Introducing the Eigen Engineering Agent | Vasi Philomin on the Future of Industrial AI

Vasi Philomin, Executive Vice President and Head of Data and AI at Siemens, shares his vision for the next frontier of artificial intelligence — and introduces the Eigen Engineering Agent, Siemens’ purpose-built AI for automation engineers. In this interview, Philomin explains why physical AI — AI that moves beyond the screen and into real-world engineering systems — represents the next major shift in the industry. Automation engineers face significant day-to-day challenges, handling complex, essential work that keeps factories operational. The Eigen Engineering Agent is designed to address this directly. Unlike traditional chatbots, the Eigen Engineering Agent runs inside real engineering systems. It has access to full project context and constraints, validates outputs against customer safety standards, breaks down complex tasks into executable steps, and iterates on its own work until results are ready for review. The key distinction: this is AI that completes work on behalf of the automation engineer, not AI that merely recommends what to do. Results from deployments across more than 100 customers in 19 countries demonstrate measurable outcomes: execution speed improvements of 2-5x, solution quality up to 80% higher, and automation engineer efficiency improved by up to 50%.