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Ford has rehired some senior staff in its vehicle hardware engineering unit after it emerged that artificial tools failed to replace their expertise.
The automaker had hoped that AI-enabled tools would be able to handle quality checks and other operational tasks previously overseen by human engineers.
However, over 300 “veteran” inspectors who exited the company in recent years have been brought back to handle the work and share their knowledge, per Bloomberg.
Ford admits it overlooked veteran ‘experience’
Speaking to Bloomberg, Charles Poon, VP of Vehicle Hardware Engineering at Ford, admitted that the company had lost sight of the valuable insights offered by senior staff, and overestimated the ability of AI to handle important processes without initial training.
“Over prior years, we didn't pay as much attention as we should have to the experience of our most knowledgeable engineers that have been with us through many product cycles,” he stated.
The VP said that while AI is a “fantastic tool,” it is “only as good as the information you use to train it.”
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Ford has been vocal about its investment in AI tools across its production and wider operations.
In an earnings call in October, Ford Chief Operating Officer Kumar Galhotra outlined plans to place 900 AI-powered cameras across its manufacturing sites to “detect quality issues” and “help us mitigate supply disruption.”
Poon, however, noted that the company made an error in predicting that AI could simply be used to replace the work of senior engineers previously responsible for the quality checks.
“Mistakenly, we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and ingesting the design requirements that we had, that would produce a high-quality product,” he reflected.
The knowledge transfer problem
Ford’s engineering boss was optimistic that, although the tools had not proved initially successful, with more rigorous training they could handle the work.
This formed part of the rationale for rehiring the veteran staffers, who he suggested had exited Ford before their knowledge had been transferred.
Those rehired will not only take up responsibility for the quality checks, but also spend time training automated tools and mentoring junior staff who Ford believes will benefit from the veterans and their “hard-earned wisdom of decades of design.”
“We recognized that for us to enhance some of our automation and machine learning and artificial intelligence tools we needed to ensure that they were trained by the most experienced individuals,” Poon said.
Ford’s quagmire is indicative of a common problem facing employers who attempt to quickly replace work previously completed by humans with AI tools.
Experts have warned of the risks tied to completely removing human judgement from automated processes and of skills atrophy that may occur if knowledge transfer does not take place between experienced senior employees and their junior counterparts.
Some other notable employers who have attempted to replace departing staff with AI have also performed U-turns on their controversial workforce management strategy.
At buy-now-pay-later platform Klarna, for example, Founder and CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski reported in 2025 that a widely-publicized plan to stop hiring humans and replace all departing staff with AI and automations.
“As cost unfortunately seems to have been a too predominant evaluation factor when organizing this, what you end up having is lower quality,” he told Bloomberg. “Really investing in the quality of the human support is the way of the future for us.”
Talent begets operational quality
Ford itself has recently re-emphasized the importance of human excellence in its push for operational quality and building “strong engineering safety nets.”
In a blog post celebrating its number one ranking in a vehicle quality industry benchmark study, it said: “Reaching best-in-class quality required a significant talent refresh.”
“Leaders saw an opportunity to bring deep, specialized expertise into the design phase early,” the post continued.
“Free from daily production schedules, these engineers now act as internal auditors, running mandatory weekly design reviews to hunt for and eliminate potential failure points before blueprints ever reach the factory floor.”
