Abstract Additive manufacturing (AM) of metals is rapidly emerging as an established manufacturing process for metal components. Unlike traditional metals fabrication processes, metals fabricated via AM undergo localized thermal cycles during fabrication. As a result, AM presents the opportunity to control the liquid-solid phase transformation, i.e. material texture. However, thermal cycling presents challenges from the standpoint of solid-solid phase transformations. To be discussed are the opportunities and challenges in metals AM in the context of texture control and associated solid-solid phase transformations in Ti-6Al-4V and Inconel 718.