Missed AU 2026 in Las Vegas? You can still catch up on the ideas, insights, and innovations shaping what's next in Design & Make. With a free Digital Pass, watch must-see keynotes and featured sessions on-demand. Explore how AI, connected data, and integrated workflows are helping designers, engineers, creators, team leaders, and executives build skills, strengthen capabilities, and move their work and businesses forward.
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The AEC industry is undergoing a paradigm shift where the lines between software developers, industry groups, and design firms are blurring. This session explores how AI strategies are being collaboratively shaped to move beyond basic research into high-impact implementation within multi-discipline engineering environments. We will examine the evolution of AI maturity, moving from foundational context engineering to the deployment of agentic services and Model Context Protocols (MCPs) that automate complex engineering tasks. Drawing on real examples, business leaders will gain a clear view of the emerging landscape and a practical way to balance AI’s potential against the demands of modern design practice.
Most digital twin projects stall at the same point: There’s no 3D model. Point cloud scanning takes weeks—too heavy for operational use cases like workplace booking or shop-floor monitoring. But we’ve found a faster path: Design buildings in Autodesk Forma Building Design, process them server-side via the Autodesk Platform Services Automation API for Revit, then use agentic AI workflows via Model Context Protocol (MCP) to enrich the model with workplaces and connected production data. It takes hours instead of months. Through video walk-throughs and live demos, we’ll show two use cases we’re deploying this year—replacing our own third-party desk-sharing tool, and building a manufacturing digital twin. You’ll leave with a replicable pattern for AI-enabled design-to-operate workflows.
AI is often discussed in terms of efficiency, but the bigger shift may be how connected data improves the quality, consistency, and usefulness of expert delivery. This session will share Norconsult’s perspective on how AI and connected data are beginning to influence decision support, delivery workflows, and client value across architecture, engineering, construction, and operations (AECO). We’ll explore why the impact goes beyond isolated productivity gains, where connected data makes AI more relevant in practice, and what leaders should consider as technology starts to affect how value is created in engineering and project delivery. The session will focus on practical implications and lessons emerging from real industry needs.
Product lifecycle management (PLM) is often treated as a system of record for BOMs—but leading teams are using it to drive product strategy, execution, and cross-functional alignment. In this session, we’ll show how to evolve PLM into a product management backbone that connects engineering, operations, and business decisions. You’ll learn practical workflows for managing product definitions, changes, and lifecycle data in a way that improves visibility, reduces delays, and enables better decision making. Walk away with patterns you can apply immediately to move beyond BOM management and unlock real business value from PLM.
Learn how to use AI as a practical coding assistant to accelerate AutoCAD development. This 30-minute strategy session will show how AI can generate AutoLISP routines and C# .NET code, assist with debugging, and support code translation—enabling faster iteration and higher-quality results. Attendees will gain strategies to evaluate AI-generated code, integrate it into existing projects, and apply AI-assisted workflows effectively across both legacy and modern Autodesk development.
AI is increasing output across construction teams, but many leaders are seeing a quieter problem: more-polished work, less ownership. With more options come harder decisions. This strategy talk will use one concrete story and a practical framework to show how to adopt AI without eroding the judgment that experienced builders, designers, and owners have earned the hard way. You’ll learn how to separate AI-assisted production from the human decision making that takes decades to develop. We’ll discuss how leaders in the industry add thinking checkpoints within workflows that make teams faster while preserving their precious (and playful) cognition.
What breaks when a 10-person engineering team becomes a 70-person manufacturing organization? This session will explore M2X’s real-world journey scaling with Inventor, Vault, AutoCAD Plant 3D, and Autodesk Fusion Manage software. Learn how the team transitioned from ad hoc design workflows to structured data management and a connected PDM/PLM strategy. We’ll cover how to time tool adoption, avoid common scaling missteps, and enable cross-functional collaboration between engineering and production. You’ll gain practical frameworks to structure product data, build a digital thread, and support rapid growth—while improving quality, reducing rework, and maintaining control across the product lifecycle.
Construction teams face growing pressure to make early, data-driven carbon decisions. Yet fragmented regional data sets limit consistency and scalability across tools. This session will explore how TBI, a leading construction firm, is advancing end-to-end carbon assessment by connecting data across planning, design, and preconstruction workflows. Using Autodesk Forma Carbon Insights (Autodesk Forma, Revit, and Forma Takeoff) and the Sustainability Data API, TBI will demonstrate how API-powered strategies enable early-stage carbon comparisons across multiple regions, reduce manual data handling, and scale assessments across projects. You’ll gain a strategic framework for driving better, data-informed decisions through connected, scalable carbon workflows.
SIMICO S.p.A delivered infrastructure to the 2026 Winter Olympics (Livigno, Cortina, Milano, Verona, Bormio) using a full Autodesk pipeline: Autodesk Forma (formerly Autodesk Construction Cloud), Autodesk Forma Build, Autodesk Platform Services, Revit, Civil 3D, AutoCAD, and Navisworks software. Autodesk Forma and Autodesk Build managed cost, schedule, and field workflows. Autodesk Platform Services connected everything bidirectionally. This Autodesk-Azure dual common data environment (CDE) enabled a complex environment where BIM authoring changes synced with Forma cost tracking, Build field logs, and compliance docs. These pipelines preserved data integrity from Autodesk tools to digital XR experiences (VR/AR/pixel streaming), making the twin accessible to all stakeholders. Tailored as such, this system delivered an organic ecosystem, reducing risk and accelerating decisions on complex public infrastructure in Italy.
As AI becomes embedded in design and engineering tools, the question isn’t just what it can do—it’s whether you can trust it. This session will cover practical ways to make AI more reliable, including handling proprietary versus common design data—and validating outputs. You'll learn practical tactics for increasing the trustworthiness of AI models, with a focus on real-world challenges like distinguishing proprietary intellectual property from common design elements and validating the accuracy of AI-generated outputs. We’ll explore assessing inputs, adding safeguards, and creating feedback loops to improve performance over time—so you can adopt and build AI responsibly without sacrificing quality or compliance.
This class will showcase how Trane, Eaton, and Autodesk enable collaborative codesign for gigawatt-scale data centers using BIM and Autodesk Forma (formerly Autodesk Construction Cloud). You will see how data center reference kits become live, cloud-based environments for real-time collaboration between owners, engineers, and contractors. These environments centralize BIM and engineering data into a shared source of truth, enabling coordinated design of mechanical and electrical systems at massive scale. The session will demonstrate how Autodesk Forma Build supports structured codesign workflows, role-based collaboration, and asset-centered data models. This approach enables faster iteration, reduced risk, and scalable delivery for data centers of 1 gigawatt capacity.
Geolocation is essential for accurate positioning, data integration, and interoperability across architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) workflows. This session will introduce core concepts such as coordinate systems, datums, and spatial references—and show how they’re applied across Autodesk platforms. You will learn how to create and manage coordinate systems in Civil 3D software, define geolocation in Civil 3D and AutoCAD software, and understand how these support geographic information system (GIS) integration. The session will also cover legacy and modern geolocation workflows in Revit software, highlighting improvements in model alignment and interoperability. By connecting workflows across Civil 3D and Revit, this class will provide practical guidance on maintaining consistent geospatial positioning throughout a project’s lifecycle.
Retail construction still relies heavily on fragmented 2D documentation, creating a disconnect between design, construction, and operations. This session will explore how EssilorLuxottica is transforming that model by converting 2D assets into structured 3D BIM and building a connected digital lifecycle. By linking design data to Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and maintenance workflows, stores evolve from static deliverables into dynamic, data-driven digital twins. This session will present a scalable approach to connect design to operations, improve asset visibility, and enable predictive maintenance, turning retail environments into fully integrated intelligent assets.
AI-powered animation is only as good as the data behind it, but most motion data wasn’t designed for AI. In this session, we’ll demonstrate a projection-mapped capture app that guides performers in real time to produce more-structured motion. As well as how Label Maker, a tool integrated within the Autodesk ecosystem, uses AI to turn raw motion data and videos into richly tagged, reusable data sets. You will walk away with a clearer picture of how to make motion data actually usable for AI, and how to rethink their pipelines to get there. The real value of motion data isn’t in the capture—it’s in the enrichment.
In large-scale infrastructure, "coordination chaos" is a common reality. When teams use different tools and inconsistent methods, design mistakes are often caught too late. This leads to expensive rework, missed deadlines, and increased project risk. As projects grow across disciplines, keeping everyone aligned becomes a massive challenge. In this session, we’ll share how Ramboll tamed this complexity by building a standardized, scalable framework using Autodesk Forma industry cloud (formerly Autodesk Construction Cloud). Using the 2025 IFC Viewer, Autodesk Platform Services, and Insight dashboards, Ramboll moved from disconnected software to a single, unified system. We’ve aligned our digital process with ISO 19650 to ensure data moves smoothly from one project phase to the next.
Faith Technologies Incorporated (FTI) is rapidly scaling its modular construction and manufacturing operations. But disconnected systems, manual workflows, and poor data governance created barriers to growth. In partnership with Symetri, Faith is implementing a PLM-driven digital thread connecting Vault software, Autodesk Fusion Manage, Inventor software, and architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) systems. This transformation enables centralized data, automated design-to-fabrication workflows, and enterprise collaboration. This session will explore how Faith is moving from siloed processes to a connected, scalable ecosystem to accelerate productization and support rapid growth.
Most sustainability strategies never make it into daily work. Teams struggle to turn ambition into decisions, data flows, and repeatable processes. This session will explore three sustainability workflows that are actually working today: design-phase carbon estimation, AI-enabled inspection, and material selection informed by connected product and carbon data. We’ll examine how these workflows are structured, where they break, and what it takes to implement them across tools, teams, and data sources—drawing on examples from technology partners such as One Click LCA and VAPAR. You’ll leave with a practical framework for turning sustainability goals into operational workflows.
Water infrastructure is entering a decisive decade. In 2026, utilities face climate volatility, aging assets, regulatory pressure, and rising expectations for resilient, transparent service. Traditional approaches based on static hydraulic models and reactive operations are no longer sufficient. This keynote will explore how connected digital twins and AI are reshaping water infrastructure across the full lifecycle—from planning and design to operations and maintenance. It will present a practical workflow showing how Innovyze modeling outputs evolve into a live operational digital twin in Autodesk Tandem software, enabling continuity from design to asset maintenance, and supporting predictive, risk‑based decision making.
How can industrialized construction, intelligent data, and integrated workflows turn sustainability from a reporting burden into a scalable design strategy? In this session for architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) leaders and delivery teams, Max Bögl Group will share how one company manages the value chain—from raw material sourcing and design to off-site production, delivery, assembly, and maintenance—to deliver modular buildings and bridge systems with measurable sustainability outcomes. As we use projects from Germany and the Netherlands, you’ll see how standardized, parametric products, connected models, and automated assessments help teams compare options faster, respond to strict European requirements, and build the data foundation for future AI-supported design decisions.
Autodesk Platform Services continues to evolve to better support how customers build, scale, and optimize applications in an increasingly AI-driven world. APIs and Model Context Protocols (MCPs) are becoming foundational to agentic AI workflows, making it more important than ever to understand and optimize Autodesk Platform Services use. This session will highlight the features Autodesk Platform Services is building to help you make the most of cloud APIs and MCPs, whether developing directly on Autodesk Platform Services or integrating through third-party applications. You’ll also see new capabilities that provide greater visibility and control, including Autodesk Platform Services reporting, cost management tools, and AI-powered usage prediction through Autodesk Assistant. Join us to learn how to scale with confidence and maximize value from Autodesk Platform Services.
Everyone wants AI in construction. Almost no one has data ready for it. Poor structure, inconsistent metadata, and fragmented workflows hold most teams back. This session will share real-world lessons from Stowe Australia, implementing Autodesk Forma as a common data environment (CDE) to fix that problem. Learn how ISO 19650 principles, standardized templates, and disciplined workflows turn messy project information into structured, usable data. The result? A scalable foundation for analytics, automation, and AI across projects, teams, and the wider business.
Discover how combining Factory Design Utilities, Revit, and FlexSim software transforms facility design through seamless integration of 2D layouts, 3D models, and process simulation. This case study will demonstrate significant time savings by eliminating redundant updates across platforms and enabling engineering teams to make objective, data-driven decisions with less rework. This class will present the end-to-end Factory Design Utilities workflow, showing how AutoCAD, Inventor, Revit, and FlexSim software work together to enable rapid, realistic simulations and models. Engineers from Jacobs will share real project examples demonstrating ROI, cost savings, and how simulations validate designs, communicate decisions, and extend value into production planning and continuous improvement.
Ramboll is reinventing itself as a data-centered, AI‑powered engineering firm. Through its Together for Better Outcomes (T4BO) partnership with Autodesk, Ramboll has productized a unified production environment (UPE) to accelerate AI adoption. By embedding the Autodesk AI tool Autodesk Assistant into daily workflows, productivity increases while more-sustainable client value is delivered. This session will show how data-centered design and AI‑assisted engineering are transforming project delivery and ways of working, reinforcing Ramboll’s role as a partner for sustainable change. We’ll share tangible outcomes, such as higher delivery quality, deeper sustainability insights, and increased project capacity without adding headcount.
Designing great products is difficult. Successfully taking those products to market on time and under budget is even harder. After working with thousands of product design and engineering businesses, clear patterns have emerged between teams that struggle and those that consistently deliver. In this fast-paced 30-minute session, we’ll break down 10 key lessons that separate successful teams from the rest. We’ll dive into what worked for them as well as what didn’t. You’ll leave with practical strategies to reduce delays, improve alignment, and move from concept to production with greater speed and increased confidence. If you’re a business owner or business leader who wants to fast-track your company’s success, this session is for you.
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The pace of change across Design and Make has outrun the old playbook. Success now comes from connecting capabilities—from digital maturity and AI to sustainability and convergence—so they reinforce one another. See how Pacesetters—the top 11% of design and make firms-- are pulling ahead, and explore all the insights in the full State of Design & Make report.
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The Truth Is Out There, But So Is the Nonsense: AI Tips & Tricks for iLogic and the Inventor API - MFG1053-D
You've seen how iLogic can tame tedious tasks and make you more efficient. Now AI promises to go even further, writing your rules, navigating the Inventor API, and transforming your automation overnight. Sounds great, right? Here's the truth: Great results from AI are out there, but so is the AI-induced nonsense. You might have seen AI confidently generate code that doesn't work. Or watched it invent API methods that don't exist. The promise is real. But so are the hallucinations, the dead ends, and the frustrations of vibe coding. Come to this session to cut through the hype with tips, tricks, and insights for getting real results from AI, knowing when to trust it, when to push back, and how to build automation that fulfills the prompt.