Establishing the Foundation for Scalable Industrial AI for Food and Beverage and CPG Manufacturers

Many food and beverage and CPG manufacturers already have AI pilots running. The harder part is scaling them across lines and sites. In this IDC Spotlight, sponsored by SymphonyAI, Jonathan Lang, Research Director, Worldwide IT/OT Convergence Strategies at IDC, examines why industrial AI initiatives stall between pilot and production and what it takes to build a data foundation that supports scale.

What's inside

• The data accessibility, quality, and context challenges F&B and CPG manufacturers face when scaling analytics and AI
• Three pillars for a stable data foundation: infrastructure modernization, organizational transformation, and data life-cycle management
• Findings from IDC's Worldwide IT/OT Convergence Survey, July 2026, on investment drivers and inhibitors to scale
• Key data-driven use cases including predictive maintenance, golden batch optimization, clean-in-place optimization, and lot genealogy and traceability
• A dairy fermentation line example focused on golden batch optimization
• An overview of SymphonyAI IRIS Foundry and what is new in IRIS Foundry 2.0

From the IDC Spotlight

Generating a return on AI investments in food and beverage manufacturing operations requires a purpose-built data architecture and foundation that ensures confidence, conformity, and context in data.

In IDC's Worldwide IT/OT Convergence Survey, when BOVC manufacturers were asked where they would allocate investment and resources over the next 12 months to advance their AI strategy and execution, the top response (51.7%) was "we are focused on developing a data fabric and architecture to enable future AI use".

Over time, data virtualization using industrial DataOps platforms has proven itself as a data approach that ensures a sustainable, repeatable, and stable foundation to enable AI use.

Source: IDC Spotlight, sponsored by SymphonyAI, Establishing the Foundation for Scalable Industrial AI for Food and Beverage and CPG Manufacturers, Doc #US54981026, October 2026.

Who should read it

Operations, engineering, IT/OT, and data leaders at food and beverage and CPG manufacturers who are deciding which AI use case to scale first and whether their data can support it across more than one line or site.