The evolution of digital twins

Digital twins have been a key tool for organisations to create virtual replicas of operating environments. From transportation to manufacturing and oil & gas, they help simulate performance and prepare for 'what-if scenarios'. But they're evolving.

On this week's episode, Bobby talks to ITPro's news and analysis editor, Ross Kelly, to ask what exactly a digital twin is and how they are evolving since the arrival of generative AI.

The term 'digital twin' is even taking on different meanings; in some cases it's not just a virtual replica of a factory floor, for example. We are now seeing digital twins of people, with Forrester describing them as 'Digital Doubles'. Gartner also predicts that some organisations will begin creating 'Digital Twins of Customers' as a way to simulate how customers might respond to specific scenarios.

Highlights

"We covered this around two years ago on the website: 'AI and digital twins are a match made in heaven'. AI within the context of a digital twin can help improve visualization of real-world dynamics that you're trying to replicate, make sense of the data that you're gathering here, and reduce workloads. For the people that would have traditionally, taken all this on board and been operating and leading the charge on this front."

"I think a great example of AI being used in digital twins at the moment is in Dubai. They launched a digital twin of the entire city, 190-5000 buildings, hundreds of 1000s of infrastructure assets, hundreds of 1000s of public facilities as well. Again, this is part of Dubai's broader digital transformation strategy, but fundamentally this comes down to urban planning and just making it easier, allowing them to create a comprehensive map of everything there."

"Over the last year or two, we've heard chatter about digital doubles or digital twins of workers as well. I think we're going down the rabbit hole here, so to speak. But Forrester's spoken about this quite frequently. The idea of creating a digital double of a worker that's based on all of the information available on that worker internally, their skill sets, what particular unit of the business they're in, and what role they have. There was a fascinating article on the BBC in April this year around Digital Richard, which is essentially an AI, a digital twin of an individual worker. Here, it's not so much a chat bot."

Links

• Are AI digital twins a match made in heaven?
• Does your business need a digital twin?