Four questions for any demo, with the full transcript
Every maintenance software vendor says AI now. Some of it is real and useful. Some of it is a chatbot bolted to a brochure. This video is made by Torgix, which builds AI into its platform, so we are not neutral. But we will give you the same test we would want used on us.
Here is what AI in maintenance genuinely does well today. It reads your actual records and answers questions with the machine, the number, and the source. It drafts. Repair plans, morning briefings, cost summaries. It never gets tired of the paperwork nobody likes. Watch it work on a live fleet. The question, the answer, the receipts.
Here is the marketing version. Fully autonomous maintenance. AI that predicts every failure before it happens. Be skeptical of both claims. Prediction needs history and sensors your fleet may not have, and autonomy is exactly what you do not want between a guess and a work order. The vendors doing real work say what the AI reads and where a human signs off. The brochures say magic.
Four questions for any demo. One, is the AI grounded? Ask it about a specific machine and make the vendor show where the answer came from. Two, can it write to your data, and if so, what stops it? The safe answer is read only analysis, with drafts a human approves. Watch for the approval gate on screen. Three, is the AI metered? Some vendors bill AI by usage credits, so ask what a month of real use costs. Four, does it degrade honestly? Ask it something it cannot know, and see whether it says so or makes something up.
For the record, here is how Torgix answers its own test. The AI reads your records and cites them. It is read only by design, drafts plans, and nothing runs until a human ticks the box. It is included in the price, not metered. And when it cannot answer safely, it says so. The full written breakdown of real versus marketing is linked below, and the trial needs no credit card. Torgix.