At Fakuma 2026, ENGEL will show its autonomous injection molding cell with an upgrade of ENGEL Virtual Assistant (EVA), demonstrating how ENGEL is turning artificial intelligence (AI) into measurable production performance.

inject AI gives the ENGEL injection molding cell a voice: questions become answers – and answers become action.

ENGEL Virtual Assistant (EVA)

The EVA understands questions asked in natural language, places them into the context of the machine, draws on relevant expertise, and points to the next step.

EVA understands questions asked in natural language, detects deviations in the process, and suggests concrete solutions – an assistant that goes well beyond a typical chatbot.

And it doesn't stop there: once the operator confirms, EVA can pass approved changes straight through to the machine control system – moving beyond a simple question-and-answer tool to a genuinely capable assistant that sets itself apart from conventional chatbots.

In summary, EVA takes this individual context into account and follows a simple principle:

• Understand: Operators ask their question in their own words – by text or voice. EVA places it in the context of the machine and the current job.

• Interpret: The data is linked to ENGEL's machine, process and service expertise.

• Explain and recommend: EVA makes complex relationships easy to understand, and suggests the next sensible step is.

• Act with control: EVA prepares approved changes and, once the operator confirms, passes them on to the machine control system.

ENGEL AI Interface

The technological foundation for these new capabilities is the ENGEL AI Interface. It makes machine context available in a controlled way for approved ENGEL use cases, relying in part on the Model Context Protocol (MCP), which provides machine information to AI applications in a structured, context-aware format.

It is available for every new ENGEL and WINTEC injection molding cell – as an optional feature on new machines, and as a retrofit for existing machines equipped with a CC300 or C3 control unit. This means customers can plan the virtual assistant as a standard equipment option for their production.

More to come: AI ecosystem is gathering pace

The cell on show at Fakuma 2026 embodies the bigger vision behind inject AI: automated, self-regulating production that, in future, could even run lights-out. To achieve this, ENGEL is bringing machines and digital solutions together into a single system via EVA and the ENGEL AI Interface, making AI increasingly usable in real production environments.

Working together with customers and selected partners, ENGEL is developing new use cases, validating them step by step, and introducing them into real-world production settings.