Finding Answers

It’s a sunny but cold fall day in Mannheim, and with the November release still around the corner, this episode is all about finding answers. In this in-between episode of the AntiPattern Podcast, Christian, CTO, and Michael, CEO of Elevating Patterns, take on the questions you sent them via social media, email, and at events. First up: are they afraid of AI? Not at all. Without AI, they couldn’t have built the company the way they did with such a small team. Many of the scary headlines, they argue, are part of the hype cycle and a good portion of marketing. Their own experience looks different: guardrails are working, and the latest models even ask for explicit confirmation before running risky shell commands. What actually worries them more are hallucinations and non-deterministic answers. Which leads straight to the next question: what’s your moat? The answer is the EP Core. Built over two years, it handles configuration and lifecycle management, and it can’t be changed by AI. Christian and Michael love vibe coding and want customers to vibe-code on top of their platform, just not the parts where you need deterministic results and a reliable audit trail. Because when it comes to critical product and process data, “if you’re lucky, it works” isn’t good enough. They also describe their dream customer: a problem-aware company, ideally from the German machinery Mittelstand, that’s fed up with its current PLM vendor, understands its own processes, and believes the process should lead while the tool follows. Bonus points for being open to working with a startup and ready to break up silos between PLM, ERP, and MES. And will Elevating Patterns build CAD connectors? Short answer: no. CAD data management is a solved problem. Keep your PDM, connect it to the digital thread, and leave the desktop connectors to partners. The highlight of the week: a sneak peek at the next release, with drag and drop across browser tabs and windows. Something many big vendors still don’t support, even though the browser API has been around for years. Built with AI in about 20 minutes. Plus: Elevating Patterns now has a community area where you can register for events, vote on features on the roadmap, and leave your feedback. Got a question of your own? Send it in, and you might find the answer in a future episode.