on track for its worst monthly performance since 2008, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

Business

Wait for more signals before turning positive

Published

37 minutes ago

2 August 2026

NewsAdmin

At the recent low of 12514 points, the Sensex has tested the 12800-12000-pts support zone and has since then attempted a corrective rally. During the past trend phases in the Sensex, a monthly moving average convergence/divergence (MACD) cross-down below its trigger line, have, typically, led to a significant value erosion, with the corrective phase lasting, at least, for a year.
Therefore, immediate rallies would be interpreted as corrective in nature until the medium-term technical parameters turn positive. The recent upmove in the Sensex since the low of 12514 pts has been very sharp. The upside gap of July 23, 2008 had created a bullish ��Island Reversal Gap�� on the daily charts between 14510 pts and 14519 pts.

Normally, the implications of this on the medium-term outlook would be very positive, especially since the ��Island�� comprised of 22 trading sessions. When a stock indicates an uptrend, trades above the gap which occurs, then gaps back down and trades below the initial price, an island reversal has occurred.

However, the Sensex has since run into a strong resistance zone between 15026 pts and 15390 pts. The monthly mid-point of June 2008 is at 15026 pts. The 50% retracement level of the fall from the May 2008 peak (17735 pts) is at 15124 pts. The positive implications of the bullish ��Island Reversal Gap�� would thus get negated if the Sensex has a daily close below 14104 pts (the close on July 22, 2008). The Sensex is then expected to have an initial downside of 13513 pts, the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level of the recent rise from 12514 pts to 15130 pts.

If the bearish ��Island reversal gap�� of 14484-14568 pts is immediately filled and the Sensex manages to decisively overhaul the resistances between 15130 pts and 15390 pts, the ongoing upmove would continue. The Sensex may then test higher levels between 16618 pts and 16860 pts.

The 78.6% Fibonacci retracement level of the fall from the May 2008 peak is at 16618 pts while 16860 pts is the 50% retracement level of the entire fall from the January 2008 peak. Hence, one would await further confirmation before turning positive on the medium-term outlook.
(The author is VP of technical research at Darashaw)

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