About

We work across workforce, institutions, and alliances.

We are a nonprofit working to make the industrious worker the hero of America's AI century. We work in three domains, starting with workforce, and in three ways: writing, convening, and building.

Where IndustriousAF works

Workforce first

Workforce is the pillar we are building now. Institutions and alliances are the two other domains where the same gap between capital and capability shows up. We will build our work there over time.

Active
Pillar 01

Workforce

The people who deploy AI, robotics, and advanced manufacturing on the shop floor.

Operators, technicians, maintainers, field engineers, and integrators who develop their capability through apprenticeship, repetition, and mentorship. We partner with employer-led apprenticeship programs, training pathways, and state workforce boards in the six industrial states the 2030 target focuses on.

Focus: Manufacturing apprenticeship, chrome-collar training, state workforce partnerships.
Agenda forming
Pillar 02

Institutions

Apprenticeship registration systems, certification bodies, and training pipelines. They turn workforce investment into lasting capability.

Procurement pathways, regulatory accommodation, and standards bodies take decades to build. When they weaken, the workforce spending that passes through them goes to waste. We are building a research and commentary agenda on institutional reform in 2026 and 2027.

Focus: Research agenda in development.
On the horizon
Pillar 03

Alliances

The international partnerships American industry depends on and cannot replicate alone.

Tooling from Japan and Korea, lithography from the Netherlands, advanced packaging across Asia, precision machinery across Europe. Industrial strategy should treat allied capability as part of American capability, not as a dependency to eliminate. These partnerships take decades to build and can be lost in one political cycle.

Focus: Early-stage partnerships.
What IndustriousAF does

Founders need workforce partners. Colleges need live production lines. Congress needs evidence the model works.

No one was convening all three, so we are. We work in three ways.

Mode 01

Research & commentary

Essays, op-eds, and forthcoming research measuring American industrial capacity at the operational level. Built as a diagnostic resource for policymakers, funders, and operators.

Venues: American Affairs · American Compass · FT · NZZ
Mode 02

Convening

Small salons and dinners that bring together builders, operators, policymakers, and investors working on the same problem from different angles. The goal is lasting working relationships across sectors that are siloed today.

Reach out about joining our next one
Mode 03

Field-building

The practical work. Initially focused on workforce, through partnership with apprenticeship programs, employer-led training, and the chrome-collar workforce development ecosystem. Extending to Institutions and Alliances as capacity develops.

National chapter network · startup apprenticeships
Get involved

The machines are ready. It is time to train the people who will guide them.

Founders, operators, policymakers, funders, and anyone whose work advances the industrious worker agenda can get involved here.