🎙️ Maneva is building video-based AI agents that plug directly into real-world manufacturing environments and deliver real-time insights across safety, uptime, quality, and process improvement without changing the floor layout or installing a new camera system.
This week on TOOL OR DIE, we talk to Rae Jeong, Maneva co-founder and CEO. From his roots in a blue-collar Alberta town to AI research at Google DeepMind, Rae shares how his experience in robotics, factory work, and frontier AI led to Maneva’s mission: to democratize high-performance factory intelligence through edge-deployed, reinforcement-learning-driven video agents.
We cover the surprisingly hard edge of video AI in manufacturing—from jammed conveyors and missed safety protocols to process drift and equipment failure—and how learning systems trained on video, not just static images, might define the next wave of manufacturing optimization.
Timestamp:
01:00 – From South Korea to Alberta to DeepMind: Ray Kim’s unusual path
06:30 – What AI at DeepMind taught him about the limits of research
10:30 – Why he left DeepMind to start Maneva
13:00 – Maneva’s core pitch: video-to-action AI for messy, real-world factories
17:00 – Why reinforcement learning on the edge matters
21:00 – Mission-critical AI that integrates with PLCs, not the cloud
24:00 – Beyond defect detection: using AI for downtime and predictive maintenance
28:00 – Introducing Kaizen: factory-wide root cause analysis across agents
31:00 – Real-world RCA: how video caught a missing prep station
34:00 – The cost of jams and what video AI can really prevent
Key Topics:
Edge-deployed AI in high-variance, high-volume environments
Reinforcement learning vs pretraining for real-world reliability
Why video (not “vision”) matters in industrial intelligence
Video-based RCA: identifying bottlenecks and preempting downtime
Oneva’s broader thesis: Kaizen 2.0 powered by AI agents, not binders
🔧 Learn more: Maneva.ai
Sponsor
This episode of TOOL OR DIE is brought to you by DOSS, the adaptive ERP.
DOSS kills implementation hell by working directly with your team, connecting all your systems to minimize data entry so you can focus on production. Instead of barging in like a bull in a china shop, they take a deep look at your actual operations and build a system that matches how you operate today, replacing only the parts that need improving—rather than trying to fix what’s already working great.
DOSS — One Platform, Total Visibility
TOOL OR DIE is hosted by Joel Johnson, former science & tech journalist turned corporate strategist who built brands like Gizmodo, WIRED.com, and Wirecutter; and Alex Roy, General Partner at New Industry Venture Capital (NIVC.us), known for breaking the Cannonball Run record and his work in autonomous vehicles. Each week, they speak with the people actually rebuilding American manufacturing—one machine, one company, one idea at a time.
Follow them at:
LinkedIn: joeljohnson | alexroy
X: @joeljohnson | @alexroy144
