Updated
Updated · Bloomberg · Jun 25
Ford Hires 350 Veteran Engineers, Tops JD Power Quality Survey After AI Stumbles
Updated
Updated · Bloomberg · Jun 25

Ford Hires 350 Veteran Engineers, Tops JD Power Quality Survey After AI Stumbles

3 articles · Updated · Bloomberg · Jun 25

Summary

  • Ford said it became the top mainstream brand in JD Power’s latest Initial Quality Survey, released Thursday, after a three-year push to fix chronic quality problems.
  • 350 veteran engineers were hired over that period — including former Ford staff and supplier talent — to train younger employees and reprogram AI tools that had failed to deliver.
  • Those quality issues had cost Ford billions, pushing the automaker to rely on what it calls “gray beard” engineers in an unusually human-led turnaround.
  • The result gives Ford a concrete quality milestone after years of struggling with defects that technology alone had not resolved.

Insights

Ford revived its quality by valuing humans over AI. Which major industry will be the next to follow suit?
Is Ford's 'gray beard' strategy a sustainable fix, or a temporary patch for AI's inherent flaws?