FlowFuse Advances Industrial AI Integration for Node-RED Automation

David Wright
Oct 16
2 min read

What FlowFuse Does

FlowFuse is a low-code development platform bringing innovation to enterprise companies. Elevating Node-RED, the renowned open-source development tool, FlowFuse empowers companies to transform their production by building custom, adaptable applications. Built by Nick O’Leary, the founder behind Node-RED, FlowFuse is created to be approachable for teams of all sizes. FlowFuse preserves the power of open source while transforming the tool through enhanced features for security and scalability, making it an ideal platform for complex enterprise applications.

The Industrial AI Landscape and FlowFuse

This is a game-changer for industrial automation teams who want practical AI that simply works in their environments. The new FlowFuse AI nodes allow for secure agent deployment, direct interaction with OT systems, and empower users to move from concept to production in days, not months. FlowFuse is lowering the barrier so more organizations can benefit from tailored machine learning and generative AI in real applications.

Since August 2025, FlowFuse has rolled out successive updates expanding AI capabilities across all tiers of industrial operations. Recent customer deployments have seen reductions in integration overhead and time-to-value for automated monitoring and control projects. Industrial users need speed, flexibility, and trust. With these capabilities, FlowFuse is delivering all three—bridging the gap between advanced analytics and the edge.

The FlowFuse Solution

The latest updates introduce seamless AI-agent deployment, advanced MCP (Model Context Protocol) integration, ONNX model support, and the launch of FlowFuse Expert for operational teams.

With these advancements, FlowFuse enables operational technology (OT) and IT teams to rapidly deploy, orchestrate, and monitor industrial applications enhanced by AI—without the need for additional proprietary infrastructure.

The new feature set includes:

MCP Nodes — Enabling native, secure connectivity for AI agents to interact with real-time process data, assets, and events through Node-RED, using open standards for easy integration.
Custom AI via ONNX — Allowing users to train, export, and deploy their own AI/ML models (in ONNX format), unlocking use cases in predictive maintenance, quality control, anomaly detection and more—all within familiar workflows.
FlowFuse Expert — A dedicated, in-product AI assistant trained on FlowFuse documentation, driving developer productivity through real-time, accurate guidance and customized recipes for building automation solutions.

The Technology Behind FlowFuse: Node-RED

Node-RED is a flow-based programming tool, originally developed by IBM's Emerging Technology Services team and now a part of the JS Foundation. It provides a browser-based editor that makes it easy to wire together flows using the wide range of nodes in the palette that can be deployed to its runtime in a single-click.