Houston, Texas--(Newsfile Corp. - September 16, 2026) - MultiSensor AI Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: MSAI) ("MultiSensor AI," "MSAI," or the "Company"), a pioneer in early threat detection and condition-based monitoring, today released The Uptime Economy: 2026 Report, which is based on a survey of 152 reliability and maintenance practitioners and VP-level operations leaders in ecommerce distribution and logistics conducted by Censuswide. The research found that 91% of all respondents have approved, implemented or integrated a new automation investment knowing their team or facility wasn't fully prepared or equipped to maintain it. Nearly half (49%) say this has happened more than once.

As e-commerce distribution and logistics facilities continue to invest heavily in automation, the survey data shows a maintenance readiness gap is emerging. Most (99%) reliability and maintenance practitioners say they are confident their facility can catch early degradation of assets before it leads to failure that causes disruption, with 62% saying they are very confident. Yet, 82% of practitioners say their team has dismissed a sensor alert that turned out to be a real asset failure. Eighty-three percent of practitioners have experienced a failure that, in hindsight, showed warning signs they missed or deprioritized. Nearly a third (31%) say this has happened more than once.

"The automation business case almost never includes the plan to keep it running," said Asim Akram, Chief Executive Officer of MultiSensor AI. "Ninety-one percent of the leaders we surveyed knew their team was not ready and moved forward anyway. That is not a technology gap. It is a planning gap, and it shows up two years later as unplanned downtime."

The monitoring behind maintenance overconfidence is thinner than it suggests. Only 10% of practitioners continuously monitor all of their critical assets in real time, 24/7, while two-thirds (66%) monitor periodically, on a scheduled or calendar-based interval. Nearly all respondents (98%) have at least one asset that represents a true single point of failure capable of halting operations.

"A missed warning sign is rarely a case of someone ignoring a problem," said Luke Grice Lowe, Director of Global Reliability and Maintenance Programs at MultiSensor AI. "It is a case of no one being there when the signal appeared. Degradation does not wait for the next scheduled inspection, so when a team is checking on a calendar interval, the misses are built into the schedule rather than into the people."

The cost of limited visibility runs in both directions. Eighty-six percent of practitioners have taken a critical asset out of service for replacement or major repair, only to determine later that it had significantly more usable life remaining. Twenty-seven percent say it has happened more than once.

Additional findings from the survey included:

Unplanned downtime is rising.

• Eighty percent of respondents say their facility experienced six or more unplanned downtime events affecting fulfillment, sortation or distribution operations in the past 12 months.
• Unplanned downtime events have increased compared with three years ago, according to 36% of respondents.

Downtime costs could wipe out automation investments.

• Ninety-five percent of VP-level respondents say the potential financial impact of a major downtime event would match (55%) or exceed (40%) their annual automation investment at a facility.
• Most facilities (55%) invested $5 to $25 million in automation technology over the past three years, while more than a third (35%) invested $25 million to $100 million during the same period.
• Nearly two-thirds (64%) of VPs say their facility does not track uptime at the executive or board level.

Reliability workforces are under pressure.

• Thirty-five percent of all respondents say a lean workforce and not enough skilled technicians is a top barrier to improving uptime.

Get the full Uptime Economy: 2026 Report here.

About MultiSensor AI

MultiSensor AI is a multi-sensor condition intelligence solution for high-throughput and highly automated industrial operations. By unifying thermal, vibration and visual sensor data in a single solution, MultiSensor AI enables reliability teams to proactively protect uptime, reduce maintenance costs, enhance safety, and extend the useful life of their most critical assets. For more information, visit www.multisensorai.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

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