Interkey launches Brain: the first industrial controller you describe instead of program
Siemens, Rockwell, and Beckhoff added AI assistants inside their engineering suites. Brain ships as finished hardware with the agent already in it.
Disclosure: Interkey makes a competing product (Interkey Brain). We try to represent every other vendor by their own published material — links to source documents are inline throughout. If we have gotten anything wrong, email editorial@interkey.com.
The announcement
Interkey today introduced Brain, an industrial control system that removes the programming step from machine building. Instead of writing IEC 61131-3 code in an engineering suite, the user describes the machine in plain language — heaters, motors, sensors, setpoints, safety limits — and an AI agent running on the cabinet itself generates the control logic, builds the operator interface, configures alarms, and walks the technician through commissioning.
AI from the other direction
Brain arrives as AI reaches industrial automation from the opposite direction. Siemens, Rockwell, and Beckhoff have each added AI assistants — Eigen, Studio Copilot, and CoAgent — but all three are software features inside an existing engineering suite: the buyer still selects a PLC, opens the IDE, and reviews generated code as a controls engineer. Brain ships as finished hardware with the agent already inside it.
Why it matters for machine builders
For prototyping and small-series production, controls engineering is often the bottleneck. The mechanical build takes weeks; PLC selection, wiring, programming, HMI design, and safety validation take months and require a specialist. Every design iteration repeats the cost.
Brain compresses that work into a conversation, while remaining industrial-grade — rated I/O, on-board power switching, hardware watchdogs, and a published five-tier safety authorization model that governs what the AI is allowed to do. More on this use case on the prototyping page.
Proven on a production machine
Brain's launch customer, WAVE Trockensysteme GmbH, deployed it on its first production freeze dryer, cutting commissioning from twelve weeks to two. WAVE plans to run Brain across a series of 100 freeze dryers — the full story is in the WAVE case study. A second design partner, DeepSleep One, uses Brain for the climate control and on-device AI inside its sleep pod: ten integrated subsystems running fully offline.
Brain is changing our complete approach to machine programming. We have less cost and so much more to offer to the customer!
— WAVE Trockensysteme GmbH, launch customer
Sovereign by design
Brain runs air-gapped. The controller, AI agent, vision system, and historian operate with no cloud dependency, and customers bring their own AI keys — Anthropic, OpenAI, Azure, or a fully local model — so no process data leaves the building. Every AI action is written to an immutable audit trail, and a Python plugin SDK plus an MCP server let machine builders extend the agent with their own domain tools (see developers).
Key facts
- Describe-to-deploy: an on-cabinet AI agent writes PLC logic across all five IEC 61131-3 paradigms, builds the HMI, and guides commissioning
- Complete hardware: CompuLab SBC-IOT-iMX8Plus controller, NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano Super (40 TOPS) for on-device AI, up to 220 I/O points
- Safety model: five-tier authorization (Read / Inform / Configure / Control / Safety-Critical), auto-lock, emergency stop, full audit trail
- Open platform: Python plugin SDK, MCP server, 100+ REST endpoints, BYOK across AI providers
- Protocols included: Modbus, MQTT, OPC UA, SparkPlug B — no per-protocol licence
Availability and pricing
Brain Core is priced at €2,500 and Brain Pro at €5,000, each as a perpetual licence with optional subscriptions for cloud features. Both ship in Q3 2026 and are open for reservation now; a reservation requires no payment. The Brain Vision Pack, adding cameras, microphones, and a vibration sensor, is €990. Brain Gateway, a protocol bridge that brings the Brain agent to existing Siemens, Rockwell, and Beckhoff PLCs, is targeted at €1,500 for 2027. Full breakdown on the pricing page.
Press contact
Interkey builds AI-native industrial control systems. Brain combines controller, I/O, operator interface, AI agent, and machine vision in a single cabinet, replacing a traditional multi-vendor PLC stack. The company was founded by Moritz Marcovici, an electrical engineer and CEO of WAVE Trockensysteme, Brain's launch customer.
Product films and demonstrations are available on the videos page. Press kit, product images, and PCB photography on request: info@interkey.com.
Related
More from the Industry Analysis series
Siemens Eigen Engineering Agent: what the April 2026 GA means for the industry
Real autonomous task execution — not autocomplete. Sold via Siemens Digital Exchange. Cloud-only. Locked to TIA Portal. Here is the honest read.
Rockwell + NVIDIA Nemotron: the first edge-AI industrial Copilot
Nemotron-Nano-9B-v2 on HMI panels and air-gapped servers. Microsoft Azure on the cloud path. Vendor-billed AI. Here is what is new and what is still locked.
Beckhoff TwinCAT CoAgent: MCP-native physical AI from Hannover Messe 2026
Multi-agent architecture. Open Model Context Protocol. Voice control. Companies plug their own MCP servers in. The most philosophically aligned incumbent move.
See how Brain compares