Industry 5.0 AI Funds Target Efficiency: EY-MIT Survey
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- MIT Technology Review Insights surveyed 250 industry leaders worldwide, finding most industrial AI investments still target efficiency rather than growth, sustainability, or well-being
- EY and MIT Technology Review Insights found that human-centric and sustainable use cases deliver higher value but remain underfunded, leaving organizations short of Industry 5.0's full potential
- Sachin Lulla, EY Americas industrials and energy transformation leader, said companies must move beyond cost and efficiency to focus on growth, resilience, and human-centric outcomes, calling for "new ways of working"
- EY and Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford research identified culture, skills, and collaboration barriers—not just technology—as the real obstacles to Industry 5.0 transformation
- Chris Ware, general manager of iron ore digital at Rio Tinto, warned against "chasing the digital fairies" and said every domain needs a unique roadmap for delivering value
- Industry 5.0 marks a shift from integrating emerging technologies like AI, IoT, and digital twins to orchestrating them at scale, with the explicit goal of augmenting human potential and environmental sustainability
Why it matters: Of the 250 industrial leaders surveyed, most are channeling AI and Industry 5.0 spending into incremental efficiency gains despite the data showing human-centric and sustainable use cases deliver higher value—leaving growth, resilience, and sustainability returns on the table. EY and Oxford Saïd research frames the bottleneck as cultural and leadership-driven, not technological, meaning the 250 surveyed organizations face a strategic prioritization problem rather than an infrastructure gap.
