3M Uses AI to Tame Its 60,000-Product Portfolio

3M sells more than 60,000 products, spanning adhesives, abrasives, films, automotive materials, electronics and safety gear, so many that finding the right product has become its own obstacle to a sale.

The company launched Ask 3M, an AI assistant that gives industrial customers direct, self-service access to its technical expertise, 3M said in its own announcement. The tool focuses on industrial adhesives and tapes, with plans to expand into more categories over time.

Ask 3M’s answers are grounded in verified 3M documentation rather than open internet data. An engineer can type a question in everyday terms and get a response sourced directly from the company’s own technical archive across 49 technology platforms. Example queries 3M has published include identifying a structural adhesive that can bond carbon fiber to aluminum, comparing  3M VHB Tape 5952 against Adhesive Transfer Tape 468MP, and learning how to apply 3M Scotch-Weld DP420NS Black.

“Our customers rely on 3M for deep application expertise and collaborative problem-solving across a wide range of industries,” said Chris Goralski, group president of 3M’s Safety and Industrial Business Group. “Ask 3M extends that expertise in a new way, giving customers faster, more direct access to the information they need to evaluate options and make decisions.”

During testing, a production engineer used the tool to solve a real problem: bonding plastic to insulation foam inside a metal assembly, within a 24-hour window before the adhesive needed to cure, NAUMD reported.

Second Tool Lets Engineers Test Materials Before They Exist

3M paired Ask 3M with a second tool aimed earlier in the design process. The 3M Digital Materials Hub, previewed at CES in January, lets engineers test how a material will actually behave before committing to a physical prototype, 3M said in its own announcement. The Hub’s Workbench feature connects customers directly with 3M scientists. The platform can even model materials that don’t yet exist, so a customer can request something built to solve a specific design problem, and 3M uses its own materials expertise to build the real version afterward.

“At 3M, we’re combining decades of material science with AI so engineers can make better decisions, faster,” said Holly Semerad, chief marketing officer for 3M’s Safety and Industrial Business Group. In a pilot with select customers, engineers said the Hub let them test 3M materials virtually, speeding up both prototyping and design while cutting the number of iterations needed, according to the same announcement.

Finding the Product Is Now Part of Selling It

The logic behind both tools is the same. An engineer who cannot quickly find the right adhesive, tape or material inside a 60,000-product catalog has two options: spend time digging through documentation or talking to a sales rep, or give up and try a competitor’s product instead. Every hour spent hunting for the right spec sheet is an hour a sale can be lost to a rival whose catalog was easier to search, whether or not 3M actually made the better product.

Ask 3M links its product recommendations directly to authorized 3M distributors and lets users download supporting documents inside the same conversation, StockTitan reported, shortening the path from research to purchase.

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