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By the Leeham News Team

 Sept. 8, 2025, © Leeham News: In the second part of our article series about the Production of the next new aircraft, we look at the latest trends around advancing the state of the art for aircraft production.

Figure 1. The next new airplane, whether from Airbus, Boeing, Embraer or another company, will use AI and other new technologies. Credit: Leeham Co.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is going to replace human beings, or so claims Elon Musk.

Digital design and digital twin factories are going to dramatically lower costs, speed construction, and improve production efficiency. At least that’s what proponents claim.

While there might be a lot of truth in these claims, it’s not the whole story.

But the drive toward reindustrialization, as one industry consultant calls it, may be a drive that is too theoretical and could overlook the fact that production is done and controlled by humans.

One aerospace company is putting the brakes on the theoretical spin and focusing on the road to higher efficiency by slowing down this transformation in favor of employee training and motivation to emphasize safety over cost-cutting and automation to gain efficiency.

Striking a balance between the reindustrialization theoretical gains and the focus on the human in the system will be tricky. LNA had spent months interviewing companies, consultants, current and former employees of key companies, and researching public-domain information to paint a picture of how production will be transformed in the coming years.

We begin the advancement of the state-of-the-art part of the series with an interview LNA did at the Paris Air Show with the consulting firm Accenture.