Why your AI strategy stops where the PLC starts: Hard lessons from the OT frontlines

I spent two days at a substation connecting a major offshore wind farm to the grid. The control room featured three new AI-ready dashboards and a board mandate to “leverage machine learning for resilience.” It also had a maintenance laptop running Windows 7, literally taped to the inside of a cabinet because the Velcro had failed. That laptop was the only device in the building that could still talk to the legacy protection relays guarding the grid connection.