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2026-08-26

ChatGPT for TIA Portal: what works, where it fails

Can ChatGPT write PLC code for TIA Portal? Yes, and for some tasks that is perfectly sufficient. The line, however, runs almost exactly where your concrete project begins.

What works well with ChatGPT

For everything that needs no project knowledge, ChatGPT is a usable tool: SCL syntax questions, explaining language concepts (timers, edge detection, indirect addressing), a first block draft as a scaffold, or a rough translation of STL snippets to SCL. As a sparring partner for structural questions ("how would you build a sequence for this plant?") it gives solid answers too.

Where the copy-paste workflow fails

The root problem: ChatGPT does not know your project. The typical failure modes follow from that:

  • Invented symbol names and data types. Generated code references tags that don't exist in your project, or guesses at UDTs. Every block needs rework before it even compiles.
  • Copy-paste as a media break. Code out of TIA, into the browser, back, paste, retype errors, back into the browser. Manageable for one block, painful for twenty.
  • No feedback loop. ChatGPT sees neither compiler errors nor cross-references. It only corrects what you carry back manually.
  • Confidentiality. Copying plant code into a third-party browser chat is simply not allowed in many companies.

The custom GPTs in the GPT store ("TIA Expert" and the like) change little: better prompts, same fundamental limits, because they don't see your project either.

The difference: project context

An integrated assistant flips the picture. The AI for TIA Portal in AnyAutomation Studio reads blocks, tag names and data types over the Openness API (V15-V21), uses that to generate SCL that fits the plant, shows every change as a diff and imports only after confirmation. Errors flow back, unit tests guard the result. And if the cloud is off limits, the model runs locally via Ollama.

Without giving up ChatGPT, by the way: Studio is multi-provider, so GPT connects there just like Claude or Gemini, only with project context instead of copy-paste.

Conclusion

For syntax questions and concepts: ChatGPT, any time. For real project code: an AI assistant with access to the TIA project, otherwise the time saved gets paid back as rework per block.