Newark expands access to Emerson's NI Nigel™ AI, helping engineers accelerate development with purpose-built AI
Newark is expanding access to Emerson's NI Nigel™ AI, a purpose-built AI technology for test and measurement. New enhancements, now available through Newark, advance the technology from AI advisor to AI author with new code generation and automated test development capabilities across the NI software portfolio. These enhancements help bring Emerson’s AI-enabled test capabilities to more engineers worldwide, accelerating development while maintaining the rigor, oversight and validation essential to modern test and measurement environments.
As engineering systems become increasingly software-defined and connected, test engineers face growing pressure to manage more complex development and validation workflows without compromising quality or increasing development time. Unlike general-purpose AI tools, NI Nigel AI is designed by Emerson for test engineering environments, providing context-aware assistance that understands engineering code and workflows, existing test systems and application data.
Embedded within the NI software, Nigel AI helps engineers accelerate tasks such as code generation, debugging, sequence development and system understanding. With Emerson’s latest enhancements, Nigel AI is moving beyond supportive guidance into AI-assisted authorship, including prompt-based code generation within NI LabVIEW™ and automated sequence generation in NI TestStand™. This enables engineers to move from design to validation more quickly while remaining in control of reviewing, validating and deploying their work.
At NI Connect 2026, Emerson engineers demonstrated Nigel AI's practical impact by reducing a task that had previously required about 20 hours of work spread across two weeks using conventional coding AI tools into a workflow completed in approximately 20 minutes, delivering working results on the first attempt.
“AI has enormous potential to improve engineering productivity, but its real value comes when it fits naturally into the way engineers already work,” said Andy Weatherill, Global Head of Product and Technology, Newark. “By making Emerson's NI Nigel AI available through Newark, we're helping customers adopt purpose-built AI that complements engineering expertise, accelerates development, and supports the high standards of quality and validation that modern test environments demand.”
“The future of AI in engineering isn’t about replacing engineers—it’s about enhancing the way they work,” said Siddarth Sethi, Vice President and General Manager, NI Test and Analytics Software, Test & Measurement, Emerson. “Nigel brings AI directly to the systems, workflows, and data that engineers rely on every day, combining speed with rigor and helping teams solve increasingly complex challenges with confidence.”
Built on the AI-ready NI platform, Nigel AI connects hardware, software, data and engineering workflows to provide intelligent assistance across the full test lifecycle. Rather than operating as a standalone AI tool, it integrates into existing engineering environments, supporting development, validation, troubleshooting and deployment while helping reduce repetitive tasks and streamline complex workflows.
Emerson's NI Nigel™ AI is now available at Newark in North America, Farnell in EMEA, and element14 in APAC.
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Farnell Global is a fast and reliable distributor of products and technology for electronic and industrial system design, maintenance and repair. From research and design through prototype to production. Farnell Global helps its customers access the products and services they need 24/7. With more than 80 years of experience, 48 localised websites, and a dedicated team of over 3,000 employees, Farnell Global provides every component its customers need to build the technology of tomorrow.
Farnell Global trades as Newark in the Americas, Farnell in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Japan, and element14 across Asia Pacific. It also sells direct to consumers through its CPC business in the UK.
Farnell Global has been part of the established global technology distributor, Avnet (Nasdaq: AVT), since 2016. Today, this relationship allows the company to support its customers at every stage of the product life cycle, offering a truly unique distribution model, as well as expertise in end-to-end delivery and product design.
For more information, visit http://www.farnell.com