The operations data we actually watch

Factories took in strong new orders this month, but they're running plants a little less hard than before. Meanwhile the money pouring into AI infrastructure is still accelerating, not leveling off. If you run a mid-sized operation, the gap between demand looking fine and capex looking insane is the thing to watch this month.

Manufacturing

Manufacturers' new orders hit $664B in July, up 9.9% from a year ago and up from $658B the month before. That's a real demand signal. But capacity utilization slipped to 75.7% from 76.0%, and the manufacturing output index eased to 99.1 from 99.4. Plants have work on the books but aren't pushing output harder yet. The sharpest flag is manufacturing construction spending, down 21.2% from a year ago to $170B/yr. New plant and expansion spending is cooling even as orders climb.

Software & SaaS

Business investment in software climbed to $809B/yr, up 8.7% from a year ago. The big platform vendors are showing it too: Microsoft revenue up 17.8% for the fiscal year, ServiceNow up 20.9%, Oracle up 17.4%, Workday up 13.1%, Salesforce up 9.6%. But custom programming services jobs actually dipped, 2,363k against 2,364k the month before, down 1.3% from a year ago. Companies are spending more on software and getting it built with fewer custom-dev heads. Open-source ERP activity, the GitHub stars for Odoo, ERPNext, and Dolibarr, stayed essentially flat month over month.

AI & agentic work

Notable AI model releases hit 107 for the year, up from 98, a 9.2% increase. The number that matters more is capital spending: Oracle's capex is up 162.4% from a year ago, Meta up 87.1%, Microsoft up 79.6%, Alphabet up 74.1%, Amazon up 58.8%. Five of the biggest companies in the world are pouring unprecedented money into AI infrastructure. On the tooling side, agent framework GitHub stars, LangChain, CrewAI, AutoGen, OpenAI Agents SDK, grew only slightly month to month. The infrastructure build is way ahead of visible developer adoption of agent frameworks.

Energy

Electric power generation rose to 125.5, up 6.9% from a year ago. Utilities output climbed to 113.0, up 6.2%. Both are accelerating, which tracks with the AI capex numbers above.

What this means for a mid-sized operator

• Lock in energy contracts now. Utilities output is already up 6.2% year over year, and that AI-driven demand isn't slowing down.
• If you're planning a plant expansion, move now. Manufacturing construction spending is down 21.2% year over year, which likely means better bids and more contractor availability.
• Watch your software spend against custom development. Platform revenue is growing double digits while custom programming jobs are shrinking. Budget for buy over build.