Business

Ford Discovers Humans Can’t Be Replaced After All

Atharv Chandel, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Ford rehired roughly 350 veteran engineers to reprogram and retrain artificial intelligence tools used for quality control and defect detection.

Ford Motor Company said it brought back these older, experienced “gray beard” engineers over the past three years to rework its AI systems that had been delivering poor quality control results on their own, Bloomberg reported Monday. The automaker now seeks to cut costs by $1 billion in 2026.

“Artificial intelligence is a fantastic tool, but it’s only as good as the information you use to train it,” Charles Poon, Ford’s vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, told Bloomberg. “Over prior years, we didn’t pay as much attention as we should have to the experience of our most knowledgeable engineers that have been with us through many product cycles.”

The brand reached the No. 1 ranking among mainstream brands in the 2026 J.D. Power Initial Quality Study, according to a J.D. Power press release. This is Ford’s best quality ranking in 16 years, the company said in its official announcement. 

“In 2023, we moved our Vehicle Engineering, Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Quality teams under one organization and leader, Kumar Galhotra. This reorg allowed us to look at the entire lifecycle of a vehicle – from software development to suppliers on our plant floor – as one continuous and collaborative flow,” a Ford spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement. “At the same time, we have rallied the whole company around a clear vision: Quality Comes First. We’ve built a culture of relentless problem-solving and recognizing our teams when they prevent issues from reaching customers.”

“To help achieve our quality objectives, we use a number of tools, including artificial intelligence. AI is a powerful tool for catching potential quality issues but it’s only as good as the people using it,” the spokesperson continued. “This is one reason why we have added more than 350 experienced tech specialists to work alongside newer team members.”

“We had been relying more and more on automated quality systems,” Kumar Galhotra, Ford’s chief operating officer, told Bloomberg. “We brought back technical specialists … [T]hey hunt for failure points before a part ever reaches the plant floor.”

Ford still tops the list of most-recalled automakers in the country, having recalled roughly 20 million vehicles in the past year, according to an iSeeCars study. The company told Bloomberg it projects $1 billion in warranty and material spending for the year.

Ford is saving hundreds of millions on repairs and recalls, Chief Executive Officer Jim Farley told the outlet.

“These are all contributing to literally hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of a tailwind for Ford on cost,” he said.

“By combining AI’s processing power and pattern recognition with decades of human engineering experience, we’re identifying potential issues and designing quality into our vehicles from day one while teaching the next generation to prevent problems before they ever start,” the Ford spokesperson added in the company’s statement to the DCNF.

Ford reported its biggest quarterly loss in roughly 17 years in 2026. The brand reported an $11.1 billion net loss for the fourth quarter, driven largely by losses in its electric vehicle division, tariff impacts, and a fire at an aluminum supplier.

“I think the customer has spoken,” Farley said on the company’s earnings call.