---
id: "concept-software-defined-factory-roles"
type: "concept"
source_timestamps: ["¶22"]
tags: ["future-of-work", "role-design", "agentic-ai"]
related: ["concept-dynamic-skill-and-task-mapping", "claim-ai-enabled-not-ai-run"]
definition: "Emerging, highly technical, human-led manufacturing positions focused on orchestrating and supervising AI systems, digital twins, and autonomous agents."
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/05/the-best-manufacturers-build-ai-with-workers-not-for-them"
sourceTitle: "The Best Manufacturers Build AI with Workers, Not for Them"
sources: ["adoption"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-adoption"
originDay: 9
articleStem: "hbr-cl-78-build-ai-with-workers"
---
# Software-Defined Factory Roles

As AI use proliferates — particularly with the rise of agentic AI systems, edge computing, and digital twins — the fundamental economics and structure of factory work are shifting. This shift gives rise to **software-defined factory roles**.

These are entirely new categories of manufacturing jobs that are highly technical yet fundamentally human-centered and human-led. Named examples from the source:

- **Reliability engineers** who maintain fleets of autonomous agents and mobile robots.
- **Model-based technicians** who supervise digital twins and anomaly-detection systems.
- **Supervisors of agent swarms** who monitor quality across planning, maintenance, and logistics.

These roles represent the transition of the factory worker from a *manual executor* of physical tasks to an *orchestrator and supervisor* of complex, AI-driven digital and physical systems. Mapping the path into these roles is the practical output of [[concept-dynamic-skill-and-task-mapping]], and the roles themselves are the concrete embodiment of [[claim-ai-enabled-not-ai-run]] — the factory is AI-enabled, not AI-run.

> **Provenance note.** Per enrichment, the exact phrase "software-defined factory roles" appears to be the authors' own forward-looking coinage rather than a standard term in the adjacent skills-architecture literature. McKinsey's "people-agents-robots" / skills-partnership framing is the closest external analogue and is the strongest support for the human-orchestration thesis.