Autodesk execs see AI as the key to the present and the future. At Autodesk University, the company stressed the importance of AI in helping customers work more efficiently and achieve better results. Autodesk’s Research team and AI Lab continue to explore how technology like artificial intelligence can truly be transformative if harnessed properly to achieve the desired outcomes that serve user needs.
If there was any prior question about Autodesk’s commitment and intense focus on AI, that was definitively answered following the keynotes and announcements made during Autodesk University (AU) 2024. Foretelling was who kicked off the press pre-briefing, and it was not Autodesk’s CEO nor one of the EVPs. Rather, it was Mike Haley, senior VP of research, who talked about the company’s continuing efforts of bringing AI into the Autodesk family of products. And this theme carried on throughout AU.
The group Haley leads within Autodesk is a 200-person research organization with the core mission of understanding the technologies of the future and how customers might use that technology in the future; the team then leads the industries and Autodesk’s customers toward that end. “When new technologies like AI come along, it’s often really hard for [customers] to understand how to adopt those technologies,” he said.
In 2018, Autodesk established its AI Lab, which began filling in the universal AI void when it came to CAD, geometry, buildings, and physical movement. And while Autodesk has revealed some fruits of that labor with tools here and there in the past, the company was ready to let the AI announcements flow, which it did at AU 2024.
“This is a year when Autodesk is announcing a lot, as I’m sure you know or have been expecting, around AI,” Haley said of AU 2024.
Indeed, the AU audience did expect the conference to have an AI-heavy focus, particularly following last year’s AU, during which the company announced Autodesk AI, technology available in Autodesk products and native to its Design and Make Platform that provides generative capabilities and assistance to users of its design and make tools—with the promise of more AI features to come.
While not entirely new, Autodesk Assistant, powered by large language models, serves as an AI-guided assistant to find tailored support from within AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT, including solutions to product questions, chat engagement with a product support agent, request for a callback, or creation of a support case. At AU 2024, Autodesk announced that soon it will introduce Autodesk Assistant into the manufacturing environment and expand Autodesk Assistant across its entire product range.
As such, customers will be able to interact with the assistant at any point in their workflows across Autodesk’s entire portfolio of products. The system, which will gradually roll out, will be context-aware, so it will understand what the user is working on, the data the person wants to run, what has been done prior, where the user is within the project, and so on, according to Autodesk.
During the opening keynote at the conference, Autodesk President and CEO Andrew Anagnost said innovations in the company’s portfolio of core products will not only make users more productive today, but are also advancing Autodesk’s industry clouds—Fusion, Forma, and Flow—to set up the workflows of tomorrow, as they harness the power of data and AI to reinvent how work is done. Better data is the foundation of everything. It drives innovation, improves productivity, and, ultimately, helps make businesses more profitable, he stressed. Connecting data across the life cycle of a project with Autodesk’s industry clouds provides users with information where they want it, when they want it, and empowers them with better decision-making and unlocks opportunity, he added.
“Transformation is a journey. It’s not a one and done, and more than ever, that journey is about how digital transformation serves as a driver of business reinvention, finding new, often innovative, ways to create and deliver value, and using technology to change how work gets done,” Anagnost said.
With that goal in mind, Anagnost said Autodesk is innovating its portfolio of products to make customers more productive today, while simultaneously advancing its industry clouds to set up user workflows of tomorrow. (See related story for an overview of how AI is transforming Autodesk products and workflows.)
“A lot is being said about the promise of AI. But the one thing I want our users to come away with this year is that Autodesk AI offers incremental productivity gains, with simple and practical ways to get work done more efficiently today, while building a foundation for a reinvented tomorrow,” Anagnost said at AU. “Autodesk is here to collaborate with our customers to create, capture, and deliver value in new ways for their industries today and in the future.”