Insight

Industry 5.0 Barometer 2025: a Franco-German view on AI and digital transformation

Published October 7, 2025

  • Industry
  • Industry 5.0
Industry 5.0 barometer 2025

Key takeaways

  • Productivity: in a challenging and uncertain economic context, companies are particularly focused on the contribution of digital transformations to operational performance.
  • Data & AI: manufacturers have quickly invested in AI and are seeing initial tangible results with operational use cases of generative AI.
  • Scaling-up: in both Germany and France, upgrading sites on technical fundamentals is the primary obstacle to scaling.
  • Sustainability & human factor: although productivity and quality remain the main drivers of industrial digitalization, CSR continues to gain ground in Industry 5.0 initiatives.

A Franco-German edition at the heart of industrial transformation

Based on 600 respondents in France and Germany, the Industry 5.0 Barometer 2025 explores how digital transformation, AI, and CSR drive industrial performance. This Wavestone study, conducted in partnership with France Industrie, La French Fab, and Hub France IA, highlights maturity, scaling challenges, and ROI gaps across Europe.

Industry 5.0

Industry 5.0 Barometer 2025

pdf · 1082KO

Download the Barometer to benchmark your company’s digital maturity

What defines Industry 5.0 today?

Industry 5.0 encompasses traditional performance objectives (safety, quality, cost, and lead times) while also integrating corporate social responsibility (CSR) ambitions: reducing energy consumption, lowering carbon footprint, protecting the environment, and refocusing on human-centric values.

Digital transformation projects play a key role in this evolution. The study reveals a strong correlation between digital maturity and the achievement of performance objectives: 66% of respondents identified as “digital experts” report having met their goals, compared to only 16% among those still in the experimental phase.

  •  67% of companies incorporate environmental concerns into their digital transformation programs.
  •  74% take human factors into account (such as reducing physical strain, developing skills, improving safety, etc.).
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AI adoption in industry

Artificial intelligence is experiencing explosive growth in industry, surpassing previous waves of digital transformation. This trend is especially pronounced for generative AI, with a 32-point increase in the deployment of generative AI solutions compared to the previous year. However, the question of return on investment (ROI) remains central, as 22% of respondents report no performance gain despite implementing these solutions. The relevance of use cases thus emerges as a key factor.

The functions most impacted by AI are:

  • Supply chain (forecasting improvement): 74%
  • Maintenance (predictive and advanced diagnostics): 74%
  • Quality (notably traceability): 73%

Across all these areas, German companies show a higher adoption rate, about 10 points more when compared to French companies.

  •  35% of companies report having deployed generative AI solutions (compared to just 3% in 2024).
  •  6% of companies have not launched any AI initiatives (across all technologies).
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 Scaling digital projects

Scaling digital transformation across the industry remains a major challenge. The main obstacles identified are:

  • Lack of common standards that promote system interoperability: companies with interoperable systems are 7 times more likely to successfully scale within the expected timeframe.
  • Data accessibility and quality.
  • Spreading cross-functional expertise across project teams (for example, propagating cybersecurity skills rather than systematically relying on dedicated teams outside the project).
  • Lack of coordination between IT teams and end users.

New challenges are also emerging, such as managing sensitive data and cloud sovereignty.

  •  1 in 5 companies succeed in scaling their POCs (Proofs of Concept) into fully deployed solutions at the expected pace.
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Today, operational excellence depends on a systemic approach that integrates the People, Planet, Profit dimensions to design tomorrow’s solutions and ensure long-term competitiveness.

Anne Delphine Beaulieu, Digital Transformation and CSR Director, LISI Group LISI

AI being a tool, it comes with its obstacles. The first level of complexity is data collection, the second challenge is contextualization, and the third one is adoption.

Jean François Henon, Co-founder, Optimistik
Industry 5.0

Industry 5.0 Barometer 2025

pdf · 1082KO

Download the Barometer to benchmark your company’s digital maturity

We would like to thank the following contributors: Hortense Phan, Seif Bouchoucha, Corentin Le Bouëdec, Nicolas Fourquet, and Safae Adaskou.

  • Olivier Fontanille

    Associate Partner – France, Lyon

    Wavestone

    LinkedIn

  • Corentin Hattier

    Senior Consultant

    Wavestone

    LinkedIn