Amy Bunszel

Over the next year, we’ll continue to see the AECO industries tackle profitability, efficiency, and sustainability challenges with the help of technology. From innovations in artificial intelligence to the adoption of digital twins, we’ll see emerging technology redefine how innovators in the industry are designing, making, and operating the built environment.  

AI Will Continue to be Adopted as a Daily Tool

We’ll see practical uses of AI continue to make big strides in day-to-day applications that solve real-world problems. In water, machine learning solutions can enable designers to predict flood maps quickly and accurately. In construction, AI-guided natural language search tools can readily surface the information that teams need to get the job done. The right AI tools can help teams parse through and analyze the mountains of valuable data that they generate. 

As AI capabilities such as Autodesk Assistant integrate further into daily workflows, designers, engineers and contractors will see their time freed to focus on more strategic and creative work. The industry is eager for these capabilities, as 44% of AECO professionals cite improving productivity as a top use for AI, according to Autodesk’s 2024 State of Design and Make report. 

Technology Will Support More Sustainable Outcomes  

While the built environment generates a staggering amount of greenhouse gas emissions, building teams have the opportunity to be more proactive at achieving their sustainability goals with the help of technology. Over the next year, continued digital transformation across the industry will enable firms to better leverage their project data, including new tools that improve project sustainability outcomes.  

AI-powered embodied carbon analysis tools help designers understand and measure the carbon footprint of their material and design choices from day one of planning. This means that architects can understand the impacts of their design choices on embodied carbon in the earliest phases of planning instead of at the end when their design is nearly completed. Solutions that unlock industrialized construction, which enables productization for buildings, will help the industry deliver projects more quickly, at a higher quality, and with less waste. We’ve already seen the benefits of an industrialized construction approach through the work of customers such as WSP at Manchester Airport. WSP was able to reduce the number of components used to build each structural airport node from over 5000 to just 67.

Well Isn't THAT Spatial? Geospatial, That Is

With the help of better integrations, we’ll also see more technology that leverages real-world data and context, enabling better project outcomes. By adding GIS (geographic information systems) data to BIM (building information modeling) tools that designers are already using, teams can design with location in mind and deliver projects that are more sustainable and resilient.  

A lack of location awareness and context can negatively impact the project lifecycle and stakeholder engagement. Leveraging better integrations will be particularly important for infrastructure owners and public sector organizations that are in charge of supporting their communities with critical infrastructure they can rely on. We’ve seen transportation customers bridge BIM and GIS tools to deliver greater efficiency in their projects and even use data analytics to provide better solutions for underserved communities. With many public sector organizations facing increasingly complex projects– with environmental to societal demands —they’ll need the right information to ensure a project sufficiently supports their local communities.  

Digital Twins and XR Become More Common

Expect to see continued adoption of technologies that support innovation and collaboration across the full BIM lifecycle, including digital twins and extended reality (XR). Digital twins can go far in equipping the industry with real-time and data-driven insights at every stage of the project lifecycle. For owners and operators, a digital twin helps them unlock the full value from their facilities by better monitoring and managing their assets. We’ve seen customers successfully use the real-time and historical data captured by their digital twin to reap benefits such as moving from reactive maintenance and operations to more predictive approaches.

XR tools in AECO will also create the workspaces of the future — I expect we’ll see more firms use XR over the next year to create immersive design review workspaces. These virtual spaces provide geographically dispersed teams with a novel way to interact with their designs and collaborate with key stakeholders. By offering a new avenue to analyze and visualize data, teams can streamline workflows and reduce errors before construction begins.  

Bettering the Built Environment 

I’m excited by the progress that the AECO industries have already made toward digital transformation and their embrace of new technologies. As we kick off a new year, I’m looking forward to seeing how you continue to design and make a more sustainable world for generations to come.