Experion puts an expert AI assistant at each user’s elbow

The past is supposed to be prologue, so who’s more likely to help you succeed in an uncertain and increasingly chaotic future? Someone who’s been helping you get there all along of course.

During each of the past five decades and longer, Honeywell introduced numerous epic process control and automation innovations, such as the first distributed control system (DCS), which it steadily refined and continuously evolved from the TDC 2000 and TDC 3000 to the Experion Process Knowledge System (PKS), along with its subsequent variants and related tools.

“Fifty years isn’t just about our Honeywell Users Group event. It also reflects a half century of us partnering with our customers, and where we’ve all come from. As the first DCS, TDC 2000 was the first digital control that could sit above panel-based processes,” said Jason Urso, CTO for Honeywell Process and Industrial Automation, who delivered his traditional technology overview keynote on the opening day of Honeywell Users Group Americas 2026 in Phoenix. “Its advantages carry through to today, where its principles continue to deliver better safety, and higher throughout and yields. The same is true for Experion PKS, which works with combined protocols, and likewise increases efficiency and throughput.”

More recently, Urso reported how Experion LEAP integrated with Honeywell’s software-configurable Universal I/O modules in 2012 paved the way for virtualized, cloud-based engineering and automated commissioning. And, just six years ago, Experion HIVE took its control capabilities onto local networks, which enabled modular process engineering. “Experion HIVE made every channel accessible by any controller. It also allowed virtual control to eliminate the need for traditional load-balancing restrictions, and enabled any controller to backup any other,” explained Urso. “This allowed HIVE to achieve faster project execution, modular components, quicker engineering, and network with remote I/O.”

Just in the past few years, TDC 3000 also evolved to integrate with a unified Experion human interface and control environment, Enhanced High-Performance Process Manager (EHPM) controllers and Experion Local Control Networks (ELCN) via Ethernet. This capability enabled it to migrate control loops from the High-Performance Process Manager (HPM) side to the C300 controller side, which let users harness the latest digital technologies, make projects more efficient, improve plant operations, assure continuous evolution, and make people safer and more effective.

“Just like 50 years ago, a new set of technologies are coming that can unlock new benefits, make every day your best production day, and give every user access to world-class expertise,” added Urso. “We’re calling our new solution Experion Cognition.”

Getting to know Cognition

Urso led off his introduction to Honeywell’s latest control innovation with several questions:

• What if the human control loop can be addressed?
• What cognitive processes can be modeled?
• What if we could help multiple disciplines?

“If the human control loop can be enabled by automation for the best performance, that’s what will really put us on the path to autonomous process control,” said Urso. “We’re combining traditional, deterministic automation with probabilistic AI, and that’s part of Experion Cognition, too. This lets operators with less experience act as if they’ve got a veteran with 30 years of experience right there with them, which is especially important during transitional periods.”

Urso reported that Experion Cognition will be available as an add-on to its R530 distributed control system architecture update and its upcoming R600 release.   

“Experion Cognition is a new way of operating and capturing knowledge, with AI agents working with deterministic controls to reduce workloads. It makes every operator into their company’s best operator,” said Peter Davis, senior engineering director for process automation at Honeywell. “Operators and process engineers are familiar with equipment failures, feed issues, weather disturbances and sensors failures, but it usually takes years of dealing with them to become an expert. Experion Cognition helps them detect and respond to any event that shifts their process from steady-state control, instead of having to wait for the usual alerts.”

Graeme Laycock, user experience director for process automaton at Honeywell, added that Experion Cognition allows faster detection and resolution of situations as well as reducing peak workloads for operators.

“Experion Cognition continuously monitors, knows what good operations look like, and can explain to users what it’s detected, what the appropriate response is, and enact changes OK’d by the user,” explained Laycock. “For instance, if a sensor is malfunctioning or other abnormal behavior is happening, Experion Cognition can add the calculated value needed to return the process to a steady state. At the same time, users can pause it, review what it wants to do, and allow Experion Cognition to act or not. In any case, the operator is still in control.”

Building a boiler

Beyond its initial data coordination and delivery functions, Experion Cognition can help users develop new projects, while also maintaining and extending existing systems.

“We’re completely revolutionizing how we perform many tasks, so we’re referring to this capability of Experion Cognition as Vibe Engineering,” said Joe Bastone, growth initiatives director for process automation at Honeywell. “It uses natural language and generative AI to achieve better overall execution speed, reduced effort, better accuracy, fewer changes and an optimized hardware footprint.”

For example, if a user wants to add a fourth boiler to their facility, an engineering company may build it. However, Bastone reported they can develop and engineer its controls in-house simply by saying, “Hey, Cognition, we want to add a fourth boiler to my existing control system. Use existing Boiler #3’s controls logic, HMI, alarming, trends and reports as a model for planning Boiler #4.” This and subsequent prompts will allow Experion Cognition to identify what resources the users already have on hand, and what else they’ll need to procure. It will then generate P&IDs, PFDs, C&E metrics, control narratives, control strategies, HMI displays, test scripts and other documents and materials that the project will require.

“What’s truly revolutionary here is how much less time and expertise is required of users to start a project like this,” added Bastone. “Instead of weeks, they only need days of effort. This is what Experion Cognition can do.”

Enable expert operations

Just as Experion Cognition can develop new projects, Urso reported that Honeywell’s new Plant Cognition solution can help existing operations by coupling many capabilities of its Honeywell Forge enterprise and IoT platform with Honeywell UOP’s legendary refining and process technology know-how. Among its many capabilities, Plant Cognition can identify onsite loops and inform users what needs to be done with them and when.

“Plant Cognition is also an asset performance management solution, which lets users add UOP’s expertise to their designs, and use it in their daily operations,” explained Anand Vishnubhotla, chief technology and software portfolio officer, process automation, at Honeywell. “Plant Cognition lets UOP and Honeywell Forge work as one solution and produce more key insights.”

Isabel Chan, offering management director for process technology at Honeywell, added that, “Plant Cognition also lets user enhance the value of their process operations without adding risk. Integrating UOP’s expertise into Honeywell Forge means that sample data from many sources is available daily, which allows Plant Cognition to recommend the best windows and targets much more quickly. The other great advantage is these analytics can also build on each other.”

To further extend these insights and benefits, Elena Mayor, senior offering management director for process automation at Honeywell, added that it’s introducing Honeywell Digital Prime, which also builds on Honeywell Forge, and generates multiple highly detailed dashboards to help proactively resolve DCS operations and maintenance tasks that many users still perform manually.  

“Honeywell Digital Prime turns data into insights, expands enterprise visibility, and provides input they can use today,” said Mayor. “It can also help with migrations, enabled services, cybersecurity insights, asset inventories, upgrade visibility and lifecycle management.”

Christian Salazar, senior offering management director for process automation at Honeywell, added that, “Digital Prime is no longer just for maintenance. It’s also using AI for diagnostics and shortening the time to resolve issues. For example, it can find individual controllers onsite and identify overrunning CPUs much more quickly.”