by Industrial Print Magazine Staff
Artificial intelligence (AI) is used in various ways in additive manufacturing (AM) settings. One role AI is built for is acting as a virtual assistant. Utilized as a tool that helps users cut down on manual processes all while collecting valuable data insights that they can leverage further down the production line.
Shown: Increase productivity in 3D printing with AI-supported chat integration. Swivel bearing created with selective laser melting support structures in CoreTechnologie’s 4D_Additive software.
“Our customers manage large inventories of 3D parts and the sheer time that it would take to manually process them is often a deal breaker for the adoption of three-dimensional (3D) printing. AI can process thousands of parts in parallel, providing highly distilled reports and valuable data insights,” shares Simone Dal Poz, VP of backend, 3YOURMIND.
Lennart Brüning, product developer, CoreTechnologie GmbH, notes that AM is not a monolithic technology, but instead an eco-system of processes—each with its own rules. These rules are difficult to streamline across various methods of 3D printing. For example stereolithography can result in complex support geometries. The powder-based 3D printing process selective laser sintering often leads to thermal stresses. In the metalworking process, process instability can occur, requiring costly post processing. Until now, this knowledge was reserved exclusively for experienced 3D printing users.
“AI-supported assistance has the potential to make this knowledge available in real time, scalable and accessible to every user. This makes the experience of an entire development team tangible in software at any time. The vision—a digital knowledge base that not only provides support, but also learns and continuously adapts to new processes, materials, and machines. This creates virtual expertise that radically shortens conventional learning curves in AM,” explains Brüning.
Task Driven
When AI is used as a virtual assistant in 3D printing settings, it can take on a number of tasks.
AI-powered technical drawing assistance is one example. Users can bulk upload their technical drawings and 3D models, and in a matter of minutes, thanks to AI they receive a feasibility analysis along with cost breakdowns per technology. “With the latest developments in pre-trained language models, AI can extract structured data from heterogeneous sources, such as technical drawings, manuals, thumbnails, and 3D models, and feed it to analytics systems. Together with retrieval augmented generation, it can link all the pieces of information together to create a comprehensive knowledge base and provide recommendations based on already existing, manually validated parts,” shares Dal Poz.
Referred to as automatic geography analysis, Brüning says AI is used here as classic repair and proactive detection of risks. “Such as walls that are too thin or inaccessible support areas. In the case of an automotive supplier, for example, AI assistance provides immediate feedback if the wall thickness of a prototype is too low for MultiJet Fusion process and automatically suggests corrections.”
Another example, adaptive component orientation—consideration of thermal flows, support volumes, and even post-processing strategies, notes Brüning. He provides the example of the virtual assistant for an aerospace engine component that selects a construction orientation that minimizes thermal stresses and facilitates post processing.
AI can take on virtual test printing. “These are simulations that anticipate real production with predictions on distortion, component quality, and surface roughness. In medical technology, implants could be tested virtually in advance so that only validated geometries are actually manufactured,” says Brüning.
The future is bright, Brüning believes even more tasks could fall under AI-powered virtual assistance. “An AI assistant could also evaluate cost effectiveness, comparing the time, costs, and sustainability of different printing strategies at the touch of a button. This would make AI not only a virtual production assistant, but also a business decision-making tool. In this way, AI optimizes the manufacturing process and at the same time calculates the return on investment as an efficient basis for deciding whether a component should be manufactured additively or conventionally.”
Put in Place
AI as a virtual assistant can be implemented via third-party software or directly incorporated into a 3D printer.
According to Brüning a centralized software solution is the most practical approach. “It supports multiple processes and machines and can be flexibly integrated into existing workflows. The advantages of this method are its manufacturer independence and the resulting centralized knowledge database. Nevertheless, disadvantages such as data and know-how protection remain key challenges.”
Brüning advises that independent software platforms offer greater added value. Citing a MarketsandMarkets study that says the market for AI assistants will grow by 44.5 percent annually until 2030, this is a clear indicator of the relevance of this technology.
3YOURMIND is a third-party software provider, so it enables part analysis, material and printer suggestions, analytics, as well as 3D printer orchestrion.
As a third-party software provider, Dal Poz believes that incorporating AI directly into the 3D printer doesn’t capture the whole picture. “Only with a comprehensive understanding of your inventories and workload can AI’s true potential be unlocked. Centralized orchestration and AI analysis are currently more prevalent, but this may change in the future.”
“Direct integration into individual printers is possible, but is usually limited to one manufacturer and one process,” attests Brüning. Which is why as a third-party provider, CoreTechnologie’s 4D_Additive 3D printing software offers a comprehensive software platform for all 3D printing processes.
“Integrating AI into a printer is beneficial only if you are prepared to handle the next level of granularity,” notes Dal Poz.
Necessity or Not
Depending on the setting, AI-powered virtual assistance might not be necessary. It all depends on the environment in question.
According to Dal Poz, “qualified parts with high production volumes and already optimized workflows don’t greatly benefit from AI.”
Brüning believes the following areas benefit from AI integration—industrial applications with high-quality requirements, series production where scrap and process times are crucial, and service centers with a range of machinery and changing customer requirements.
“Here, AI-supported assistance can make a decisive difference from faster decisions to significantly higher process reliability. With its ability to predict which strategy offers the highest process stability and the best utilization, AI has the potential to revolutionize predictive manufacturing,” continues Brüning.
Features to Find
3YOURMIND provides its AI-Powered Technical Drawing Analysis assistant, which extracts data from technical drawings and 3D models, such as dimensions, volume, area, weight, and material, as well as provide alternative material suggestions. In addition, it organizes all the uploaded models into their respective assemblies. Soon the assistant will be able to recognize similar and identical parts and cluster them based on part geometrical properties and metadata. All the reports are made available by a powerful BI tool.
CoreTechnologie offers its 4D_Additive 3D printing software platform for all 3D printing processes. A particular highlight is the AI-supported nesting function. The software uses intelligent strategies to make optimum use of the build space, reduce material consumption, and shorten build times. The CoreTechnologie team is currently developing a new AI assistant. The new tool will answer context-specific questions and provide customers with assistance on processes, parameters, and build orientations. This will facilitate the training of new employees and optimize the daily work of experienced users, contributing to time and cost savings.
3YOURMIND and CoreTechnologie are both examples of third-party software providers offering AI virtual assistance. As aforementioned, there are printer OEMs offering direct integration into their devices.
3DCeram developed CERIA for its CERAMAKER range of printers. CERIA is deployed in several modules, the first of which, CERIA Set, is a 3D printing assistant designed to check files, compose tanks, and produce optimized printing parameters. CERIA is aimed at the market for technical ceramics, which are in great demand for applications such as aerospace, biomedical, and semiconductor. According to the company, the goal of CERIA Set is to maximize productivity, reduce production costs, and reduce time to market.
Rapid Fusion is another OEM that created its own virtual assistant, Bob, thanks to AI. Announced in August 2025, Bob works with Rapid Fusion’s robotic AM systems like Apollo, Medusa, and Zeus. Best-in-class settings include smart extrusion readiness, material aware intelligence, task completion orchestrator, fast pattern matching, AI interpretation, and advanced contextual understanding.
“It’s feature rich, has a modern user interface, is completely secure and, importantly, has been built for universal integration and agent flexibility, meaning it can be shipped with either an OpenAI-powered agent or a locally hosted AI agent for online/air-gapped use,” states Martin Jewell, CTO, Rapid Fusion, in the press release.
The Way of the Future
Whether it’s via third-party software or directly incorporated into a 3D printer, AI-powered virtual assistance certainly seems to be the way of the future.
“AI helps our customers to quickly validate 3D printing use cases and optimize their production workflows,” states Dal Poz.
As a variable-heavy process, it makes sense that AM leverages the power of AI. Utilizing it means less error and quicker build times.
Nov2025, Industrial Print Magazine
