Honeywell Unveils AI-Powered Experion Cognition, Bringing Autonomous Control Rooms Closer to Reality for Industrial Operations

Honeywell’s new Experion Cognition platform leverages AI-driven autonomous decision-making to enhance safety, efficiency, and operational performance, marking a major leap toward self-managing industrial control rooms.

Honeywell today introduced Experion Cognition, an AI-enabled control system platform designed to advance autonomous operations by making recommendations and automated decisions that optimize production and increase safety within industrial facilities. The live proof-of-concept was demonstrated at Borouge Group International AG’s (“Borouge International”) Ruwais facility in Abu Dhabi.

By proactively detecting and mitigating abnormal situations before they happen, Experion Cognition can help reduce process mistakes and downtime, ultimately increasing the operator’s scope of responsibilities while optimizing facility production.

“The industry has talked about autonomous control rooms for years – and now, Experion Cognition brings autonomous control rooms into production, driving safer operations and stronger performance in complex environments,” said Jim Masso, president and CEO of Honeywell Process Automation. “With AI-powered agents actively managing process abnormalities, operators can consistently achieve better results, day after day.”

“The industry has talked about autonomous control rooms for years – and now, Experion Cognition brings autonomous control rooms into production, driving safer operations and stronger performance in complex environments.”

— Jim Masso, president and CEO of Honeywell Process Automation

The platform combines Honeywell’s decades of process automation expertise with AI models to proactively act on behalf of the operator to help resolve anomalies in the control room. As long-time operators retire, automating situation management can help solve the industrial workforce shortage and skills gap that exists. By delegating those cognitive tasks to autonomous agents, Experion Cognition helps enable less experienced operators to run plants with comparable knowledge as that of a seasoned veteran.

“Representing the petrochemical industry’s first AI autonomous operations, this collaboration sets a new industry standard for efficiency and innovation, upskilling our people, as well as boosting our performance and competitiveness,” said Dr. Hasan Karam, Chief Operating Officer of Borouge International. “This initiative is a core component of Borouge International’s AI, Digitalization & Technology program reflecting our continued focus on disciplined execution, operational impact and long-term value creation.”

“Representing the petrochemical industry’s first AI autonomous operations, this collaboration sets a new industry standard for efficiency and innovation, upskilling our people, as well as boosting our performance and competitiveness.”

--Dr. Hasan Karam, Chief Operating Officer of Borouge International

Experion Cognition incorporates several AI-enabled features including Operations Assistant. In multiple pilots, the platform was able to make predictions an average of 5-10 minutes before alarm incidents.

As part of Honeywell’s Experion PKS distributed control system network, Experion Cognition is designed to seamlessly integrate into existing control room environments. Experion Cognition will be commercially available in Q3, 2026.