Forget the Algorithm - the Data Is Your Real AI Problem | Simon Jagers, Samotics

Simon Jagers, Co-Founder of Samotics, has built the world's most scalable sensorless industrial AI platform, raising $44M and claiming roughly 50% of the global condition monitoring market for hard-to-reach assets. Up to 40% of critical machines in heavy industry operate in places where traditional sensors simply cannot survive - inside blast furnaces hitting 1,500 degrees Celsius, submerged in sewage networks, or buried 3,000 metres underground in oil wells. Simon Jagers spent 11 years solving exactly that problem. Starting as a data science consulting firm and pivoting through failed vibration sensor pilots, Simon built Samotics from the ground up - designing custom hardware, proprietary signal processing, and an AI platform that analyses high-frequency electrical data to detect mechanical and electrical faults across tens of thousands of industrial machines worldwide. The platform now serves clients in steel, oil and gas, wastewater, chemicals, and mining - and is embedded directly into ABB variable speed drive firmware as native infrastructure. Simon shared the full journey, including the near-death pivot at Heineken and the decision to burn every bridge, in this candid conversation with host Dr. Arjun Jain. What you will learn in this episode, 👉How Simon Jagers built Samotics into the global leader in sensorless AI condition monitoring, covering roughly 50% of the market for hard-to-reach industrial assets 👉The Heineken pilot that almost ended the company - and the exact decision that saved it 👉Why up to 40% of factory machines have never been monitored, and how Electrical Signature Analysis (ESA) changes that permanently 👉The counterintuitive case for keeping humans in the AI loop - and why one engineer managing 2,000 assets is a scale strategy, not a workaround 👉Why most industrial AI pilots fail before a single algorithm is written, and the one question every AI team must ask about their data 👉Simon's contrarian take on co-founder trust, cultural inertia, and why the best idea must always win If this episode gave you one insight you can use, subscribe to Human by Design for weekly conversations with founders and operators who are making AI work in the real world. Follow Dr. Arjun Jain on LinkedIn and X for daily posts on AI, entrepreneurship, and what it actually takes to build at the frontier. Chapters: 00:00 - Simon Jagers and the Samotics origin story 04:30 - From IT sales to industrial AI founder 08:45 - The 40% of machines nobody can monitor 13:20 - Why sensors burn, drown, and fail in factories 17:40 - Turning every motor into an AI sensor 20:30 - The Dutch railway that started everything 24:00 - The Heineken pilot that almost killed Samotics 29:00 - Human-in-the-loop as a scale strategy 35:00 - How ESA detects faults without touching the machine 41:00 - Predicting machine failure, the art vs. science debate 48:00 - Burning the boats - no plan B, no off ramp 55:30 - Industries Samotics serves globally 01:00:00 - Claiming 50% of a new AI market category 01:03:00 - Co-founder trust and company culture #SimonJagers #Samotics #IndustrialAI #PredictiveMaintenance #ElectricalSignatureAnalysis #SensorlessMonitoring #ConditionMonitoring #AIStartup #HeavyIndustryAI #AIDisruption #IndustrialIoT #ManufacturingAI #AITransformation #PredictiveMaintenanceAI #DigitalTransformation #FounderStory #AIFunding #HumanByDesign #DrArjunJain #EnterpriseAI #Industry40 #MachineLearningManufacturing #AIScaleup #IndustrialAutomation #OperationalTechnology