Essential services are one surprise failure away from disruption. Explore how physical AI can tackle this crisis

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These are anxious times for workers—and indeed for anyone who relies on infrastructure. What the past weeks of winter-grid strain showed us is that essential systems have less tolerance for failure than many assume. And we’re still maintaining them via reactive, manual approaches, sending crews after issues arise rather than preventing failures upfront.

Despite all the focus on whether AI will eliminate white-collar jobs, I think business leaders are missing a far bigger narrative: AI won’t replace skilled trades; instead, it’ll demand more of them and, crucially, enhance their capabilities.

That’s not a luxury. It’s a must as the trades workforce ages, retirements speed up, and fewer new workers come in. I’m a founder with decades of experience in what’s increasingly termed ‘physical AI,’ and I firmly believe AI should be used to support, not replace, workers. As labor constraints tighten and downtime costs rise, the quickest route to resilience isn’t automating people but upgrading them: providing frontline teams ongoing visibility and decision support where work occurs.

In boardrooms and earnings calls, leaders are fixated on which white-collar roles vanish first, even as they rush to deploy tools that claim to write faster, analyze quicker, and further streamline desk work. Almost every AI discussion focuses on productivity gains for desk-based knowledge workers, but this conversation overlooks where the real workforce pressure is and where AI can have its most significant economic impact.

Here’s the truth: the AI surge is physical.

Civilization doesn’t solely rely on construction. It relies on maintenance: keeping power on, water flowing, equipment safe, and facilities operational daily. Data centers, power grids, battery plants, EV infrastructure, water systems, and industrial facilities all depend on the continuous work of electricians, utility crews, HVAC technicians, construction laborers, and field service workers.

The major issue is the degradation of physical systems that keep society going. The major opportunity is using Physical AI to prevent and reverse this. Over 45% of U.S. infrastructure is rated poor or mediocre, and despite much of the economy being digitized, we mostly maintain infrastructure with Roman-era methods. We dispatch field crews ‘blindly,’ sending them to do manual, reactive, infrequent inspections, leading to either wasted time with no problem found or major issues going undetected for years. This causes costly failures that add more pressure to an already strained workforce, often needing repeat visits with different tools or parts. In many industries, over half of truck rolls are unnecessary. All this could be prevented in a world of physical AI.

In other words, AI isn’t just a software matter. It’s a labor matter—and one that heavily relies on skilled trades. This is the workforce that can gain the biggest productivity benefits from AI.

The real labor crisis

America already faces a critical shortage of skilled tradespeople. A large portion of the workforce is approaching retirement: roughly 40% of skilled trades workers are 45+ (and nearly half of that group is 55+). Meanwhile, the entry pipeline is slim, with less than 9% of the workforce in the 19–24 age range. Simply put, more people are leaving these jobs due to aging than are entering, and decades of hard-earned field knowledge are walking out the door with them.

This isn’t just inefficient. It’s dangerous, demoralizing, and unsustainable. These roles involve navigating hazardous, physically demanding conditions—from extreme temperatures to confined spaces. Because tasks are highly repetitive and often hindered by inefficient processes, the work can feel unfulfilling. It’s no wonder burnout is common and young people aren’t rushing to take these roles.

Physical AI is the solution to these problems. Real-time understanding of infrastructure status eliminates the cost and frustration of unnecessary truck rolls and provides predictive insights to help field teams solve real problems before critical failures. Guidance and contextual awareness of worksites help new job entrants get up to speed faster and more safely, bridging the labor gap. Most importantly, for all of us, we can create many new jobs while ensuring the essential services we all depend on are delivered to the quality the world requires.