AI in Manufacturing Takes Center Stage at the Manufacturing Tech Summit in Lisbon

Plenty of factories have tried AI in a pilot. Far fewer have made it part of daily production. That gap is the theme of the third Manufacturing Tech Summit, which takes place on October 22 at Unicorn Factory Lisbon, starting at 1:30 PM. Organized by RAILES, it brings together industry leaders and technology experts to discuss the impact of artificial intelligence, data and manufacturing execution systems (MES) on industry.

From pilot projects to real production

The central question is practical: how do companies move from promising experiments to everyday use in industrial processes? After two earlier editions, at Porto Business School in 2024 and Microsoft Portugal in 2025, the summit returns with a program on the digital transformation of industry and the challenge of fitting new technologies into daily operations. It’s the kind of event where industrial AI in Portugal gets discussed in concrete terms rather than slogans, and one of the technology events worth planning around this autumn.

The program

• Opening session: Tomás Magalhães, founder of Despolariza, presents “AI, Noise and Discernment,” on telling relevant information apart from the noise around AI tools.
• Roundtable 1, “Industrial Sovereignty: Technology at the Service of Critical Assets”: Catarina Caria and José Manuel Terras from Floene, with Henrique Candeias from N3O Space.
• Roundtable 2, “Beyond the Hype: When AI Transforms an Organization”: Maria Loureiro from Loka, Ricardo Luiz from Mediaweb and Andreia Alves from CME, looking at how AI moves from expectation to execution.
• Lightning talk, “The Future of Industrial Technology”: Bruno Lopes e Silva, Head of AI at RAILES.

Networking session to close.

Why it’s worth attention

The AI impact on industry shows up in details: connecting data, linking systems and making sure a tool actually improves a production line. Summits like this give engineers, managers and technology providers a place to compare notes. For more on where these topics are heading, the devs.com.pt website is a useful place to keep reading.