Alex Hawkinson is the Founder and CEO of BrightAI, where he leads the mission to awaken critical infrastructure, transitioning operations from reactive to proactive. With over 25 years of experience in IoT, AI, SaaS, and cloud-based technologies, Alex leverages his expertise to remodel industries with intelligent, forward-thinking solutions that redefine resilience and efficiency.
Before BrightAI, Alex founded and led SmartThings, a revolutionary IoT platform that reshaped the connected home landscape, known within the tech industry as “father of IOT”. Under his guidance, SmartThings grew into a worldwide standard, supporting over 1 billion connected devices and fostering an ecosystem of 250,000 developers before its acquisition by Samsung in 2014.
BrightAI enhances critical infrastructure management by shifting from traditional reactive approaches to proactive, AI-driven operations. Addressing the challenges of aging systems, the corporate collaborates with owners and operators to enhance productivity, optimize capital efficiency, and support sustainability. Utilizing advanced AI and autonomous technology, BrightAI goals to mitigate risks, strengthen system resilience, and adapt infrastructure for the long run.
Are you able to share the story behind founding BrightAI? What inspired you to concentrate on transforming critical industries with Physical AI?
My journey began in 2012 after I founded SmartThings, one in all the primary IoT platforms to make homes smarter, safer, and more connected. We aimed to simplify life with devices that worked together seamlessly. That have opened my eyes to a bigger opportunity: a lot of the essential services the world depends upon—water, energy, electricity, food, logistics, transportation, and more—originate our homes. The identical principles of connectivity and intelligence could transform critical infrastructure within the physical world. With BrightAI, we’re scaling this vision across eight verticals—water, power, gas, transportation, renewable energy, waste management, pest control, HVAC, and important home services. We’re bringing the connected home model to the systems that power our cities and industries, creating a better, more efficient approach to maintain our critical systems.
What does the term “Physical AI” mean to you, and why do you’re thinking that it’s the trend to look at for 2025?
To me, “Physical AI” merges intelligence with the physical world—bringing AI’s predictive power to industries facing tangible challenges like aging infrastructure, resource inefficiencies, and labor shortages. It creates a digital layer where things like pipes, poles, and machinery turn into “smart” through sensors and AI-driven insights.
Traditional infrastructure management relies on routine visits and manual checks, with 50-80% of costs tied to labor and truck rolls. This inefficient and unsustainable approach contributes to the $4.5 trillion spent annually on infrastructure management. Physical AI replaces this with real-time monitoring, proactive maintenance, and significant cost savings.
How has your experience at SmartThings influenced your approach to constructing BrightAI and tackling challenges in infrastructure?
SmartThings showed me the facility of using data and devices to resolve real-world problems at scale, however it also taught me that the important thing to success is simplicity and accessibility. Technology should empower, not intimidate. At BrightAI, we apply this by creating solutions that seamlessly integrate into industries, helping teams prevent problems somewhat than react to them.
SmartThings also taught me the worth of long-term considering. Seeing the corporate scale to over a billion connected devices after its acquisition by Samsung reinforced the importance of a solid foundation, each in tech and user trust.
BrightAI has achieved impressive revenue growth while in stealth mode. What strategies or aspects do you think contributed to this success?
Our revenue is the results of a focused strategy. We prioritized constructing strong customer relationships and truly understanding the issues they faced in order that we could create the suitable solution. That enabled our customers to trust and consider in our technology before we even delivered a product. I consider in achieving this product-market fit before looking for external funding.
Moreover, it’s all about having the suitable team, and our collective expertise has been instrumental. I brought the teachings I learned from constructing SmartThings, and our leadership team also brings experience from constructing autonomous systems at Rivian, enterprise scalability at Microsoft, and AI advancements at Meta. We have assembled a gaggle uniquely positioned to tackle the challenges of applying AI to the physical world at scale, and we owe our success to the team effort.
With over 250,000 sensors deployed, how does BrightAI collect and leverage data to make real-time decisions and forestall failures in critical industries?
We have now sensors deployed in greater than 50,000 locations—greater than the entire variety of Starbucks or McDonald’s stores worldwide–that act because the eyes and ears of critical infrastructure, gathering data from hard-to-reach and high-risk environments. This data flows into our AI-powered platform, Stateful OS, which uses multimodal models to research and predict potential issues before they escalate.
Are you able to provide examples of how your platform has enabled industries like water and energy to transition from reactive to proactive management?
A key example is our partnership with Azuria Water Solutions, a frontrunner in pipeline rehabilitation. Azuria faced hurdles like workforce shortages and the constraints of manual inspections, which frequently led to inaccurate pipe condition measurements. We retrofitted Azuria’s systems with advanced BrightAI sensors, which enable autonomous robots to navigate pipelines, assess their condition, and discover issues with minimal human input. The goal is to enhance proactive planning by leveraging a digital twin of the water pipelines and increase productivity and quality of rehabilitation and management services while also improving staff retention as the combination of edge AI and robotics makes these jobs more exciting and fewer stressful.
What role does the Stateful OS platform play in making previously inaccessible infrastructure data actionable for blue-collar workforces?
We prefer to call it making the invisible visible. Stateful OS compiles real-time data, which is processed through multimodal AI models to discover patterns, detect anomalies, and predict potential failures. These insights are delivered on to field teams via intuitive dashboards and alerts, enabling them to act quickly and confidently. As an alternative of wasting time and energy on truck rolls, these teams can start their day by reviewing the info and can then know exactly which issues need addressing.
How do BrightAI’s autonomous drones and wearables improve inspection processes and employee safety?
Our drones, equipped with sensors and powered by the Stateful OS platform, can safely and reliably monitor assets like power poles, pipelines, and water systems, even in probably the most distant and hard-to-access sites. For instance, a single drone flight can inspect 50+ poles in comparison with the handful typically covered in a manual flight. This level of automation reduces inspection costs by as much as 30x while increasing productivity and coverage. Our wearables enable hands-free operations and improved decision-making in the sector, allowing employees to act on the speed of machines. Each technologies significantly enhance employee safety by minimizing the necessity for high-risk activities equivalent to climbing poles, entering confined spaces, or operating in hazardous environments.
Your platform bridges the “EBITDA chasm” for traditional businesses. Are you able to explain this idea and the way BrightAI achieves it?
The “EBITDA chasm” refers back to the challenge of modernizing operations without sacrificing profitability. BrightAI bridges this gap by driving hyper-efficient operations that reduce each CapEx and OpEx while boosting customer retention and growth. Our platform enables innovation that delivers immediate value, lowers costs, and strengthens market share. With BrightAI, businesses can revolutionize their industries while steadily increasing profitability.
How do you see Physical AI evolving in the subsequent five years, and what role do you envision BrightAI playing in that transformation?
In the subsequent five years, Physical AI will transform industries by bridging the gap between the physical and digital worlds. Because it evolves, this technology will turn into more integrated, intuitive, and widespread, turning static infrastructure into dynamic, self-monitoring systems that solve problems immediately. Our vision is to drive productivity, capital efficiency, and sustainability across all of our essential services and infrastructure, enabling industries of all sizes to leverage the facility of Physical AI. This technology will democratize advanced capabilities, making what was once exclusive to billion-dollar enterprises accessible to industries of all sizes.
