PTC, Microsoft, VW Team on Generative AI

PTC has confirmed it is partnering with Microsoft and the Volkswagen Group on a generative AI product for software development in physical products.

Codebeamer Copilot is based on PTC’s Codebeamer application lifecycle management (ALM) technology, which is aimed at enabling software engineers to create and manage product requirements more efficiently, as well as allowing them to test, validate and release them.

Boston-headquartered PTC has supplied Codebeamer to the automaker since 2023, when it was announced that the VW Group was adopting it to support software development on its next generation of electric vehicles, across multiple brands.

The VW group has one of the biggest portfolios in the auto industry, with Volkswagen, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, the Czech Republic’s Skoda, Spain’s SEAT and Cupra (which PTC has worked with previously), Germany’s Audi and Porsche, the U.K.’s Bentley and Italian supercar maker Lamborghini all in its charge.

Now PTC and the VW Group are collaborating with Microsoft to provide added value to Codebeamer by embedding generative AI with Microsoft Azure AI capabilities.

Robert Kattner, head of IT engineering at the VW Group, explained how Copilot will help the company develop new products in future.

“By having Microsoft Azure AI in the Codebeamer software, it can assist us with creating new specifications and test cases. It can also improve the quality of our requirements by removing duplicates and checking against existing quality standards. Furthermore, it can help our teams to import requirements references from older IT systems. 

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“It will drive our productivity gains by reducing the time to import, review and write requirements. In a nutshell, our engineers will do their work more efficiently.”

Dayan Rodriguez of Microsoft added: “The manufacturing sector holds tremendous opportunities for generative AI use cases. Codebeamer Copilot is a meaningful example of how generative AI can make a long-standing, complex process like product development simpler and more efficient.”

A beta release of Codebeamer Copilot is expected in early 2025.