Ford has rehired 350 veteran engineers after its AI-powered quality systems failed. Some were former staffers; others came from suppliers.
Ford's chief operating officer Kumar Galhotra told journalists the company had been "relying more and more on automated quality systems" — and it didn't work.
Charles Poon, Ford's VP of vehicle hardware engineering, was direct: "Mistakenly we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and ingesting the design requirements that we had, that that would produce a high-quality product." The company had overestimated what AI alone could accomplish.
The rehired engineers are identifying failure points before production and training younger staff while refining the AI tools. Ford expects $1 billion in cost reductions this year. The company also topped JD Power's Initial Quality Survey among mainstream brands this week.
Ford is not abandoning AI. It has recognized that the expertise of experienced engineers — the accumulated knowledge that comes from years in the field — remains essential. The company's approach now combines human judgment with automated systems rather than replacing one with the other.
