Techniques to facilitate automatic discovery of industrial assets and associated data in an industrial automation environment are disclosed herein. In at least one implementation, a computing system iteratively scans a communication network to automatically detect at least one industrial device on the communication network. The computing system determines a unique identifier of a device type associated with the at least one industrial device detected on the communication network. The computing system determines an identity object for the industrial device and maps the identity object to the unique identifier of the device type associated with the industrial device. Based on the identity object for the industrial device, the computing system establishes communication with the industrial device on the communication network and receives operational data from the industrial device. The computing system processes the operational data received from the industrial device to generate a device profile for the industrial device.