Autodesk CEO Andrew Anagnost spoke with sincerity and passion about his commitment to creating connected solutions that increase productivity and ease of use while cutting unnecessary costs. The aim is to unlock capacity to be more productive, creative, and innovative beyond current desktop pipelines.

One of the coolest moments during the Autodesk keynote was when he spoke about how an Autodesk-backed organization, the Foothill Catalog Foundation, was helping rebuild and restore communities that have lost their homes to fires, floods, or other natural disasters, such as those that affected Altadena and Pacific Palisades. It has a collection of preapproved home designs to help displaced residents rebuild quickly and affordably while preserving their community identity and local architectural character. This helps residents get back into their homes sooner.

Andrew Anagnos, CEO of Autodesk, delivers his keynote address on Day 1, AU2026.

Stellar Creative Labs was bringing zombies to life for Marvel in its television series. It used AI for established IP to help complete episodes faster. A company from India, Kheyti, is helping farmers adapt to climate change. Kheyti creates low-cost farming solutions that help farmers reliably grow more. The company hopes to reach one million farmers in the next year.

2027 State of Design & Make Report

Autodesk released its 2027 State of Design & Make Report, introducing us to Pacesetters—a small group of professionals who stand apart from the curve. They are better prepared for macroeconomic and geopolitical disruptions to their businesses. They are early adopters of technology, making the digital transformation that helps them retain clients and maintain a productive workforce. AI execution is becoming a competitive advantage in retaining clients and projects. You can download the report here.

The Autodesk Design and Make Platform, with its three industry clouds—Forma, Fusion, and Flow—spanning AEC to media and entertainment, unifies workflows through AI and a data-driven platform to simplify work. While we have heard about it for years and have wondered, today convergence is real and happening on the Autodesk Platform.

Autodesk Forma

Autodesk opened its keynote by showcasing the latest version of Forma, which creates a connected environment for the AEC industry, with new capabilities across design, engineering, and construction. Autodesk is expanding Forma across much of the AEC workflow lifecycle. Forma may replace Revit in a decade or so (see this new Architosh article for more on that). This connectivity gives everyone working on a project the ability to see it from start to finish and contribute seamlessly, often at the same time as their teammates.

Forma is the cloud centerpiece of Autodesk’s AEC strategic direction for the global construction industry. Its booth at AU26 was jam-packed with attendees looking at how the Forma platform delivers new capabilities that traditional desktop-era software cannot, plus showing new AI and automation features across tools, including Autodesk Revit.

Amy Bunzel, EVP of AEC, spoke at the second keynote about the importance of real-time collaboration throughout a project’s lifecycle. She discussed defining the roles people will play using AI. Context gives every decision substance. Forma is transforming collaboration: it allows you to move from files to granular data and hyper-collaboration. This changes what BIM can become outside the model, with data and AI. Autodesk is also making significant investments in infrastructure, as briefly discussed in Architosh’s AU26 news coverage here. (see: Architosh, “AU2026: Autodesk expands Forma and leverages AU,” 16 Sep 2026)

Autodesk connected Revit and Forma to make collaboration easier. It is easier to collaborate with Forma Board, a BIM-connected board. Forma Board stays current, revealing changes and the reasons for them to all teams involved in the project. New AI tools will become part of construction. A new viewer supports more complex models, complex information, sheets, and geospatial data in model-based workflows. Workflow Studio, integrated within Forma, helps coordinate the different aspects of jobs, making it easier to communicate changes and inspect work before installation to ensure things line up before execution. With Daily Log Agent, a superintendent can give a voice memo, and the AI agent can transcribe it. Details are captured without typing notes. AEC software will be driven by agents in the future to boost productivity and collaboration.

Civil engineering, via Autodesk Civil3D, will become the newest connected client on Forma. It will support new infrastructure workflows as teams move from planning and design to the complexities of engineering a project. You no longer need to wait to see how plumbing, water lines, and sewage relate to your design.

Shared geolocation engine in Civil 3D, shown in this screenshot. Read below for more information.

Forma Street Design enables transportation planners to explore land configurations, traffic flow, intersections, and transit routes alongside building projects. Street Design can give you a 2D view with sections and let you adjust problems on the spot, early in the design.

Forma and Revit, connected through new AI capabilities, will enable architects to explore their ideas and reduce repetitive tasks in design documentation, helping teams work better together and focus on priority decisions. As Architosh touched on earlier in this report, new AI capabilities can surface drawing information that may indicate issues across a range of common problems in building design and documentation, such as missing dimensions.

MORE: AIA26: Kestrel Labs — Native BIM Compliance Platform

Forma is bringing more preconstruction, coordination, and field workflows into this connected environment to help carry a project through execution. A unified geolocation engine coordinates workflows across Forma, Revit, and Civil 3D, ensuring location information is consistent across all teams and reducing manual transformations or model misalignment. Esri and third-party collaboration are already built in.

Autodesk is also expanding a set of specialized AI-powered construction agents to support document search, submittals, drawing review, and bid processing. This can save time while keeping decisions with the people doing the work.

The ‘O’ in AEC/O

The letter “O” in AEC/O is for operations and Autodesk has been keenly aware for how operations data can virtuously cycle back to the beginning of the design process in building design and renovation projects, as well as help owners and building tenants maximize human comfort, performance, and health in all forms of building structures.

Back in June, Autodesk bought MaintainX for $3.6 billion to create a new business unit called Autodesk Operations Solutions. Stephen Hooper, formerly VP of cloud-based design and manufacturing solutions, will run it.

MaintainX is a new acquisition by Autodesk.

MaintainX can help coordinate and manage maintenance events such as equipment failures, repairs, and performance improvements. Hooper spoke about three types of convergence in the keynote:

• Industry Convergence creates a digital twin from data you already have.
• Digital & Physical Convergence brings the digital twin into the real world.
• Lifecycle Convergence helps the design evolve through changes.

Tandem defines, maintains, and optimizes the product lifecycle. Tandem can access BIM data to create a complete digital twin with live operational data. Tandem and FlexSim have been brought together to provide a full solution. Richard Bude, Principal Experience Designer, spoke about bringing operational data to life. He uses simulation models to make changes to improve efficiency. He showed how he used this method to improve the flow of travelers through an airport. Tandem can identify a problem in advance and create a ticket to replace a part or product before it fails. Tandem follows the process from beginning to end: locating the problem, creating a ticket, assigning it to someone to replace the part, and replacing the part without interruption.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Autodesk Assistant is Autodesk’s AI chatbox technology, which continues to grow and evolve from a basic in-app prompt chatbot into an agent that can provide information from your project data and help find solutions across its cloud-connected product line.

Some of these features may not be available yet. Autodesk Assistant is bringing project intelligence into customers’ workflows so they can connect, understand, plan, and make decisions quickly throughout the product lifecycle. Autodesk President and CEO Andrew Anagnost stated that Autodesk Assistant will soon be available as a standalone, agentic-first experience that can reach across its products. The standalone Assistant is not available yet, but we should hear about timing, pricing, and terms in 2027.

Drawing Compliance uses AI to surface drawing information for possible issues, such as walls too close to adjacent walls, missing wall dimensions, etc. Users can also add rules for design standards, owner requirements, and cross-disciplinary coordination. To learn see our earlier AU2026 report here.

In its second keynote, Autodesk covered Flow and Fusion in more detail, revealing how they are helping creatives use AI to work more effectively throughout a product lifecycle and reduce costs significantly. Flow and Fusion are Autodesk’s non-AEC industry clouds for the Media & Entertainment and Design & Manufacture industries, respectively.

Even though Architosh is centered principally on the AEC/O industry, I will provide a brief summary of Autodesk Flow and a bit more detailed coverage of Autodesk Fusion. Fusion naturally touches manufacturing and has crossover into the AEC/O industries, as buildings, in particular, are made up of manufactured products and filled with manufactured products, plus manufacturing technologies bear upon industrialized construction.

Autodesk Flow

Diana Colella, EVP of Media & Entertainment, spoke about how Flow’s new AI tools can save time during the conception of a movie. She talked about a film project, “Robots of the Wild West.” Nikola Todorovic, the visual effects supervisor and co-founder of the AI filmmaking company Wonder Dynamics, demonstrated how Flow was used to create his movie, starting by generating a 3D model with Nano Banana, refining it with prompts, and creating a model that fit the movie’s needs.

Autodesk Flow Studio production still, showing the movie called “Robots of the Wild West,” which was crafted using Autodesk Flow.

You can also generate a rig using AI rigging and use Flow to capture an actor’s performance. Then you can use the 3D editor to put all the pieces together on a Wonder Human (first, apply the animation, and swap the Wonder Human for the model you generated earlier. Now you just need a background. Marble was used to generate a saloon background. Motion Maker in Maya was used to animate a horse quickly, with the ability to make changes on the fly. Once all these elements are put together, you have a short film.

Autodesk Fusion

Jeff Kinder, EVP of Design & Manufacture, spoke about Fusion and how its new AI tools empower product designers to create better products and find quick solutions for design and engineering. AI turns an idea into a better product with thousands of parts. Companies using Fusion for design include JDD Furniture, Wet Sounds, and O’Neal. Thomas Saier, CEO of O’Neal, stated that they use Fusion from product conception through design visualization to create helmets that save lives. He feels it is about the people who wear them and how to protect them.

The three principles of the work process in Fusion are:

• For individuals: AI to Design and Make
  For companies: Digital Thread with Data
  Product ecosystem: Agentic PLM

Richard Stubley, a Fusion expert, gave an example of how Fusion works for a lawnmower design. He used two Autodesk agentic AI tools:

• AutoAssemble
• Auto Timeline Generator

AutoAssemble is great for putting together all the parts quickly, in minutes rather than the few days it might take a person. AutoAssemble analyzed the model, found the locations for parts, and placed them where they belonged. You can test the parts to make sure everything works properly. Later, while reviewing the design, the team found that a different part did not have enough clearance for the consumer of the product.

Auto Timeline Generator fixed the part in a few minutes by redesigning it. It created drawings, specifications, and everything needed to make sure the part worked effectively and would not impede the manufacturing process.

Autodesk Fusion is shown here with AutoAssemble Split, an automation feature new in Fusion.

Autodesk Assistant in Fusion uses natural language to leverage the breadth of Fusion’s capabilities. A new way to create configurations with Assistant will generate variations for you, with fully editable geometry in Fusion. You can send this straight to the shop floor.

Daniel Graham, VP of Manufacturing, stated that he trusts Richard’s work but wants to validate it for manufacturing. Autodesk System Modeler, a visual tool, uses its Graph Editor to adjust the model. He used an automated sheet metal graph to find and update all the components. He used the nesting capabilities to put these pieces together.

Having AI handle repetitive tasks across the product lifecycle helps productivity. You will be able to find existing designs to update and evolve your project.

Hybrid Platform with New Connections

Autodesk Fusion is a hybrid platform. While it serves conceptually and operationally as Autodesk’s unified cloud platform for D&M, the software itself installs and runs locally as a desktop product on Windows and macOS. In fact, at one point, Andrew Anagnost, CEO of Autodesk, told Architosh that this specific hybrid nature could be a possible future of Revit. (see: Architosh, “What’s Beyond Revit—Anagnost on Autodesk AEC Futures,” 1 Oct 2020). And while Autodesk did get more specific than ever at this AU2026 about the future of Revit versus the Forma platform, if you read the details of how Anagnost talks about Fusion serving as a development and data-model template for the future of Revit, back in 2020, one can still imagine Fusion as a useful model.

New this year, Inventor and Vault are the first Fusion Connected Clients, in much the way Revit was the first Forma Connected Client. I saw a demo from Haworth showing how they were designing spaces in their online 3D build software and then working inside Autodesk Inventor to develop the design further, giving them the ability to work seamlessly on both desktop and online.

Stephanie Canora, Director of Product Management, and Mike Alcazaren spoke about handling tasks efficiently in real time, introducing the Agentic Task Board. The Agentic Task Board provides integrated task management. Autodesk Assistant helps manage a task as it passes from one person to the next in real time, making the process fast and effective while reducing mistakes. The agentic experience increased productivity by making part replacement faster through the Agentic Task Board.

Product lifecycle management (PLM) has been reimagined with Agentic PLM. You will be able to connect unstructured conversations to make decisions. Agentic PLM will connect to third-party systems to accelerate the product-making lifecycle and make it feel invisible. It is an open and extensible platform. An MCP service can make connecting to Claude easier.

The Fallingwater Exhibit

Fallingwater, created and designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, receives the highest standard of care in historic preservation as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The restoration project for the landmark in Pennsylvania is now complete. Autodesk technologies were used in the restoration process.

The Fallingwater exhibit entrance at Autodesk University 2026.

Case Technologies scanned the entire site using laser technology, producing 6.8 billion points in a point cloud, with each point less than 2 millimeters apart, to help create a digital twin of the site and the home. After importing the laser scans into software called ReCap, Case Technologies uploaded the entire project into Autodesk Revit. Revit takes the data and turns it into a 3D model. Case Technologies completed the visualization process by using a game engine to create Fallingwater’s digital twin in Twinmotion.

Third Party Exhibitors

As usual, we struggle to find enough time to meet vendors on the show floor, but we did manage to meet some and discuss what they were showing at AU2026 this year.

IMAGINiT Technologies

IMAGINiT Technologies spoke about its new product, Clarity. (see: Architosh, “IMAGINiT Technologies unveils Clarity 2025,” 30 May 2024, for our last detailed coverage of this tool here.)

Clarity enables Revit and AutoCAD customers to accelerate their workflows by automating manual, repetitive tasks, developing custom software to address unique business needs, and preparing data and technology environments for AI.

IMAGINiT’s workforce development and education programs help clients adopt new capabilities and automate redundant tasks. Clarity is useful for Revit and AutoCAD users who want to automate tasks such as creating sheets, printing, and creating PDFs. IMAGINiT says its software has saved more than 5 million working hours in the past year.

Chaos Group

Chaos Group showed off recent versions of V-Ray and Enscape, along with the Chaos ecosystem, at AU. Enscape was running in real time with impressive, realistic visualizations that you could change instantly, from the time of day to objects and textures. Enscape offers more flexibility than Twinmotion for textures and custom objects.

Lenovo Access

Lenovo Access is simplifying remote workstation access. Lenovo Access claims to change the traditional approach by centralizing remote workstations while ensuring predictability and performance. Lenovo Access places individual ThinkStation P-series desktop workstations into racks, then layers on management tools to access and manage the files. Users feel as though they are using robust local workstations, but the workstations operate as a single managed solution. Lenovo demonstrated how Lenovo Access works at AU.

Global eTraining (GeT)

Global eTraining (GeT), an AI-powered digital adoption platform trusted by AEC firms worldwide, shared its AI-powered innovations. Some of those innovations include:

• AI Knowledge Banks & Challenges
• AI MCP Server Integrations
• AI-Generated Custom Workflow Courses
• AI Analytics & Insights for ROI
• AI Dynamic Search Assistant
• AI Contextual Translations

This brings together human intelligence and agentic AI workflows across the AI-enabled tech stack, creating a connected knowledge infrastructure that continuously learns from company workflows, project standards, and organizational expertise.

HP

HP is improving automation in SitePrint and Build Workspace. HP discussed new capabilities for its SitePrint robotic layout system and the Build Workspace construction drawing management and collaboration platform, focusing on faster document workflows and fewer on-site revisions.

HP and AMD in the booth together promoting multiple solutions, including AI, and One Mobile Workstations like the HP ZBook Ultra G3a

The headline addition to HP SitePrint is a new cloud-based CAD editor built directly into the platform. In the past, you had to prepare layout sheets in separate CAD applications. Now users can edit and prepare layout files in the cloud using tools and automation to streamline prelayout setup. This allows on-site crews to make changes or corrections instantaneously. At the construction site, SitePrint gains a new smart navigation feature. The robot uses cameras to locate unmapped obstacles on the floor and automatically replans and adapts its route without user intervention. This helps in real-world conditions where materials, equipment, and temporary work could block the originally planned path.

AMD

AMD announced the new HP ZBook Ultra G3a 16-inch mobile workstation PC featuring AMD Ryzen AI MAX PRO 100 series processors.

• Up to 192 GB of unified memory (160 GB can be dedicated to the GPU) to support 300-billion-parameter local AI models
• Options such as 5G Starlink satellite service
• A 2.8K OLED or 4K DreamColor display
• Thunderbolt 4 support

AMD Ryzen AI Max Pro 100 series processors feature a unified memory architecture similar in many respects to Apple’s M-series processors. A key benefit of the Ryzen AI chip is its ability to run localized AI models, offering on-device inference, AI privacy, and sheer AI performance advantages compared to high-latency-bound AI cloud inference.

AU2026 Closing Remarks

Autodesk laid out its plans for the future of AI in its products and how they will help people connect and collaborate in real time. The phrase “unlocking capacity” was used often to describe how AI will increase productivity by automating some redundant tasks and simplifying others.

Autodesk will help those who design and make work more effectively while saving the costs of redundant tasks. When you consider the price of hardware these days, cloud solutions using AI make perfect sense. Autodesk products are completing their convergence with these new updates.

Autodesk Assistant plays a very important role in the future alongside other agentic AI tools. The upcoming standalone version of Autodesk Assistant will help integrate Autodesk’s product line with clients’ data, saving time and streamlining project management throughout the product lifecycle.

If you are still working with legacy software, you may want to consider migrating in the next few years to gain access to these tools as they become mainstream. I think referencing some of the companies using the software provides real-world context for what is being designed and built with AI and the cloud in Autodesk’s latest software solutions. The era of desktop software solutions is behind us, as hybrid tools and cloud-first solutions infused with connected data and agentic AI promise transformative automation and aligned workflow objectives.

The Fallingwater exhibit was very impressive and shows how the right use of Autodesk products can make dreams happen.

The post AU2026: Key Announcements in Agentic AI, Forma, and Fusion appeared first on Architosh.

Morpholio Trace is an application that runs on tablet computers like the Apple iPad and works with the Apple Pencil to enable sophisticated hand sketching, drawings, markup, and annotation, and can interact with Vectorworks. (More info below.)

Trace for Business

Trace for Business is a new enterprise tier that gives organizations a streamlined purchasing set of options and centralized access to Morpholio Trace via the Vectorworks Customer Portal. For experienced Vectorworks users, the Portal is your online hub for all things licensing management for Vectorworks products.

Trace for Business is a new enterprise offering from Vectorworks for Morpholio Trace.

Until recently, Trace purchases have been exclusively through the Apple App Store, a model that has helped build a loyal following among individual designers and small teams around the world. The Portal option is more ideal for larger organizations, offering business-friendly invoicing, centralized license management, and enterprise deployment capabilities.

“Trace was built to preserve the joy and immediacy of drawing, and now we’re making sure that joy scales to an entire firm without losing any of its soul,” said Mark Collins, Vectorworks Principal Software Engineer and Morpholio Co-Founder. “Business tools shouldn’t get in the way of design tools. Trace for Business gives IT the control it needs and gives designers the sketching experience they already love.”

Trace for Business fits into existing IT environments, supports MDM (Mobile Device Management), and can align with internal IT controls for access, storage, exports, AI features, and other application settings.

“Enterprise deployment shouldn’t be tedious,” said Vectorworks Chief Revenue Officer Nicole Davison. “With MDM support, IT teams can deploy Trace the same way they deploy the rest of their design software, and designers keep drawing working exactly the way they always have.”

Trace Ultra Coming Soon

Trace for Business also introduces the first capabilities of Trace Ultra, a new product tier that will be available to the public later this year. The new offering will expand Trace’s role as a vector-based BIM and CAD companion app.

Trace Ultra will include new capabilities, such as an increase in the maximum number of layers per project from 25 to 50. Other Ultra features will roll out throughout 2026.

Morpholio Trace was an Architosh AIA BEST of SHOW winner this year. Architosh wrote at the time of the announcement, “In addition to bringing the sketching-thinking process closer to an advanced BIM tool—where there are so many layers of interaction opportunities—Morpholio [Trace] can serve as the ultimate first step to sketch-to-AI rendering and animation.”

About Morpholio

Founded in 2011 by four architects, Morpholio began with the belief that hand drawing was critical to the increasingly digital design process. Together, they envisioned a creative renaissance for design through the iPad and Apple Pencil. With a global community of users, they have been recognized on numerous “Best Apps” lists.

The suite for iPad and iPhone includes Trace for sketching and drafting, Board for mood and design boards, and Journal, a digital sketchbook.

In 2026, Morpholio became part of the Vectorworks family, bringing its suite of mobile design tools together with an industry leader in technology and an expert in CAD and BIM solutions tailored to design. Today, the original mission remains: to empower designers of all types with intuitive tools that support creativity and innovation from sketch to reality.

The post Vectorworks’ New Morpholio Trace for Business appeared first on Architosh.

One key development vector where Vectorworks tends to shine is in advancing underlying OS-based technologies utilizing the latest advancements in both macOS and Windows operating systems. Another development vector much anticipated is in the area of visualization technologies, both internal and external to the program. And because Vectorworks Architect is very much a true “hybrid CAD/BIM” application—meaning that it can go toe-to-toe with pure CAD-focused applications (ie: AutoCAD) in addition to being a competitive BIM app—watching its BIM maturity advance and its unique take on BIM is yet again another interesting development vector to watch. (More on this in Analysis and Commentary below).

Vectorworks 2027 product line annual update includes numerous development advancements, including UI/UX, BIM, Visualization, Performance, and more, as well as new features across its industry series products.

All three are yet again interesting to see in this latest update.

What is Vectorworks 2027

Vectorworks 2027 is actually a rather large product line across AEC and media and entertainment industries, almost a tiny microcosm of the Nemetschek Group itself, sans an engineering-facing product. On the pure AEC side of the product line, we have the following solutions:

• Vectorworks Architect 2027 — A full professional BIM environment combined with an extensive professional CAD environment for AEC pros.
• Vectorworks Landmark 2027 — The AEC industry’s leading BIM environment for landscape architects, urban design and planning professionals, and other landscape design professionals
• Vectorworks Fundamentals 2027 — A non-industry-specific 2D/3D CAD platform targeted at non-architectural 3D and 2D designers, drafters, makers, and fabricators.
• Vectorworks Design Suite 2027 — Bundles the features of Landmark and Spotlight with Architect and is therefore ideal for certain architectural professionals doing extensive site development work or urban design and planning, or M&D professionals who need a full BIM solution as part of their workflows.

On the media and entertainment (M&E) side of the product, we have these solutions:

• Vectorworks Spotlight. 2027 — this is now the global industry standard solution for entertainment, lighting, and live event design professionals. It pairs with Braceworks for those professionals also responsible for designing rigging
• Vectorworks Design Suite 2027 — Again, a catch-all bundle as stated above
• Vectorworks Braceworks 2027 — acts as an engineering calculus engine that plugs directly into Vectorworks Spotlight workflows. While Spotlight lets you draw and model trusses, hang lights and audio arrays, Braceworks calculates real-world physics.
• Vectorworks ConnectCAD 2027 — this too is an add-on module to Vectorworks Spotlight and addresses advanced signal-flow and system integrations of A&V and lighting equipment used in the entertainment industry or by audiovisual integrators.

There is no need to place Vectorworks Fundamentals in the M&E category above, since Vectorworks Spotlight includes all the core features of Vectorworks Fundamentals.

New in Vectorworks 2027

We are going to highlight what is new in Vectorworks 2027 for AEC professionals, with a particular focus on architects. At the core product level Vectorworks 2027 features some excellent advancements in the area of visualization and graphics.

Vectorworks 2027’s newly upgraded graphics engine utilizes the latest Apple Metal and Vulkan APIs for Mac and Windows versions, respectively, delivering maxim GPU chip leverage in overall visual performance. With Apple’s stunning M5 and M6 chips, Vectorworks is easily one of the fastest BIM solutions on the market.

Vectorworks 2027 now includes a new modern PBR (physically-based rendering) system, alongside a redesigned Edit Texture dialog with live previews. This makes it easier for users to create stunning PBR material textures for their projects. With one click, old textures can be converted to modern PBR textures, and these can be sent forward to dedicated visualization tools like those from Chaos, D5, Maxon, and others.

MORE: What’s Driving Nemetschek Group’s Financial Performance

Also new this year is the modernization of the core Vectorworks graphics engine (VGM), leveraging Apple Metal on Mac and Vulkan on Windows. Hugues Tsafak, Vice President of Product Development at Vectorworks, says:

The company says in some cases, users can experience performance gains (FPS) of 15x to 35x in workflows like panning and zooming, and up to 50x faster multi-object selection. This new performance means navigating large 3D models and rendering complex projects at speeds that to many users previously seemed out of reach.

Other Core Features

Vectorworks has introduced The Exchange, a “trusted” hub where expertise and community knowledge can come together. Think SketchUp 3D Warehouse, but we believe this community library is more curated and guarded (Architosh to confirm in future report). Community-built assets can be any kind of Vectorworks model, from furniture, appliances, and various objects to textures, hatches, etc.

PRB texture creation with updated core features in Vectorworks 2027 make Vectorworks stronger for in-app renderings and to pushed out 3rd party renderers.

In Vectorworks 2027, you can now bring in AutoCAD dynamic blocks into Vectorworks and choose to convert each representation into editable Vectorworks Symbols or consolidate them into a single Dynamic Object with a type dropdown, so you can swap the graphic representations with a single click. This is another massive win for the Vectorworks global community in terms of globally available assets to bring in and leverage in Vectorworks.

For subscription customers, Vectorworks 2027 features Nano Banana AI visuals with various free, unlimited model renderings and limited Nana Banana Pro or 2 for sharper 2K AI rendering generation, with in-palette credit tracking so you can prevent overspending and running out of credits.

Vectorworks Architect 2027

As promised in its free roadmap, this year’s BIM improvements include better and faster modeling of doors and windows, including new pivot door capabilities. There is also a new Geolocation Setup Wizard that allows users to align surveys, point clouds, GIS layers, and bring in location imagery into Vectorworks. The imagery comes from Google Maps. Importantly for federated model reviews, users can easily toggle between true geospatial positions and local project coordinates.

A new multi-phasing system enables users to represent existing conditions and renovations across phases, and it includes an as-built layer. These features will be highly useful to European customers, who do more renovation work than customers in other parts of the world. And Vectorworks Architect 2027 can now deliver compliant area takeoffs meeting DIN 277, NED 2580, SIA 416 standards or custom rule sets.

Other Notable Items

In Landmark 2027, there is a new Volume Fill tool that can quantify site elements like retention basins, fills, and more.

For other improvements in the Vectorworks 2027 product line, visit here.

Analysis and Commentary

This year’s annual update seems oriented towards massive under-the-hood upgrades and quality-of-life optimizations rather than groundbreaking new features. This was expected based on both the public roadmap and the Nemetschek Group’s new synergistic, groupwide strategies. Architosh has covered the VGM (Vectorworks Graphics Module) technologies at length in the past, and so we look forward to diving in a bit deeper in both an upcoming product review and an interview article. The panning and zooming speeds of up to 35x are quite impressive numerically, especially given that on the latest Apple M-series chips (M5 and above), Vectorworks performs strongly thanks to Apple’s industry-leading chip performance. 

We mentioned that this program is a bit more exciting to see updated every year than most BIMs. The balance between OS-specific updates, performance, and groundbreaking new features tends to set that up, but this year, without groundbreaking new features, it feels muted. However, the Exchange community asset new feature set will no doubt be an exciting development for existing users, as will the PBR texture improvements, DWG Dynamic Block features, and visualization and graphics performance. 

Perhaps the most noteworthy news with Vectorworks 2027 is the features that enable users to benefit from already created elements—an important aspect as Vectorworks’s third-party tools, resources, and assets lag behind stronger BIM communities like sister application Graphisoft Architect and industry heavyweight Autodesk Revit. The use of dynamic blocks from the DWG (AutoCAD) world, improved Revit Family support, and the new Exchange all contribute significantly to this aspect. 

The post Vectorworks 2027 — A Look at What’s New appeared first on Architosh.

The Forma Platform

This year at AU2026, Autodesk is showing just how much more mature the Forma cloud platform and ecosystem have become in a few short years. Essentially all of Autodesk’s previously disparate and scattered product-named cloud applications have been rebranded under new Forma brand names, helping to unify the significance of Forma for the global AEC/O industry.

Key Takeaways

• Infrastructure Integration — Civil 3D is officially now a Forma Connected Client, and Autodesk introduced Forma Street Design (Beta)
• Next-Gen AI Agents — Autodesk introduces practical AI features across Revit and Forma
• Pre-Construction Forma Advancements — with Forma Bid (integrating BuildingsConnected) and mobile tools like Daily Log Agent convert spoken field updates into structured data

Autodesk has emphasized that commodity AI solutions, while useful in some respects, lack the capacity to serve the AEC industry the way artificial intelligence ought to. Saying in its press release, “the built world sets a high bar,” Autodesk is making the smart point that “AI for the built environment needs the right data, project context, and industry expertise to understand the site, design intent, schedule, requirements, and decisions that shape a project.”

Forma to Replace Revit?

Curiously, Autodesk’s official AU press release asks the rhetorical question of whether Forma is to replace Revit. This is a big subject area of expertise here at Architosh, and one can find a bounty of exclusive reports, interviews, and analysis on this question. Let’s quote Autodesk itself, and then we can add our analysis layer.

Forma Street Design (Beta) is the latest Forma-branded product and is aimed at early-stage civil design work.

“Over time, yes,” says Autodesk about Forma replacing Revit. “More and more of the work that happens in Revit today will happen directly in Forma,” says Autodesk.

In practical terms, Autodesk Forma Site Design and Forma Building Design are cloud-based solutions designed to support the early phases of a building design project and transfer that data into the desktop (and Windows-dependent) Revit solution everyone knows today. Autodesk is being clear about something, though, and this is critical for its customers to understand:

Autodesk continues, “We will continue investing in Revit to give customers a practical path toward that future.”

New AI Capabilities

Autodesk is introducing a range of practical AI features across Revit and Forma, such as Autocomplete Room Elements, Optimized Annotations, and Automated Documentation, framing its AI technologies and features around high-context “Project Intelligence” rather than generic commodity AI.

Drawing Compliance uses AI to surface drawing information for possible issues, such as walls too close to adjacent walls, missing wall dimensions, etc. Users can also add rules for design standards, owner requirements, and cross-disciplinary coordination.

Autodesk Assistant (an AI) can search inside drawings and take users directly to relevant sheets, while Drawing Change Analysis (new) helps teams identify meaningful differences between different versions of drawings (revisions).

MORE: Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC) is now Autodesk Forma

Drawing Compliance Review surfaces potential issues so teams can resolve critical, major, or minor project issues faster. (see image above) Users can build rule sets that instruct the AI to surface drawing information for specific types of issues, such as owner requirements or cross-disciplinary issues.

Forma For Construction

Autodesk is also aiming to make a more connected future for AEC with Forma, linking design phase teams more strongly with building phase and occupancy phase teams and stakeholders. As Autodesk argues in its press release, “Better continuity gives architects more time for design choices, engineers a clearer picture of real-world conditions, and construction teams an earlier view of issues that could affect delivery.”

Autodesk says that over time more work will happen directly in Forma, with project information remaining connected across the AEC lifecycle as noted above. To that end, at AU 2026, Autodesk is previewing the next-generation Autodesk Assistant (AI agent), which brings together specialized AI agents, Autodesk tools, and project information to deliver better outcomes.

Meanwhile, Forma Bid brings BuildingsConnected bidding workflows into Forma. This lets contractors manage invitations, level bids, compare pricing with estimates, and find scope gaps. Forma Bid is available today as a beta.

And in an effort to capitalize on the popularity of AI products like Pocket, Autodesk has unveiled Autodesk Daily Log Agent, which runs on mobile and can turn a superintendent’s spoken update into a structured daily log while the details are still fresh, reducing manual, typed-in daily entry.

This is our first of many upcoming AU 2026 news and feature reports. Stay tuned as we release special items available only to members of the press who attended AU2026.

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Trimble’s Conference

Attendees can enjoy deep-dive technical sessions on Trimble products, keynotes and presentations, plus cross-industry networking.

MORE: AIA26: Expo Show Floor Report 3 — Trimble and SketchUp

Industry speakers this year include Jason Li of global workplace design firm M Moser, who will demonstrate how their firm customizes and scales SketchUp workflows to drive efficiencies in commercial spaces.

3D Basecamp Summit 2026 and Trimble Dimensions take place in early November in Las Vegas.

Nationally recognized urban planner Devin Lavigne, FAICP, will show how he integrates GIS, CityEngine, and SketchUp for 3D urban planning. And Tola Ojuolape of Tola Ojuolape Studio will showcase her process of turning digital interior concepts into physical realities.

Other highlights include:

• Interoperability and ecosystem integration
• Reality capture and Scan-to-BIM
• The generative AI frontier
• Advanced workflows, engineering, and fabrication
• SketchUp Ascent Competition
• Trimble Global Construction Startup Competition
• and more..

The Trimble events are a single event and take place from 9-11 November 2026. Interested readers can click here to learn more.

The post Event: 3D Basecamp Trimble Dimensions—Early November appeared first on Architosh.

Ichi Features

Ichi analyzes typical architectural drawing sets, specifications, and construction documents to catch missing information, scope gaps, cross-sheet and cross-document discrepancies, and internal conflicts. The aim is for architects to use tools like Ichi—which benefits from AI models—to find all such issues before they are eventually discovered in the field at the construction site, where their cost impact can be detrimental to project success.

Architects are already using AI tools, including Bluebeam’s new Bluebeam Max suite, to analyze and pore over architects’ drawings to identify discrepancies, scope gaps, and missing information. Clients that feature paid consultants functioning as construction managers (CMs), a type of watchdog role in the construction industry, are especially interested in such new AI tools because this kind of tool is precisely what they have never had at their disposal.

Ichi is a leading new AI-QA/QC and CA tool for the AEC industry.

Ichi therefore helps architects discover issues before documents are released to clients and their consultants, forming a tighter set of documentation and a more highly resolved technical design.

Ichi uses AI to analyze drawing sets against a massive library of ICC-licensed building codes (including IBC, IECC, and ADA) along with local regional amendments. Ichi says its AI models are not like generic AI models (eg: ChatGPT) but instead operate collaboratively within a “walled garden” workspace. Using AI tools to rapidly check for code compliance was the hot new focus at AIA26 this year, as we have noted several times on Architosh. However, AI isn’t just great at code and zoning.

The CA Phase

Ichi also speeds up the construction administration phase. And it can capture and distribute firm knowledge from these interactions so staff architects gain future insights and benefits in the next or current projects. And Ichie isn’t just built for architects or engineers, but also for jurisdictions and professional reviewers.

But back to CA. Ichi analyzes submittals, RFIs, and construction documents and surfaces the information at scale to determine that things are conforming, identify what is missing, and highlight what needs attention.

Ichi can also pull submittals from Procore to work on. For RFI analysis, Ichi automates the context-gathering phase of addressing RFIs, including the history of responses to previous RFIs.

Ichi begins by having users upload all of their documents or link to these documents in Procore. Once complete, Ichi can run deep analyses of all documents—from construction drawing sets to specifications to project manuals and other industry or office standards.

Closing Comments

I like that all such AI QA/QC tools don’t remove the professional obligations of licensed architects and engineers. The tool accelerates those workflows via AI automation and helps professionals become not just faster but possibly more thorough. To learn more, visit them here.

Architosh Analysis and Commentary

AI tools that operate on uploaded PDF documents are in a separate class from tools that perform QA/QC directly within design and documentation authoring systems, such as BIM programs and CAD tools. Within this different class of QA/QC tools, the possible selections are fewer. We have already written about Kestrel Labs and its award-winning (see: Architosh, “AIA26: Architosh 12th ‘BEST of SHOW’ honors for digital technologies at AIA San Diego,” 22 Jun 2026) plugin for Revit and future integration with Trimble solutions. We are also aware of VitruAI and its plugin for QA/QC and general compliance workflows in Revit, which we mentioned here (see: Architosh, “AIA26: Expo Show Floor Report 7—Layer, Arcol, Egnite, and more.” 13 Aug 2026). 

These two solutions function differently from Ichi and its kind. They do, or have the capacity to do, this QA/QC work directly within Revit. At the same time, one must acknowledge that not all AEC professionals use Revit. Thousands of firms and professionals work with competitor tools from Bentley, Trimble, and Nemetschek. Moreover, jurisdictions, consultants, CMs, and the like don’t know Revit and will prefer solutions that work with uploaded PDF drawing sets. So there is a need in the industry for both in-app hosted QA/QC solutions and external QA/QC solutions like Ichi. 

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More AI Software

ArchiBoost AI

ArchiBoost AI is another AI-powered QA/QC compliance software, but also a tool that functions as a knowledge hub for your firm. As their website says, “Every project depends on two types of intelligence: what your firm already knows — and what this project uniquely requires.”

ArchiBoost AI works to bind these two together, linking the first knowledge layer (Firm Intelligence) to the second layer (Project Intelligence). That first layer is about what you reuse, including BIM execution plans, documentation standards, QA/QC checklists, internal best practices, specifications, and master spec templates, etc.

The second layer is about what the project demands uniquely across standard data and documents.

As we noted in reports twice now, using AI software for scanning and reviewing plans and models was the hot big thing at AIA26 this year in San Diego. Suddenly, QA/QC (quality assurance and quality control) is all the rage. And while many new firms were showcasing such technology, other important leaders in this segment were not at AIA26, like VitruAI, which has truly ambitious plans for agentic AI in AEC.

ArchiBoost AI image showing its knowledge hub structure. A firm’s best details shouldn’t disappear into archival folders. ArchiBoost extracts metadata from a firm’s past projects and builds a living, searchable library that evolves with your firm.

There is an interesting differentiator between these new AI-powered QA/QC software systems. Some work with the PDF output only, while others work with the actual BIM models. In the case of Architosh AIA26 BEST of SHOW winner Kestrel Labs, their solution works inside of Revit via a plugin. It also works in a web browser as a general code compliance system to help architects understand requirements on a project before they even have BIM models. Kestral Labs’ system is designed for the duration of the project from inception to post-occupancy. And Kestrel Labs is aiming to work not just on Revit but also soon on SketchUp models. That part has us excited because we believe that is quite challenging to do.

MORE: AIA26: Kestrel Labs — Native BIM Compliance Platform

At the same time, VitruAI, like Kestrel Labs, works inside Revit as a plugin. But VitruAI is an agentic AI production system, not just a QA/QC platform. Their plans are grander and more ambitious. They are starting with codes, compliance regulations, office standards, and project requirements, but they have AI agents planned for much more within their VitruAI Labs, including AI agents for structural sizing, MEP routing, and a document-parsing AI agent. And their roadmap for agentic AI is even larger. Plus, they are looking at integrations between VitruAI and Solibri, SketchUp, Rhino and Grasshopper, and IFC. We bring this up about VitruAI to point out that developers are looking at the entire architectural process as being served by AI agents at every step, across more tools than just Revit.

Arcol

Arcol won the AIA Architosh BEST of SHOW award for the BIM category two years in a row this year. The well-funded BIM 2.0 industry darling has won over numerous top architecture firms and since last year added marquee US large construction firms to its client roster.

Arcol is showing its new integration of spreadsheets that can be bi-directionally synced with Excel files.

This momentum is driven by continuous innovative development, adding useful features to its easy-to-use UI and UX. The latest is the bidirectional bridge between Rhino 3D geometry and Arcol. As senior associate editor Architosh Pete Evans, AIA, remarks:

Arcol had already added Boards to its BIM 2.0 program in the summer of 2025, but recently they added sophisticated table linking so that Arcol model data can be linked into other table applications or worksheets such as those for pricing data.

Arcol firmly believes that agentic AI will power Arcol along with human architects in the near future.

While agentic AI is being plumbed into Arcol today, a distinguishing feature of Arcol is its Figma-style multiplayer engine that allows multiple architects, owners, builders, and others to click a link and enter the same model (file) and simultaneously edit geometry in real time without file locking, manual syncing, or lag. As you work, you can see your teammates’ cursors moving around the user interface. In the near future, instead of seeing your human teammates’ cursors in the UI, human architects will also see the cursors of AI agents working in the model as well. That is the vision of the future!

Egnyte

Egnyte is a leading platform for secure file sharing, content management, and governance. Unlike enterprise cloud storage offerings from Dropbox, Box, Microsoft and others, Egnyte is specifically tailored for industries with heavy data loads, complex file types, and strict compliance needs—such as AEC, life sciences, and legal.

Egnyte is a hybrid cloud architecture platform and virtual appliances that run on a local office server or a network-attached storage (NAS) computer and mirror the Egnyte cloud data. Dropbox and similar offerings, instead, are direct-to-cloud syncing platforms. Clients individually link to the cloud and sync directly to files whose masters are stored on the Dropbox cloud.

One powerful advantage of Egnyte is performance and data file protection. Since the appliance server syncs to the Egnyte cloud rather than to an architect’s own computer while sitting in the office, the architect can work swiftly, opening a 2 GB AutoCAD, Revit, or Archicad file and working at local gigabit network speeds (near instantaneous). Egnyte quietly syncs changes slowly in the background (the work happens between the Egnyte appliance and the cloud)

The other advantage is true file locking. Folks who use Dropbox and similar cloud services know that if two people try to open the same file at the same time, it is possible, and users only get soft warnings. But they can also get, in some cases, “conflicted copies,” which create a mess for IT and BIM managers, not to mention end users.

With Egnyte, you can use the platform as a cloud service, or you can deploy a NAS or appliance on your network in your offices (yes, offices as in plural). Egnyte can sync multiple appliances across offices worldwide. Having the hybrid architecture helps with large-file access and write speeds on local LANs within offices, particularly for very large files.

A newer feature in Egnyte is secure AI (artificial intelligence). You can turn files within an organization into “firm-wide knowledge” to power both collaboration and governance. Using Anthropic’s MCP technology, users working across a myriad of applications can use Egnyte’s AI chat box to ask questions about projects and teams, and the AI accesses data from email and other applications.

Egnyte AI MCP connectors today include Gmail, Jira, Confluence, Procore, Slack, and others, plus a growing library of other apps. The AI can draft responses, like for email, and then send the draft back to Gmail as a draft after you approve it. This essentially turns Egnyte into a central intelligence hub.

In addition to the performance and data security benefits, Egnyte has specific AEC-only features, including XREF and path preservation (for DWG/AutoCAD files), smart cache SMB collaboration for single-site Revit Co-Editing, and integrations with Autodesk Forma Cloud, Procore, and Bluebeam Studio.

Layer

In 2019, the innovative mobile-cloud-first application Layer won Architosh AIA BEST of SHOW in the Mobile + Cloud category. Since then, the application has continued to evolve. Layer was not shown in a booth at AIA that year but was a major feature in a large, well-attended educational session that Architosh attended.

Layer 4 is the current version of this innovative app that refers to itself as a “workflow platform for buildings.” Being mobile-cloud-first, Layer is very strong in the field capture of data and photos and the management of the same in the field on your mobile device.

Layer 4 is the latest version of this award-winning app for architects. The modern platform helps architects work smarter with data records, getting data away from inefficient spreadsheets and into Layer. Layer has a flexible UI/UX and can be configured in infinite ways. It is ideal for collecting survey data of existing buildings, FF&E management, field reports, Room Data Sheets, CMMS, and more.

For those of you old enough to recall the FileMaker Pro solutions built for the architecture industry back in the 1990s, Layer shares one common aspect with that legendary relationship database tool—the ability to easily customize the data fields in the UI/UX and the reports the application can spit out. On some level, Layer is the heir apparent to FileMaker Pro in AEC since that application and the company behind it (Apple, of all things) have largely turned their backs on AEC.

Layer 4 is designed to reduce your firm’s use of spreadsheets like Excel or Google Sheets. It’s not that spreadsheets are evil, but that spreadsheets are horrible to work with in the field on mobile devices. And they are also horrible to work with as a way to store data records of things like furniture, equipment, appliances, and all manner of objects that are placed in buildings.

These are just a sampling of the pre-build templates for managing this kind of data inside Layer 4.

Layer 4 works with Revit so you can link Revit to your Layer data fields. Layer has captured the attention of leading architecture firms, including POPULOUS, AECOM, DMA, Leo A Daly, SmithGroup, and others.

Bimbeats

BIMbeats is an analytics platform for architecture firms. The firm says, “We automate data collection and visualization so you can understand how your team really works, what’s helping, what’s slowing you down, and where to focus next.”

BIMbeats is software that helps practices right-size computing equipment and software. From this perspective alone, the software can more than pay for itself by helping to find performance bottlenecks and underutilization of powerful equipment.

What BIMbeats does is integrate with leading industry tools like Revit, AutoCAD, Bluebeam Revu, Tally, Rhino, Grasshopper, Adobe, Navis, Enscape, and many others. It gathers data about these tools and their utilization by staff, the sizes of files, and how the hardware in your firm is running these applications. From this data it can surface patterns and provide insight about them, like file size warnings on projects, in-place Revit Families, total sheets, views, etc.

BIMbeats showing the hardware monitoring charts in its interface.

Hardware monitoring is useful so firms can better plan for future hardware based on their equipment is actually used. This can help firms reduce over-spec’ing computer equipment when users actually don’t fully push such equipment to the max or are not using apps that require that level of power. It can also show the opposite and reveal bottlenecks.

Other Show Reports

AIA26: Expo Show Report 1 — Autodesk

AIA26: Expo Show Report 2 — Nemetschek Group

AIA26: Expo Show Report 3 — Trimble and SketchUp

AIA26: Expo Show Report 4 — Chaos 

AIA26: Expo Show Report 5 — neoBIM, and other AI apps

AIA26: Expo Show Report 6 — xFigura, CODii, others

AIA26: Expo Show Report 7 — Layer, Arcol, Egnyte and more…

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The company was founded recently in 2020 and is based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. As a six-year-old AEC software firm, the company has grown from a niche startup to a venture-backed software platform after early pilots with over 100 leading architecture firms. In terms of their funding, prominent VC firms Graphite Ventures and the 519 Growth Fund helped PART 3 secure a major USD 2.8 million seed round.

A screenshot of PART 3 from their website showing part of their interface. PART 3 can hold all construction drawings, specs, and manuals as your single source of truth and can handle automatic sheet number numbering, ordering, and linking. It also does versioning.

The company has three co-founders: Jack Sadler, Jessica Luczycki, and Corey Stanford. Each of them has a different background, but Jessica’s background has involved years of working in construction administration.

PART 3 Is Different

What is immediately important to say about PART 3 is that the software platform has been developed for architects or whoever is the prime consultant on a construction job. It is the prime consultant who acquires and pays for the PART 3 platform, while all other stakeholders (general and subcontractors, clerk of the works, owner’s reps, the owner, and MEP and structural engineers) work as “collaborators” in the system for free.

Key Takeways

• PART 3 has been developed for architects because they deserve better tools for the CA phase of projects. 
• Only the prime consultant (usually the architect) pays for PART 3, while project “collaborators,” including engineers, contractors, owners, and reps, are free members of the system.
• PART 3 fully integrates with Procore so that if the general contractor uses Procore as their common data environment (CDE), the two systems work well together across various construction-stage workflows. 

PART 3 has a full suite of CA phase workflows and tools—from addressing the RFI and Submittals processes to managing and addressing Tasks and Assignments and Field Reports.

It also addresses project files like the construction drawings, so there is a single source of truth (SSoT) for the entire project team. The system can also handle version control, and users can also upload project manuals and specifications. To help organize things, there is a flexible folder structure in PART 3’s system.

View of PART 3’s UI when looking at the Overview screen. 

The ProjectFiles system also allows markup tools for drawings, submittals, RFI packages, and product cut sheets. PART 3 also notes that the reason why architects should want to manage their drawings inside of PART 3 rather than Procore when working on a Procore project is for complete control and visibility of the single source of truth.

On Procore integrated projects, RFIs and Submittals are automatically imported into PART 3, and you prepare your responses to both in PART 3, and those get sent to Procore.

Mobile and AI

PART 3 doesn’t have dedicated mobile apps that you download from the Apple or Google Store; instead, it operates as a Progressive Web App (PWA). Users load their browser on the mobile smartphone and go to app.part3.ca and tap the three dots in the top right and select Install App or Add to Home Screen. PART 3 is designed specifically for architectural site visits and fieldwork, and there is an offline mode so you can continue working. You can drop pins for issue locations, take field notes, log observations, and snap photos to go with. And you can distribute firm-branded PDF field reports directly from the smartphone app right from the job site.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is embedded in PART 3, where it powers the Submittal Assistant, surfacing issues before you begin your review.

Architosh Analysis and Commentary

One of the most critical things about AE professionals using the general contractor’s CDE solutions for project and CA phase management is the “disconnection factor” that typically comes down the line. At some point, the architect loses access to Procore or some other rival platform CDE. So PART 3 is fundamentally addressing that by delivering a CA platform for the architect first and foremost. All the critical work, like RFIs and submittals, happens in PART 3, and all that data remains there, even though copies are pushed to Procore. 

In a quick review of the product walk-through online, we also like PART 3’s simplified user interface and UX. This system seems very approachable, and for architects, especially those in the high-end residential market, who may not be managing all aspects of the CA phase, the critical elements they always must address—RFIs and Submittals and a single source of truth for construction drawings—appear to be managed extremely well in this system. 

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The multi-year commitment encompasses a complete overhaul of Newforma’s technology stack—spanning its flagship Newforma Project Center and native SaaS Newforma Konekt platforms—while laying the compliance groundwork for FedRAMP readiness to serve highly regulated public-sector clients.

AI Roadmap & Key

To execute the technical transformation, Newforma has partnered with zeb, an AWS Premier Tier Partner specializing in AI and cloud engineering. The collaboration focuses on four pivotal operational areas:

• Generative AI via Amazon Bedrock: Development of intelligent, automated tools for compliance tracking, contract administration, and complex document review.
• Platform Modernization: Upgrading legacy and on-premises cloud bridges in Newforma Project Center while continuing the cloud-native evolution of Newforma Konekt.
• FedRAMP Compliance: Preparing Newforma’s cloud infrastructure to meet strict federal security standards, enabling broader enterprise adoption among defense and infrastructure contractors.
• Enterprise Scalability: Improving speed, uptime, and cross-platform performance across complex architectural and engineering datasets.

“This collaboration marks an important milestone for Newforma and our customers,” said Peter Cannone, Chief Executive Officer of Newforma. “We’ve spent years helping AECO firms embrace digital transformation through both on-prem and cloud solutions that improve collaboration and project delivery. By deepening our relationship with AWS, we’re investing in the next generation of our platform, giving customers greater flexibility, stronger security, faster innovation, and a foundation for the AI-powered workflows that shape the future of our industry.”

Mal Vivek, CEO of zeb, stated:

“Newforma’s work with AWS will unlock powerful AI capabilities for AECO firms, from generative AI through Amazon Bedrock to scalable cloud infrastructure built for their most demanding workloads,” said Rich Geraffo, Vice President & Managing Director, AWS North America. “We’re proud to help the industry that builds our world shape its digital future.”

Newforma Preparedness

“This is much more than an infrastructure initiative,” said Ben Bazso, Chief Technology Officer of Newforma. “We’re strengthening the technology platform that powers Newforma today while creating the flexibility to deliver new AI capabilities, deeper integrations, and continuous innovation for years to come. Working alongside AWS and zeb allows us to further optimize our cloud platforms and accelerate our AI roadmap, providing customers with greater performance, resilience, and choice as their technology needs continue to evolve.”

Architosh Analysis & Commentary

Newforma is committed to moving beyond its on-premise heritage. For two decades, Newforma Project Center has served as the backbone of document control, email indexing, and administrative tracking for leading architecture and engineering firms. However, its historical reliance on local server infrastructure often presented modern hybrid firms with deployment challenges.

This seven-year commitment with AWS signals Newforma’s definitive shift toward a unified, cloud-first ecosystem—pairing the deep submittal/RFI search powers of Project Center with the modern web-based issue tracking of Newforma Konekt.

By choosing Amazon Bedrock as its generative AI engine, Newforma gains access to leading foundation models without exposing proprietary firm data or project records. In an industry where unstructured data—specifically decades of email correspondence, spec books, and drawing sets—causes significant administrative friction, applying AI to automate document review and compliance could save AECO project managers hundreds of hours per year.

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As artificial intelligence adoption accelerates across the architecture, engineering, construction, and operations (AECO) sector, technology leaders face a growing paradox: teams are eagerly experimenting with AI, but they are doing so in fragmented, localized silos. Disconnected datasets, proprietary formats, and isolated spreadsheets continue to create duplicate effort rather than actionable intelligence—all while amplifying data governance and security risks for enterprise CIOs.

Key Takeaways

• Revizto adds new Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, which converts Revizto project data into an AI-queryable format.
• Revizto users can now use natural language prompts inside their preferred LLM (Gemini, Claude, ChatGPT, etc) and ask natural language queries.
• Adds Model & Object Properties API — provides real-time access to model and object data including material types, systems, fire ratings, quantities, and more, without opening the Revizto application.

Revizto’s latest update tackles this head-on by establishing a unified, open, and secure data intelligence layer, letting firms leverage custom AI agents and BI tools against live project models without sacrificing control over their intellectual property.

Tackling Tech Bloat in AEC/O

The release arrives on the heels of Revizto’s Bridging the Gap Report 2026, which highlighted critical industry bottlenecks:

• Bandwidth & Training Deficit: For the second consecutive year, 32% of construction leaders cited a lack of time and capacity as their primary barrier to adopting new software.
• Sovereignty Concerns: A staggering 96% of organizations expressed anxiety regarding data ownership and control when deploying emerging technologies.
• Stack Consolidation: Rather than adopting niche, single-purpose apps, 39% of firms are actively planning to simplify their technology stacks in favor of multi-functional, connected platforms.

Revizto’s Bridging the Gap Report 2026 concludes: “AEC organizations are prioritizing tech consolidation, favoring connected platforms that deliver great value with less operational complexity.”

Technical Summary

At the heart of Revizto’s release are three distinct technology components that streamline data access across cross-platform AEC environments (macOS, Windows, iPadOS, and Web):

• Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server —  Technical Role = Bridges Revizto project data with LLMs and AI agents; Primary Use Case = Natural language querying (e.g., “Find unresolved Level 3 clashes”)
• Model & Object Properties API — Technical Role = Real-time headless access to model/object metadata; Primary Use Case = Automated QTO, carbon tracking, procurement, and FM handovers
• Developer Portal (OAuth 2.0) — Technical Role = Enterprise-grade access control & app registration; Primary Use Case = Streamlined developer workflows, API updates, and role management

MCP Server

Instead of requiring complex, custom-built integrations to parse proprietary BIM schemas, the new MCP Server converts rich Revizto project data into an AI-queryable format. Project managers can use natural language prompts inside their preferred LLM—asking natural queries such as:

• “Which fire doors are currently missing certification documents?”
• “What are the top five unresolved structural-to-MEP clashes on Level 3?”

The system returns context-aware answers in seconds, drastically reducing manual audits and static spreadsheet reports.

Model & Object Properties API

This headless API grants real-time programmatic access to granular BIM metadata—including material assemblies, fire ratings, system classifications, and spatial quantities—without needing to open the native Revizto desktop app. This enables automated workflows for:

• Live Quantity Take-Offs (QTO) and cost estimation engines.
• Embodied Carbon Dashboards reading live material specs.
• Digital Handover & FM Systems populating asset management databases downstream.

The possibilities for connections and use cases are much wider than the good but obvious choices shown above.

Modernized Developer Portal

Replacing legacy, manual access-code management, the new portal introduces industry-standard OAuth 2.0 app registration. Account admins and enterprise software developers now have self-serve controls to register applications, handle security permissions, and receive direct updates as Revizto’s API infrastructure evolves.

To learn more about Revizto, click here.

Architosh Analysis & Commentary

Revizto has built its reputation as one of the fastest, most reliable issue tracking and 3D coordination environments in the AEC industry—particularly revered for its high-performance hybrid engine across both Apple macOS and Microsoft Windows environments.

With this update, Revizto is strategically repositioning itself from a coordination viewer into a centralized project data hub.

The decision to embrace the Model Context Protocol (MCP) standard is a shrewd move. Rather than building a closed, proprietary “Revizto AI” chatbot that locks customers into a single LLM vendor, Revizto is providing the pipe. IT directors can connect their own private, enterprise-governed AI instances (whether OpenAI, Anthropic, or custom local models) directly to live model data. This directly addresses the 96% data sovereignty concern highlighted in their report: your data stays in your cloud, accessed only by your AI tools.

A final point from their industry report is that AEC organizations are frustrated with tech stack inflation and subscription fatigue. Reaching this tipping point, software vendors must either become extensible platforms or risk being consolidated out of customer tech stacks. 

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AI Compliance

CODii

This company was completely new to us at AIA this year and focuses on using AI technologies to streamline project requirements. Essentially, users link folders to the systems, and CODii does the rest. These folders can live in systems like SharePoint or Google Drive, and CODii automatically classifies every connected document as a requirement or deliverable.

CODii is a new compliance AI tool that works on your own project data as organized in linked folders. Do AI inference on your project’s complete data.

The goal here is to have one searchable source of truth regarding every project obligation you, as an architect, need to meet. It also addresses deliverables, be they drawings and specifications or reports and calculations. Essentially, this gives you and your firm team the ability to ask natural language questions against your project documents. You are doing AI inference against your data to perform quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC).

CodeComply.AI

Nothing was more thematic at AIA26 this year than using artificial intelligence (AI) to perform code reviews on your documents and models. Unlike Architosh’s BEST of SHOW winner Kestrel Labs, CodeComply.AI works with uploaded plan sets. The company says, “CodeComply turns your plan set into a live, code-aware workspace—run jurisdiction-specific checks, test design alternatives, and produce cited documentation in the same tool you use to validate your drawings.”

CodeComply.AI in action. The UI is in white with shades of pink and gray, with tools on the left and a dialog box panel on the right.

CodeComply.AI has a nice workflow and UI/UX for a tool working with plan sets alone. However, the limitation of tools that work with plan sets alone is that your code review process still needs to return to your authoring BIM solution. For many architects, this may not be a big deal. CodeComply also has a feature called VersionVue, which allows the user to compare plan versions, highlighting every change. This is again using AI technologies to compare your document versions. You can use smart filters to focus on only what matters most in the comparison. Like Bluebeam’s Compare features, color coding is used to show the original plan and what’s new.

Back to codes, this application works with IBC, IPC, IMC, NFPA 101, ADA, FHA, state-amended building and residential codes, and custom jurisdictions can be easily added. It works on any building type.

Other AI Software

xFigura.Ai

xFigura.AI has some notable world-class architecture firms listed as customers on its homepage. The AI platform offers over 45 AI models, and they are curated for the architectural process. These include abilities such as text-to-render, render enhancement, image-to-render, sketch-to-render, image-to-video, image-to-3D, rendering relighting, InPainting, design boards, and more.

xFigura AI uses a node-based system for linking various functions and data. This takes place on an infinite canvas.

With xFigura, the canvas is an infinite board where you build, connect, and generate. Everything done in Figura lives on the canvas. There are no tabs, just one vast canvas which is your creative space. On the canvas, you can create and organize nodes. The node interface will instantly feel familiar to Grasshopper users, but Figura isn’t like Grasshopper. This is not an advanced algorithm-aided design (AAD) software. It is much easier than that.

Visualization Software

D5 Render

D5 Render was at AIA26 and enjoyed excellent traffic from North American architects curious to learn how real-time visualization works and how it differs from the competition. In Architosh’s view, D5 is highly competitive with the best real-time interactive renderers in the global market across a range of metrics, including visual quality and feature set.

An image of D5 Render at AIA26 in San Diego on the show floor.

Realized not long after AIA26, D5 Render version 3.1 was released, with a shift in focus toward supporting interaction in collaboration workflows. Architosh covered version 3.1 in detail, which you can read here. (see: Architosh, “D5 Render 3.1: The Future of Architectural Design Reviews,” 17 Jun 2026).

Architosh Analysis: While D5 has been historically Windows-only due to a reliance on Windows DirectX 12 and DXR ray-tracing, the rendering company has announced this year that D5 Render is officially coming to the Mac. The D5 Render Engine is a proprietary real-time rendering engine built from the ground up by D5 specifically for the field of architecture. Unlike game industry rendering engines like Unreal (used in Twinmotion), the D5 Engine is optimized to handle the massive architectural datasets and complex lighting with a high degree of efficiency. 

D5 leverages full path tracing, a higher form of ray tracing, and is built with a custom shader architecture that provides native optimal support on both Windows (DX12) and macOS (Metal). For those Mac users clamoring to get a Mac version, there is an official D5 Render Mac Waitlist here. Importantly, on M3 and higher, Apple Silicon supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing, so Mac users may need to update their systems once this native macOS version ships. For the D5 Mac curious who cannot wait, their Mac-native options include Twinmotion, Enscape, Blender, and the new Maxon Redshift Render for AEC. 

Lumion

Lumion was arguably the premier real-time, interactive renderer when such rendering applications first emerged a decade ago. Despite its visual benefits, the software has long been noted for being resource-intensive and Windows-only. As Mac computers continue to gain market share worldwide and within architecture programs in college, this Windows-only posture is starting to change.

Lumion View is Mac-native and works with the latest macOS versions of SketchUp. This is a lightweight real-time rendering plugin that functions as a design companion, offers conceptual-style preset render settings (like clay, wood, etc.), supports customized artificial lights (point, spot, area), and provides quick 4K rendered output. However, the Mac version uses rasterization, as the developer’s native ray tracing and dynamic sky-cloud environments are still in development on the Mac.

Meanwhile, the latest Lumion 2026.1 update supports ray-traced panoramas, a new pattern editor, parallax interiors, and more.

Financial Software

Factor A/E

Factor A/E is financial software for the architect or designer’s practice. This includes all time-keeping, project financial planning and performance tracking, reporting, resource scheduling, and billing. The company says it is the most adaptable platform in the AE industry and thus is flexible enough for how various firms work and charge.

Factor A/E has firms covered with detailed and comprehensive financial dashboards.

Factor A/E is touted as more customizable than Monograph, particularly for invoices. As for fee-type billing, for firms that bill simply by hourly or a fixed fee, both Monograph and Factor A/E have you covered. However, for firms that charge a percentage of construction costs as their fee, these solutions stand apart. Factor A/E handles percentage of construction cost billing as a simplified Fixed Fee workaround. Mapping a percentage contract to Fixed Fee this way isn’t ideal, and that is where BQE, with its built-in Percentage contract rules, shines.

Monograph

The initial distinguishing feature of Monograph is its gorgeous user-interface graphics and information clarity. Monograph shines above its nearest competitors, Factor A/E and BQE, in this regard. Touted as “firm management software for architects and engineers,” Monograph is trusted by over 16,000 architects and engineers.

Monograph does full project accounting, builds budgets, assigns staff, forecasts performance, and handles billing and payments. Both Monograph, Factor A/E, and BQE offer compelling features and benefits, and all of them offer detailed pre-flight onboarding experiences as part of considering the software for adoption.

You can visit them online here:  Factor A/E, Monograph, and BQE.

Other Show Reports

AIA26: Expo Show Report 1 — Autodesk

AIA26: Expo Show Report 2 — Nemetschek Group

AIA26: Expo Show Report 3 — Trimble and SketchUp

AIA26: Expo Show Report 4 — Chaos 

AIA26: Expo Show Report 5 — neoBIM, and other AI apps

AIA26: Expo Show Report 6 — xFigura, CODii, others

AIA26: Expo Show Report 7 — Layer, Arcol, Egnyte and more…

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The Group legally closed its largest company acquisition to date, Heavy Construction Systems Specialists, LLC (HCSS), on 1 July 2026. The launch of Bluebeam Max as the Group’s first comprehensive agentic AI solution for the construction industry has been a significant milestone for the company as part of its broad AI strategy.

Financial Results:

In general, the Nemetschek Group’s earnings have grown by more than 10% over the past five years (on average), while the past year has seen growth of more than triple that. Here is a summary of its recent financials:

• Q2 (2026) revenue of EUR 327.7 million (+14.5%)
• Q2 EBITDA (currency-adjusted) is EUR 98.6 million (+15.8%)
• Q2 Net Income is EUR 66 million (25.4%)
• +25.3% growth in earnings per share to EUR 0.57 in Q2
• Q2 EBITDA margin reported at 30.1% (adjusted for acquisition-related one-off costs at 31.0%

Group revenue for H1, 2026 increased to EUR 640.7 million (USD 736.2 million), representing a constant-currency growth rate of 15.7% (reported: 11.9%).

Nemetschek Group – Q2 and H1 2026.

“The first half of 2026 was characterized by continued very strong operational performance and important strategic milestones for the Nemetschek Group,” says Yves Padrines, CEO of the Nemetschek Group. “With the successful closing of the HCSS acquisition, the largest acquisition in the company’s history, we are strengthening our market position in the infrastructure and heavy civil construction sector, which offers very attractive long-term growth prospects. At the same time, we consistently continue to execute our AI strategy. The successful market launch of our agentic AI suite, Bluebeam Max, together with the further expansion of Group-wide AI solutions, sets new standards for the integration of AI across our industries. The combination of strong organic growth, strategic investments and a clear AI strategy provide an excellent foundation for sustained profitable growth and long-term value creation for our customers, partners and shareholders.”

Looking at Segments

The Nemetschek Group positions all of its products into market segments for the two primary industries it serves. Here are some notes on those:

• Design Segment — this segment reached Q2 revenue of EUR 142.9 million (growth of 9.9%). Margin in this segment was 22.7%. The main brands in this segment include Graphisoft, Allplan and Vectorworks (all BIM and CAD platforms). Engineering design solution companies are also in this segment, including Frilo and RISA.
• Build Segment — this segment reached Q2 revenue of EUR 142.9 million (growth of 22.4%). Margin in this segment reached 40.1%, a substantially higher level than the design segment. The main brands in this segment include Bluebeam, Nevaris, and GoCanvas. HCSS will also be in this segment.
• Manage Segment — this segment reached Q2 revenue of 13.1 million (4.6% growth). Margin was 5.1%. The primary brands in this segment are Crem Solutions and dTwin.
• Media Segment — this segment reached revenues of EUR 29.4 million (flat to slightly down, YoY). Margin was 27.7%. The primary brand is Maxon, with recent acquisitions in this segment consolidating into Maxon.

For the full year in 2026, the Group expects currency-adjusted organic revenue growth in the range of 14 – 15% for the financial year in 2026. For those who want a deeper dive or for AEC industry investors, read our deeper analysis below.

Architosh Analysis and Commentary

The HCSS acquisition will impact the Group’s top and bottom lines next quarter. HCSS alone had annual 2025 revenues of over USD 215 million. Prior to the acquisition, HCSS’s annual revenue growth rate was over 21%, making it twice as strong (in growth) as the Design segment’s average organic growth rate and close to the Build segment’s. Architosh sees the Build segment accelerating growth due to multiple factors, including Bluebeam Max (a premium-tier AI-centric Bluebeam offering), HCSS’s organic rate, plus synergies within the segment, including those with GoCanvas. 

A more troubling aspect of Group is its Media segment (Maxon). Flat revenue growth is always a concern, and this may explain why Maxon began to pivot more aggressively towards the AEC visualization space over the past year, introducing real-time, interactive rendering solutions for authoring tools, beginning with Vectorworks and then Revit. The company must resist discounting those solutions to the point of projecting lower value to the market than its chief competitors in Chaos, Lumion, and D5. Instead, the Maxon solution needs to demonstrate unique value-add in the offering itself. 

Nemetschek’s forward PE Ratio is currently 24.1, which is a bit lower than its main rivals but notably low by its five-year history (see chart below).

The Nemetschek Group is doing well financially, but its stock price is down for the year, as are those of its chief rivals (Autodesk, Bentley, and Trimble). With broad real estate slowdowns and a cooling construction industry, the entire sector’s stocks are down for the year (approximately 26% for Nemetschek and Autodesk and 32% for Trimble). However, these financial results reported yesterday have seen the stock (ETRA:NEM) shoot up dramatically. 

This five-year view of the PE ratio for Nemetschek clearly shows that through most of the past five years, the PE ratio has been over 30, reflecting the company’s strong earnings growth and free cash flow generation.

Looking forward, Nemetschek is currently undervalued by most analysts. Simply Wall Street has it at 40%+ undervalued. Using the Rule of 40, with 15% ± revenue growth plus 25 – 30% ± margins (= 40+), the company deserves a premium multiple (30-40PE). With HSCC’s revenue and margin contribution, the Nemetschek Group is currently a very attractive stock buy. Adding further optimism are the company’s broader AI strategy, the Bluebeam Max rollout, and AI in general. 

Nemetschek Earnings Growth forecasts and recent history show clear strength and upward momentum.

Architosh sees the AEC/O industry finding new paths to higher revenue as agentic AI solutions drive clear value in automating the mundane and tedious in AEC workflows. Bluebeam Max’s implementation is a crystal-clear indicator of what AI success looks like for revenue expansion. Take a product that is already a standard on a subscription customer base and offer a higher-tier offering that offers highly attractive benefits. With the broad construction industry stalled or cooling, the take-up for more premium AI offerings will be slower than if the construction industry were doing well, but the take-up will still manifest for products with clear ROI. 

Disclaimer: This content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as professional financial, investment, or legal advice. Investing involves risk, including the loss of principal. Always conduct your own research and consult a licensed financial advisor before making any investment decisions.

[Editor’s Note] In the Analysis section, HCSS was incorrectly written HSCC, and this has been corrected. 17 Sep 2026. 

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A Curated Selection

What follows is a non-alphabetically ordered curated selection of companies we were introduced to on the show floor, heard about from various sources, or researched before and after our attendance. Many of these we already know, while quite a few are newcomers. We will start with the newcomers and those that really interested us the most.

neoBIM GmbH

This relatively new AEC software company is based in Germany, and its founder and CEO, Moritz Luck, was the co-founder of the award-winning Enscape real-time, interactive rendering program. Its chief product officer (CPO) is also a former CEO of one of the Nemetschek Group’s major daughter companies. So if we want to think about this as a music band, two leaders of this new German software company have hit albums that have gone platinum status—sticking with the music analogy for a moment.

So what does neoBIM do? What do they make?

At AIA26 we had a chance to see their products (including ones under development) up close. Their current shipping products include a series of digital tools under the buildOS moniker. These are “AEC tools, built from the AI up.” That is a bit of a moniker for them.

Each tool solves a real bottleneck, and each tool can be used by itself or together on newBIM’s buildOS platform.

An image of Gen, by neoBIM GmbH of Germany. (Image: neoBIM)

Tool one is called Gen. This looked and felt like TestFit but with a twist and a bit supercharged. You select your plot (building site), and Gen drafts up every code-compliant build the site can hold. You can select a solution and then start manipulating it. The process is a four-step one: Enter an address. See what you can build. Know if it pays. And finally, take over time. It’s at this last step that you can begin to move, resize, redraw, and manipulate any of the building solutions directly.

At the same time, all the numerical data you need to test sites with real buildings and real programs is given to you in real time as you manipulate the model. Finding out what a project is worth (what it pays): Gen works with buildable GFA and unit mix, then with GDV, yield, cost per sq ft, and net return, using local market data.

Another image of Gen, from neoBIM GmbH. At AIA26, Gen was making some noise and the cognoscenti of digital tools in AEC were whispering about it. (Image: neoBIM)

Once you are done working out sites and a solution in neoBIM’s Gen tool, you export 3D Revit or IFC models, PDFs of plans and views, etc.

Other tools this company now has include Insider (which reads every council meeting in 250+ German municipalities), zoning changes, design competitions, etc. This is about winning the work. Tender is their third tool, and it manages the Tendering phase process.

Finally, we got a sneak peek at this company’s brand new AI-first oriented BIM authoring application under development. It is important to note that today’s BIM authoring tools (all the desktop-era ones) require substantial re-architecting at the data and metadata levels to be best-fit for the agentic AI era.

This image shows neoBIM’s AEC industry-first BIM tool, written from the ground up for agentic AI. The move from today’s BIMs to the future of agentic AI BIMs means moving from a database schema that is strictly deterministic versus data structures that natively support “probabilistic multi-states”

Desktop-era models are saved in large, proprietary relational databases. An agentic AI-native BIM tool replaces static, monolithic files with dynamic, semantic data streams designed for machine comprehension and real-time collaboration. The real-time part is already part of the BIM 2.0 definition this publication—and AEC Magazine principly—have solidly defined and written about. But BIM 2.0 emerged prior to OpenAI’s groundbreaking ChatGPT and Anthropic’s model context protocol (MCP server model). That means tools like neeBIM’s new BIM engine represent true agentic AI-first platform technology for the AI era.

Architosh Analysis and Commentary

A completely brand new BIM platform engine that is agentic-AI-centric is an exciting new prospect in the AEC market, and this company was getting a lot of attention and discussion on the show floor by other digital tools providers. That alone says quite a bit. This is a company that we intend to watch very closely, and we encourage Architosh readers to explore their technology and solutions. 

Archistar Inc.

Archistar is from Australia, and we have written about the company a few times inside our Xpresso newsletter, where we focus on emTech (emerging technologies) in AEC/O. From the earliest years, we have been impressed with Archistar but wondered how this Australian software company was going to grow globally or to the US.

Initially, Archistar launched as a platform aimed at property finding and planning workflows, recognizing that historically architects and developers spent weeks digesting zoning codes and regulations impacting what you could do with a given property. Interestingly, this is the kind of thing that is now partially automated with the Gen tool we just wrote about above from neoBIM GmbH.

Archistar eCheck is an AI PreCheck plan review application.

Archistar would allow users to select a plot of land and instantly generate thousands of compliant 3D building concepts on it (from apartments, mixed-use, townhomes, etc), all tailored to local building and zoning limitations. This is still a great pain point to solve, by the way, but the Australian company did a major pivot and now offers an AI PreCheck application (formerly eCheck).

Today, Archistar is an AI plan review platform, and using AI technology to review for compliance was a very hot topic this year at AIA26. What makes Archistar different from, say, Kestrel Labs’ compliance platform is the target audience. Archistar is built for local governments. The software can read CAD, PDF, and BIM files and evaluate them automatically against compliance regulations (zoning, building codes, etc).

Another interesting pivot is the North American one. With capital raises of USD 22 million in 2022, the Australian firm opened offices in Los Angeles and Vancouver. The platform is now used by over 30 major North American cities, including LA County, the City of Austin, and New York City.

Archistar still offers its earlier generative design solutions. There is a free Archistar to Autodesk Forma integration.

MeltPlan 

This is another well-funded (to the tune of USD 14 million) AI-native planning engine for pre-construction. MeltPlan handles building code, cost, scheduling, and value planning. These activities are addressed through Melt Code, Melt Takeoff, and Melt Bid.

For architects, MeltPlan offers instant, expert-grade compliance research to guide design decisions. This is not a black-box AI system that doesn’t reveal its AI methodologies and knowledge paths. MeltPlan says its system is trained to understand building industry knowledge, including codes and standards, AEC ontologies, building elements and assemblies, quantities and scopes. And every result comes with clear reasoning explained. There is even a visualization created. (see image below).

MeltPlan can produce 3D visuals that can illustrate code review analysis results.

Then there is Melt Bid, to “level bids in minutes, not hours,” as their tagline suggests. This solution works in the cloud or in Excel and helps professionals level bids up to 10x faster than traditional workflows. Using AI, the system generates a full comparison of uploaded bids based on your template in minutes, not hours. To learn more about MeltPlan, visit them online.

Mosaic

Finally, Mosaic is another new company to us, and it’s a project resource planning, management, and forecasting application. This is a solution aimed at larger organizations, and the general philosophy is simple—when work is planned, everything goes better downstream, schedules stabilize, utilization rates rise, and profitability follows.

A view of Mosaic on an iPad at AIA26 inside their booth.

Mosaic’s AI technology automatically generates work assignments and decides based on who has the skills needed and their schedule availability. Of course, even well-laid plans change, and Mosaic has patented technology that automatically adjusts schedules smartly based on these changes.

Mosaic can generate and manage demand, utilization, profitability, and workloads and can determine things like when it is time to hire and for what roles and skills to hire for. The system can even predict (forecast) workload, profitability, and revenue. This kind of data and knowledge is presented smartly in live dashboards, variance reporting, and AI operational briefs so managers and leaders can see where time, budget, and schedule are tracking while there is still time to act. To learn more, visit here.

Other Show Reports

AIA26: Expo Show Report 1 — Autodesk

AIA26: Expo Show Report 2 — Nemetschek Group

AIA26: Expo Show Report 3 — Trimble and SketchUp

AIA26: Expo Show Report 4 — Chaos 

AIA26: Expo Show Report 5 — neoBIM, and other AI apps

AIA26: Expo Show Report 6 — xFigura, CODii, others

AIA26: Expo Show Report 7 — Layer, Arcol, Egnyte and more…

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Over the years, better lighting systems, material systems, and revolutions like real-time ray tracing have narrowed the gap between architectural renderings and finished architectural photography. What was once considered exceptional has become an industry expectation.

Despite this evolution in the photorealistic 3D image of architecture, one part of the architect’s workflow has changed surprisingly little.

Rethink: The Design Review

And that is the design review process.

The folks at D5 have been doing a deep rethink of what the design review process is and what it should be like. Today, design reviews still largely focus on static images or pre-rendered animations with pre-determined camera paths. These collateral items do a very good job of documenting design decisions already made, but they rarely can participate in the review process discussion itself.

D5 3.1 shifts its focus to support “interaction” in collaboration design review workflows. This image shows how, from within D5’s Interactive Presentation workflow features, an image can easily be switched from Day to Night along with any other variable of the scene.

Participation is a high-level threshold for imagery in the design review, but an important one. As architectural practices are much more collaborative in nature, with all types of design reviews, it only makes sense that these meetings become more like the working sessions they actually are.

D5 3.1 — Interaction

Visualization, therefore, is beginning to reshape itself into a new role. Instead of just documenting design decisions made, the medium is becoming interactive. This means visualization can serve the changing nature of the design review by supporting comparison, change, and the decision-making process.

This industry shift is foundational to D5 version 3.1. Instead of asking how the rendering can become more realistic, the release focuses on how the visualization can remain more useful once the meeting begins.

D5 3.1 responds with Interactive Presentation. This is a purpose-built workflow that allows architects to organize presentations like slides while maintaining access to the live project. Teams can easily move between design schemes, materials, lighting conditions, weather settings, and viewpoints without having to prepare multiple image sets or separate animations. Instead of a sequence of predetermined image items on slides, the D5 Interactive Presentation feels like a living, collaborative design workspace.

This GIF animation shows how D5 supports team collaboration.

D5’s new Interactive Presentation sits within a broader set of tools aimed at making architectural review more immersive and adaptable. This includes support for Stereoscopic Panorama for VR to help clients understand scale and materiality at scale, along with spatial relationships that only virtual reality can convey. The Spatial Tour features have evolved with faster scene generation, smoother transitions between indoor and outdoor spaces, and dollhouse views that simplify navigation through complex projects.

D5 Lite for Rhino and Revit

Following on its earlier release for Trimble’s SketchUp, D5 Lite is now expanding to Rhino and Revit, bringing real-time visualization directly into more of the tools architects already use.

To learn more about D5 Lite for Rhino or Revit, click here.

Renderings Still Matter

D5 Render version 3.1 introduces a series of production-focused improvements to strengthen realism while preserving real-time responsiveness in the application.

One such improvement is the adoption of ACEScg Working Color Space. This is a production-grade color pipeline used in the film and visual effects industry. This improves color consistency in D5 throughout the visualization and post-production workflows. Then there is HeightField Tracing, which generates richer surface relief for displacement materials without adding geometry complexity. This will improve the look of stone, brick, timber, et cetera.

MORE: D5 Lite for Rhino and Revit Now Available

There are also improvements for landscape visualization, more nuanced via Seasonal Vegetation. A series of smaller workflow refinements—including Custom Pivot, MeasureLine, improved City Generator controls, smarter Auto Exposure, and expanded Gaussian Splatting support—reduce repetitive adjustments while maintaining continuity throughout production.

Together, these developments reinforce a broader idea: interactive presentations depend on rendering technologies capable of supporting both visual fidelity and real-time responsiveness.

See D5 3.1 Live

D5 will demonstrate the version 3.1 workflow in a live webinar on 21 July 2026 at 1:00 PM UTC. The session covers D5 Lite for Rhino and Revit, Interactive Presentation, VR review, Stereoscopic and Panorama mode, AECESgc, HeightField Tracing and Seasonal Vegetation.

Registration is available through the webinar page here, and anyone who registers but cannot attend live can receive access to the recorded session.

Architosh Analysis and Commentary

D5 continues to push the envelope of interactive realism in architectural visualization. And their position that the future of design reviews in architecture is changing due to new capabilities that they are bringing to market is spot on. Readers should definitely not miss this free webinar and sign up, even if you are going to watch it recorded later. 

The addition of D5 Lite for Rhino and Revit is another major addition to the D5 user’s arsenal. You can learn more about that over here. We look forward to D5’s continued advancements, and we understand that some Mac support for D5 Lite in eligible Apple devices is in the works, though no formal timeline for that. 

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D5 Lite for Rhino

Rhino is an industry standard for architectural creation, where marquee architects formalize their innovative ideas. Rhino is also an ecosystem with a rich set of specialized tools that support generative design, parametric workflows, and environmental simulation. In many ways, Rhino is a design laboratory.

Into this environment comes D5 Lite for Rhino to bring real-time visual feedback directly into this popular modeling and simulation environment.

D5 Lite for Rhino and D5 Lite for Revit are new products with D5 Render version 3.1.

Built for Rhino, D5 Lite enables designers to preview realistic materials and lighting while they model their creations, without having to leave Rhino or wait for another rendering process. This helps designers see complex geometry and how it may actually look before the design process is finalized. It’s a visual layer for Rhino’s design culture.

D5 Lite for Revit

For Revit users, the utilization of the BIM environment for continued design exploration remains high. This is why D5 Lite for BIM users in Revit can be a big benefit to their workflows. There is no need to push the BIM model to another visualization tool and run renderings and wait and see what the results look like.

D5 Lite’s capabilities are shown off here, including: DCC Live Sync, Material Editing, Asset Placement, Lighting Controls, and Environmental Controls.

Visualization at the photorealistic level belongs inside the BIM workflow process. Designs continue to evolve all through the design development process and even into construction documentation. Having D5 Lite for Revit means users can make adjustments to the building throughout any phase and turn to D5 Lite to evaluate the outcome of that change.

D5 Lite is not intended to replace the presentation power of D5 Render. Its role is to support ideation and form-making by enabling designers to test out real lighting conditions and materials.

To learn more, sign up for a free webinar. Registration is available through the webinar page here, and anyone who registers but cannot attend live can receive access to the recorded session.

Architosh Analysis and Commentary

D5 created the D5 Lite applications as an AI-native visualization plugin for the design phase. Users can explore with AI, verify and test material ideas and how they look when rendered realistically, and test lighting design and environmental lighting conditions. All of this takes place inside the native design authoring application, be it SketchUp (previously released) or now Rhino and Revit. To learn more, visit here. 

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Newforma Konekt Teams

Their cloud-based Newforma Konekt platform now includes a Microsoft Teams Connector. This addition enables Teams conversations to be integrated directly into the Konekt project record, allowing firms to retain important communications without altering their existing collaboration workflows.

As more and more AEC organizations use Microsoft Teams as their default workspace for fast-moving project coordination, important decisions, clarifications, and issue resolution increasingly take place in this application channel.

Newforma Konekt gains new Microsoft Teams Connector integration.

The Konekt Teams Connector addresses this reality by automatically syncing public and shared Teams channels with their corresponding projects in Newforma Konekt. Messages, replies, reactions, and files are captured as part of the project record, giving firms a more complete, searchable, and durable history of project communication.

“Project teams should be able to work in the tools that help them move quickly without sacrificing the integrity of the project record,” said Carl Veillette, CPO at Newforma. “With the Microsoft Teams connector for Newforma Konekt, firms can capture the conversations where decisions happen while strengthening documentation, reducing risk and improving project continuity. Because when a question comes up later, it’s not enough to say a decision was made; you need to prove it. This integration captures what was decided in Teams, who was involved, when it happened.”

Beyond Teams Alone

One of the key advantages of the Teams Connector solution is its ability to preserve the Teams communication history beyond what is typically available in Microsoft Teams. Once a channel is connected, Newforma Konekt preserves the current version and previous versions with timestamps.

When a message is deleted in Teams, the deleted message remains in the Newforma Konekt record and is clearly identified as deleted. The integration also preserves thread structures, replies, reactions, and attached files, creating a more complete audit trail for firms managing compliance and contractual obligations and requirements, including project closeout and potential disputes.

“Construction communication is becoming increasingly fragmented,” added Peter Cannone, CEO of Newforma. “Instead of forcing every stakeholder into one tool, firms need to connect the tools teams already use and automatically bring the right information into a complete, reliable project record. That is core to what Newforma does: connecting people to the information they need, regardless of where it lives.”

For more info, go here.

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V-Ray 7 Update 4

This update has been rolling out incrementally across various deployment options, from Maya to Houdini, the latter coming out on 13 July 2026.

Overall, this update centers around deep AI integration, real-time viewport ray tracing, and smarter asset handling.

AI Ideation and Material Creation

The Veras AI architectural engine is now natively embedded directly into the V-Ray Frame Buffer (VFP) and host applications. This lets users use text prompts to test out their design and visualization ideas or material alterations.

Chaos V-Ray 7 Update 4 includes Vantage integration in the viewport. (see text below).

V-Ray also introduced machine learning tools that automatically analyze a single 2D reference image to generate fully textured, physically accurate PBR materials with proper displacement and scattering.

Real-Time Viewport Upgrades

For users with active Chaos Vantage subscription licenses, V-Ray users can now leverage Vantage in the viewport. You can now toggle 100% ray-traced, final-frame-quality real-time rendering directly within your core software viewport (like Maya, 3ds Max, etc.) without opening an external window. All geometry adjustments, light shifts, and material updates synchronize instantly.

Advanced Visuals and Camera Controls

Exterior renders can now leverage the new VRayParallaxTex system, delivering parallax interiors. This simulates deep, believable 3D interior rooms behind windows using lightweight 2D textures, removing the need to model complex interior geometry. Quick caustics and 3D Gaussian Splats that can be dynamically relit via V-Ray scene lights are also added.

New object-based autofocus is also added in this update, as well as per-camera visibility lists. This means, on a per-camera basis, you can exclude specific geometry from being visible.

V-Ray 7 is available for numerous host applications, including: Autodesk 3ds Max, Autodesk Maya, Maxon Cinema 4D, Houdini, Blender, SketchUp, Autodesk Revit, and Rhino 3D. To learn more about V-Ray for AEC, visit here.

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Mighty SketchUp

One thing that folks in the architecture world may not be aware of is just how prevalent SketchUp is in the big-contractor construction world. SketchUp is regularly used by major general contractors such as Turner Construction and Taisei Corporation in Japan. Turner uses SketchUp as a 5D VDC tool, for example. The point is that SketchUp has a very large market presence in the construction phase of buildings. And it also has a very large role in the design phases of buildings, used by millions of designers, architects, and interior professionals around the world.

But what about the middle phase?

SketchUp as BIM

This was the question we asked Trimble this year. Will they ever begin to address the middle phase of the work?

The short answer we got is yes. How SketchUp moves in that direction is in the details, and the company is approaching more of that middle workflow phase by deepening its core modeling capabilities, strengthening its SketchUp to Revit workflows, and making improvements with IFC.

The Trimble SketchUp booth at AIA26 was busy showcasing various aspects of SketchUp and Trimble Connect.

Architosh was fortunate to get a preview look at upcoming SketchUp technologies, and while we can’t write about these in any amount of detail, we can summarize a little about what we saw. In general, when we think about SketchUp having this very strong utilization in the early phases of design whilst also having a strong hold on the big general contractor firms, we know that Trimble and its SketchUp team realize that Autodesk Revit holds a very strong grip on the documentation phase within the BIM workflow. Hence, in recent releases, we have seen the SketchUp-to-Revit workflow strengthen. Users should expect that trend to continue.

MORE: AIA26: Architosh 12th ‘BEST of SHOW’ honors for digital technologies at AIA San Diego

A stronger SketchUp-to-Revit workflow isn’t just beneficial to architects; those same large general contractors working with 4D-5D processes utilizing SketchUp and Trimble Connect also benefit from tighter integrations between these two popular AEC applications.

Another future coming to SketchUp will be modeling improvements of a rather larger nature than the company tends to deliver. Without letting the cat out of the bag, we can at least say that we were quite excited and impressed by what the SketchUp team is doing in this domain. For years, SketchUp has been working on speeding up rendering and visualization workflows, but speeding up modeling workflows has fully begun and will surely continue. Some of this will deploy agentic AI (like the Claude integration), and some of it will just be more powerful, parametric-like (or based) modeling updates.

A SketchUp professional talking to an AIA expo attendee about the latest new features in SketchUp 2026.2.

As SketchUp gains more modeling powers in the future, it will mean that—coupled with LayOut advancements—users will be able to do even more all within the program. At the same time, upcoming new features will deepen the value creation in SketchUp-to-Revit workflows in both the front-end and the back-end of the AEC process.

Cloud Collaboration at Trimble

Another view on SketchUp’s journey in the AEC industry and its relationship to BIM workflows is the ongoing transformation toward making SketchUp a multiplayer medium. The release in 2026 has turned SketchUp into a true multiplayer collaboration platform complete with real-time cursor tracking (you can see the live movements of your collaborators’ cursor inside the 3D space, color-coded by user), live camera follow, in-app geometry commenting, and public and private sharing links. As for live camera follow, what that means is a host can force all viewers to look through their exact perspective, or you can follow a colleague’s camera as they orbit a model or scene.

The multiplayer capabilities function once a SketchUp user has invited colleagues to view the model on Trimble Connect, Trimble’s cloud-based collaboration platform. Therefore, Trimble Connect serves as the engine and Common Data Environment (CDE) for the collaboration features, storing the model as well as the multiplayer comments. Connect provides the live stream data for your collaboration session as well as the granular permissions for collaborators.

Analysis Hub

We have been talking about SketchUp 2026 since its first iteration features last fall. The multiplayer technology and multi-user collaboration features were part of the 7 October 2025 release of SketchUp 2026. The latest release is actually SketchUp 2026.2 and brought with it the new building performance and analytical data tools in the new Analysis Hub.

A view of the new Analysis Hub in SketchUp 2026.2.

Analysis Hub is an entirely separate dedicated environment aimed at helping designers study daylight, shadow, and environmental building performance data directly inside of the design workspace. Part of Analysis Hub has SketchUp Labs tools, but one key official feature is Advanced Shadows. This natively supports interior shadow mapping by calculating sun penetration through active section planes. The Labs features include Daylight Factor, Annual Illuminance, and Underlit and Overlit Metrics.

The Analysis Hub features are powered by Trimble’s cloud simulation stack and heavily utilize Sefaira technology owned by Trimble.

Closing Thoughts

Clearly, this year the biggest news about SketchUp is the Claude AI integration, which moved the app into the early round of CAD industry tools connected to agentic AI capabilities. Architosh has already awarded SketchUp an AIA26 Architosh BEST of SHOW honor for digital technologies at AIA San Diego under the Emergent Technologies category. Yes, agentic AI is the most pivotal new emerging technology in 2026, beginning to impact CAD, BIM, and 3D applications as well as other types of applications serving the AEC industry. Being able to use agentic AI to model elements for you is quite transformative even in this very nascent stage of AI development.

But the glossiness of AI transformation can obscure (and perhaps has) SketchUp’s other meaningful evolution related to BIM and collaborative workflows. The multiplayer capabilities are strictly speaking common to the definition of BIM 2.0 technologies. Snaptrude has them; Arcol has them, and so do other new BIM 2.0 apps. So what does that make SketchUp now that it has this multiplayer technology as well since last fall?

We’ll leave you with that question. You can learn more about SketchUp here and here.

Other Show Reports

AIA26: Expo Show Report 1 — Autodesk

AIA26: Expo Show Report 2 — Nemetschek Group

AIA26: Expo Show Report 3 — Trimble and SketchUp

AIA26: Expo Show Report 4 — Chaos 

AIA26: Expo Show Report 5 — neoBIM, and other AI apps

AIA26: Expo Show Report 6 — xFigura, CODii, others

AIA26: Expo Show Report 7 — Layer, Arcol, Egnyte and more…

The post AIA26: Expo Show Floor Report 3 — Trimble and SketchUp appeared first on Architosh.

Considered by this publication to be among the top three BIM solutions in the world for architecture, based on global market share, total users, significance of their users (several Pritzker Prize-winning architects among users, product and technological innovation, and industry software awards, Vectorworks Architect is quite popular with design-forward practices as well as small-to-mid-sized architecture firms.

The resurgence of Mac computers in AEC, driven by Apple Silicon’s industry-leading performance (see, Architosh: “End of an Era: How Silicon Will Decide BIM’s Future,” 24 December 2025) means Mac-native software like Vectorworks is likely to gain a boost moving forward. Industry accolades clearly help the cause as well.

A+ Popular Choice Award

Presented by Architizer, the A+ Product Awards honor innovation in the building industry and the technologies shaping the future of architecture and interior design. With over 30 categories, the program recognizes tools and materials that help design professionals enhance creativity, efficiency, and transform the built environment. Winners are chosen by a distinguished jury of over 100 industry leaders and design visionaries worldwide, along with votes from the global architecture and design community.

Vectorworks Architect 2026 wins another Architizer A+ award.

“Being selected as the Popular Choice winner by the Architizer community is especially meaningful because it reflects the trust architects and designers place in Vectorworks to power their everyday work,” said Vectorworks Chief Marketing Officer Jeremy Powell. “With our latest release, we’ve doubled down on smarter workflows, better performance, and more intuitive tools so designers can move seamlessly from concept to completion while knowing their voices are helping shape the future of our software.”

Vectorworks Architect 2026, this year, boasted advanced new depth cueing, intuitive worksheet slicing, a sustainability dashboard for carbon calculations, and improved modeling tools.

To learn more about Vectorworks, go here.

The post Vectorworks Architect 2026 Wins Architizer A+ Popular Choice Award appeared first on Architosh.

The first benefit is that the Group has a large visual presence on the show floor. The second benefit is that booth visitors get a better understanding of sister brands they may not be aware of. Take, for instance, an architect who is an Autodesk Revit user and also a Bluebeam user. If this architect visited the Bluebeam stations inside the large Nemetschek booth, they could discover that Maxon this year introduced its real-time Redshift rendering solution for Autodesk Revit. (see, Architosh, “AIA26: Maxon’s new Redshift for Revit and More,” 17 June 2026 )

The only real downside we see from having a good half dozen AEC brands inside one super-sized booth is that individual BIM authoring companies Archicad and Vectorworks have less space and less of a visual impact on the show floor. Typically, at AIA National, these two companies had their own full-sized booths with perhaps a dozen staff members and that many computer demo stations, plus a tiny booth theater. The Nemetschek booth gives out free drinks, which is a clever idea to bring showgoers into their orbit.

Nemetschek’s Group Strategies

This year, the Nemetschek Group and its subsidiary, Graphisoft, put considerable effort into communicating what they call the Graphisoft Design Intelligence strategy. We covered this in a separate report (see, Architosh: “Graphisoft Advances Design Intelligence Strategy,” 15 June 2026.)

Graphisoft was sharing their Design Intelligence Strategy at AIA26 inside of a session as well as in their booth to the press and other parties.

As we noted in the above report, the Group’s strategy is to link together Graphisoft and other Nemetschek Group tools within an open BIM model framework supporting wide data exchange via both APIs, MCPs, and native BIM connectors. This last part pertains to the Group’s BIM authoring environments, geometry engines, and file formats.

Native BIM Connectors

Theoretically, today it means an Archicad user could utilize Vectorworks Landmark’s excellent terrain modeling capabilities and bring that site into an Archicad project. This would mean Archicad could read (natively) a Vectorworks file format. Likewise, a theater project done in Archicad could be pushed to Vectorworks Spotlight, a dedicated CAD/BIM platform focused on performance space design. With native BIM connectors, Allplan users in Germany could read in both Archicad and Vectorworks BIM models natively. All these programs have proprietary file formats, but it likely doesn’t make sense to keep them proprietary within the Group. On the contrary, native BIM connectors should work better than IFC at moving BIM models around between programs.

Native AEC Platform Connections is a focus area for better industry coordination. That’s in the yellow box above. This will start with Nemetschek’s tools first, but through strategic partnerships like the existing one Nemetschek has with Autodesk, it could extend to other platforms.

Over a year ago, Architosh had a discussion with Sunil Pandita, Chief Division Officer, Planning & Design and Digital Twin Business Unit, Nemetschek Group, who told Architosh that the Group was investigating whether each of the BIM authoring environments could share a common geometry modeling foundation. Building native BIM connectors, while complex, is tremendously easier.

Geometry Engines

Trying to get all three BIM tools on the same geometry foundation would require massive rework and recoding for either Archicad, Allplan, or Vectorworks, depending on which direction they tried to unify around. Both Vectorworks and Allplan use Parasolids, while Allplan still has some geometry creation done via its own geometry engine, so it’s a hybrid. Meanwhile, Archicad doesn’t use any third-party geometry engine, instead relying on a Graphisoft-coded, architecture-focused GDL-based geometry environment. Among the three, Vectorworks and Allplan are closest, while Archicad’s geometry engine is honed for the specifics of architecture.

With this degree of variability in all three tools, only native BIM connectors make sense to pursue, and the sooner they achieve this capability, the stronger the Nemetschek Group can function and compete in the open market.

The Open Approach

A hallmark of Open Intelligence Strategy is the open approach to the industry. Notice in the middle of the diagram below that Native BIM Data Connectors allow data to pass between not just Nemetschek tools but also include SketchUp.

The Open Approach to the industry’s collaboration challenges begins with open APIs and no lock-in technologies. Nemetschek and Graphisoft are aiming to develop a cloud-based, AI-centric open collaboration platform to rival the more closed-oriented Autodesk Forma ecosystem.

MCP and AI agents will form a backbone of an open collaboration platform along with existing pre-AI-era collaboration connectivity technologies like IFC, BCF, and more. This will enable the synchronization of data between 2nd and 3rd party clouds, such as between Bluebeam Cloud and Autodesk Forma or between Solibri and Autodesk Forma.

As part of the announcements, open industry collaboration between Autodesk and Nemetschek Group now includes an Archicad—Autodesk Forma Connection, built on the backbone of a previous agreement. Users can upload an Archicad 3D view or full model directly as an Autodesk Forma Data Exchange, and the geometry becomes immediately accessible as reference data inside programs like Revit. And there is Publisher Set syncing between Archicad and the cloud-hosted Autodesk Forma Data Management (previously ACC).

While Archicad now has compatibility with Autodesk Forma Data Management to meet Forma-based project requirements, the Nemetschek Group is also endeavoring to develop and release in 2027 its own cloud-based early design stage ecosystem similar to Forma Site Design, Forma Building Design, and Forma Carbon Insights. This was previously known as Project Aurora, but the cloud platform and solution has a much more exciting new name, Graphisoft tells us.

Other Nemetschek Brands

Maxon

Also on display inside the giant Nemetschek Group booth were market leaders like Bluebeam, Vectorworks, Solibri, and Maxon. Maxon was showcasing its new Redshift for Revit rendering solution as well as a version for Archicad and its previously released version for Vectorworks.

As noted in our previous report, Redshift’s raytracing technology is distinguished for its rendering quality and speed, and the ability to have another high-quality real-time design visualization technology for your design environment beyond the existing options is a big win for the industry. Especially because users can push these finished render scenes with one click to Maxon’s acclaimed Cinema 4D animation environment for advanced studio work.

Maxon’s new AEC industry push continues with Redshift for Autodesk Revit and more.

And given the animation capabilities of AI tools like Chaos Veras, professional Archviz pros will need to develop more advanced, sophisticated offerings that a tool like Cinema 4D can deliver.

Vectorworks and Morpholio

Vectorworks is one of the Nemetschek Group’s star products, from both its market fit and positioning, its underlying technology stack, and its popularity and fame in architectural markets. From a fit-for-market angle, the Vectorworks product line addresses more than architecture with its Landmark product, without peer in the professional landscape architecture market. Meanwhile, it has a whole series of industry-leading products in the entertainment design space, which includes television and film production, which are increasingly becoming more digitized.

But for many architects, Vectorworks Architect is the go-to and must-have design platform. This year, the daughter company acquired Morpholio with its namesake iPad application. Architosh awarded this tool an AIA26 Architosh BEST of SHOW honor, where we said this about it:

Vectorworks with Morpholio rounds out the “sketch to BIM” product philosophy the United States-based CAD/BIM maker has been telling for years. And Vectorworks 2026 today stands as an exemplar of a codebase that has kept up with changing times, being the first in the Group to become Apple Silicon-native and offering its users incredible interface customization features.

Bluebeam

Bluebeam Max was prominently on display at AIA26 inside the Nemetschek booth. This product was also an AIA26 Architosh BEST of SHOW honoree product for its utilization of agentic AI and MCP connecting Anthropic’s Claude AI to Bluebeam Revu.

The latest Bluebeam Max technologies supercharge this mainstay in the building industry with multiple levels of AI power, including in-house-developed AI capabilities paired with its Firmus-AI-acquired AI capabilities. The latter technologies are on point this year, as several other AI-first companies have introduced the ability for AI to scan or ingest PDF-based drawings and review them for QA/QC purposes.

MORE: AIA26: Architosh 12th ‘BEST of SHOW’ honors for digital technologies at AIA San Diego

When it comes to the Nemetschek Group, Bluebeam is leading the Group with its shipment of agentic AI solutions powered by onboard MCP servers in Revu and connection with an AI orchestrator like Anthropic’s Claude. We are now wondering how other Nemetschek brands will move forward with AI technologies given the popularity of Anthropic’s Claude.

Solibri

During our time in the Nemetschek Group joint pavilion, Solibri presented on Accessibility Assurance: Automate ADA Compliance & Reduce Professional Liability. This presentation showcased how a rule-based checking engine in Solibri can flag ADA violations.

Regarding what is new with Solibri in 2026, the company has restructured its software delivery model and retired its standalone legacy products. Solibri Office, Solibri Site, and Solibri Anywhere have been phased out as standalone tools. In their place is a new tiered platform and single, scalable ecosystem grouped into five tier offerings: Solibri Starter, Essential, Advanced, Premium, and Security+.

Solibri in 2026 has an entirely restructured software delivery model that is a better fit for purpose in the current industry. Solutions address Building Lifecycle, BIM QA, IDS Workflows, and BIM validation for hyperscale and data center construction.

Solibri has also updated its solution to include IFC data support improvements, transparent 3D rendering for IFC spatial zones, a dark mode option, and automated sustainability compliance via a new carbon checker extension.

Solibri’s new product restructuring has kept its hybrid (desktop + cloud) model, resisting the all-cloud mandate that some in the industry believe is the future of AEC compute. Solibri CheckPoint (its all-cloud solution that was acquired) is actually phased out as a product, and some of its technology came into the Solibri cloud layer. Solibri Starter is just USD 99/year/user and is for individuals and small teams needing reliable model review before coordination begins. This is what Solibri calls “professional IFC model visual inspection.” From here, product capabilities and pricing scale up dramatically. Solibri Essential is for structured BIM coordination control and includes both IFC and Revit model federation. Solibri Advanced enables custom rule creation versus Essential’s predefined rule-based model checking. It also delivers quantity take-off and ecosystem integrations with other CDEs. Solibri Premium and Solibri Security+ scale further for asset portfolio-level governance and compliance and for totally secure offline operation for government and high-security structures. The US government is a major Solibri customer, for example.

Other Show Reports

AIA26: Expo Show Report 1 — Autodesk

AIA26: Expo Show Report 2 — Nemetschek Group

AIA26: Expo Show Report 3 — Trimble and SketchUp

AIA26: Expo Show Report 4 — Chaos 

AIA26: Expo Show Report 5 — neoBIM, and other AI apps

AIA26: Expo Show Report 6 — xFigura, CODii, others

AIA26: Expo Show Report 7 — Layer, Arcol, Egnyte and more…

The post AIA26: Expo Show Floor Report 2 — Nemetschek Group appeared first on Architosh.