March 31, 2026 · siemenssimatic-axtia-portalplc-programmingindustrial-automationai
I think many current PLC programmers will laugh at me for even asking this. “Of course TIA Portal is the main tool.”
And their strongest argument? Try giving a structured text program to a technician on the shop floor and ask them to troubleshoot. Or better yet, hand them a command line tool to check PLC logic.
The answer is obvious: most shop floor technicians won’t understand structured text, and very few know how to work with command line tools.
That answer is correct. For yesterday. Maybe even for today.
But what most of us don’t understand yet is that the way we work is changing. Dramatically. Even for technicians on the shop floor. And I think this change is coming very soon.
Imagine this scenario
A technician has no idea how the PLC program works. He walks up with a laptop, connects to the PLC - wireless, wired, whatever - and opens a program on the desktop. Let’s call it “Siemens PLC Analyzer.” He selects the PLC from a list, then types or just dictates the issue he’s observing.
The program thinks for a few minutes, then reports back with a detailed explanation of what’s wrong and a request to confirm the fix. Depending on factory security rules, the technician either sends the report to engineering for approval or confirms it himself.
Then the AI fixes the issue, uploads changes to the PLC, creates a report in the factory system, opens and closes the ticket, documents exactly what happened, and saves source files to a Git repository for easy rollback.
Does that technician care what language the PLC program was written in? Ladder, Structured Text, Python - does it matter? Of course not.
Why Simatic AX wins in this future
But! For the designer who works with AI tools at every stage of the design process, Simatic AX is much more convenient and functional than TIA Portal. And for AI troubleshooting the program? Software written in structured text that can be fully controlled via command line is far more capable.
Maybe we’re not fully there yet. But do you think it’s going to take long? I guess it won’t.
The big players in the industry clearly understand this. That’s why everyone is pushing to create tools like Simatic AX. The question is no longer what tool is more convenient for humans. The question is what tool is more convenient for AI agents.
We may like it or not. But this is where it’s going.
My advice
I’ve been experimenting with Simatic AX myself. I should say it can’t do everything TIA Portal does yet. But the direction is clear. So here is my advice:
Don’t ignore Simatic AX. Start learning it now. Pick one small project and try building it in AX instead of TIA Portal. It’s not replacing TIA Portal today, but very soon it will - and it’s better to be ready.
