Like many companies across industries, Ford had integrated AI into parts of its operations, including quality checks, in an effort to improve efficiency.

Explaining the decision to bring veteran engineers back into the process, Charles Poon, Ford's vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, said AI proved to be a valuable tool but could not replace decades of human experience.

"Artificial intelligence is a fantastic tool, but it's only as good as the information you use to train it," Poon told reporters, as quoted by the BBC.

He acknowledged that the company had underestimated the value of its most experienced engineers.

"Over prior years, we didn't pay as much attention as we should have to the experience of our most knowledgeable engineers that have been with us through many product cycles," he said.

Poon added that Ford's AI-driven quality checks had failed to deliver the expected results.

"Mistakenly, we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and ingesting the design requirements that we had, that would produce a high-quality product," he said.

The move marks a rare instance of a major manufacturer reversing course on AI in favour of greater human involvement in engineering and quality control.

The development comes as Ford reported a major milestone in product quality. The company said it ranked as the No. 1 mainstream brand in the J.D. Power 2026 U.S. Initial Quality Study (IQS), achieving the top position after a 16-year effort.

According to Ford, it climbed from 15th place in 2023 to first among mainstream brands in the annual survey of new-vehicle buyers.

As part of its renewed engineering strategy, Ford hired around 300 veteran engineers to strengthen vehicle design and quality from the earliest stages of development.

"Free from daily production schedules, these engineers now act as internal auditors, running mandatory weekly design reviews to hunt for and eliminate potential failure points before blueprints ever reach the factory floor," the company said in a statement.