Machine Customers
A machine customer is a non-human economic actor empowered to buy goods or services autonomously. Unlike traditional automated systems, machine customers do not follow predefined rules. Instead, they use machine learning to adapt their behavior according to prevailing conditions and modify their actions over time.
The market is growing fast. According to Gartner, 30 percent of large companies will have a "dedicated business unit or sales channels to access machine customer markets" by the end of 2026.
Among the MES Computing readership, 28 percent said they are catering for machine customers and provided some use cases:
- Printer/MFD levels to the supplier under contact to supply toner
- Password resets
- Software that enables automation and integration to business digital transactions.
The augmented connected workforce and machine customers fall under the automation category, which is underpinned by massive amounts of data, machine learning and sensor networks. In this category, preventative maintenance and the industrial IoT were most likely to be pursued by respondents this year.
