AI and NI Connect 2026

This week I will be at Emerson’s NI Connect in Fort Worth, Texas, checking out the company’s latest, including Nigel, the LabVIEW AI chatbot. It’s my intent to add a few things from the event to Electronic Design Weekly: May 11-15, 2026. For instance, I expect to hear more about the latest LabVIEW+ Suite and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL).

Nigel is LabVIEW developer’s AI assistant (Fig. 1). It’s integrated into all aspects of the LabVIEW development process, from system configuration to creation of LabVIEW virtual instruments (VI), essentially LabVIEW applications.

Nigel is a focused chatbot rather than a more general version used by most people. It’s trained on NI’s documentation, data, etc., rather than the wider, everything-on-the-internet that’s done with more broad-based chatbots. This approach improves responses and reduces hallucinations.

The latest incarnation of Nigel AI for LabVIEW 2026 adds code completion, which is handy with LabVIEW’s graphical nature. Before that, Nigel provided support for operations like system configuration, documentation, and so on. Developing a VI is similar to conventional programming from a logical standpoint, but the graphical nature of LabVIEW requires a more intimate AI interaction that’s lacking with Claude and ChatGPT at this point.

Testing and Deploying an Electric eVTOL

One of this year’s keynotes comes from Archer Aviation with its electric eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) (Fig. 2). The Midnight aircraft is designed to provide a safe, low-noise solution for short-haul urban transportation. The Midnight was designed, built, and deployed on a compressed timeline with the help of NI hardware and software.

Archer Aviation engineers used NI LabVIEW, NI VeriStand, NI PXI hardware, and NI Switch, Load, and Signal Conditioning (SLSC) hardware during their development and deployment process.

“As we push toward commercial operation, our certification schedule is probably the most aggressive ever attempted in aviation history,” said Dr. Tramone Curry, Director of Integrated Test at Archer Aviation. “And we are able to do that because of our ability to test flight software and hardware at scale in our labs.”

See you in Fort Worth.