Autodesk ’s first revolution replaced pencils with pixels, now it wants to bring AI into the mix. The American tech firm earned fame 45 years ago with AutoCAD, the drafting programme that took engineers off the drawing board and into the digital age with its powerful computer-aided design (CAD) software used by engineers world over to create precise 2D and 3D drawings.
Now the company is writing a fresh chapter in Bengaluru and Pune, where its India-based R&D teams are weaving artificial intelligence into the day-today realities of construction sites and factory floors. “We’ve doubled the size of our engineering team here in the last year, and we’re still hiring,” Amy Bunszel, executive VP for architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) solutions, told us during her recent visit to India. “They’re not just supporting code written somewhere else – they’re writing the future of construction.”
Autodesk’s journey from a single CAD package to a portfolio spanning design, manufacturing, media and entertainment is well known, yet Bunszel argues that the Indian labs are now the proving ground for its most ambitious leap. One flagship contribution is an AIpowered natural-language tool that trawls the thousandpage specification documents issued for large projects. “A site manager can simply ask, ‘What glazing is mandated for the façade?’ and the model surfaces the exact clause,” she explains. “That single feature saves hours and prevents costly mistakes.”
The same engineers wrote algorithms that sift every invoice flowing through the company’s cloud-based construction management software . “The system spots patterns humans miss – it can tell you that whenever supplier A and B appear together your schedule slips,” she adds. “Generative scheduling was born in Bengaluru, but its benefits are global.”
At the foundation of these advances is Building Information Modelling (BIM). “BIM created a common data environment long before the term was fashionable. Because every pipe, beam and circuit lives in the cloud, you have the structured data AI craves,” she says. Indian public agencies now mandate BIM on airports and metro projects, feeding ever richer data back to Autodesk’s algorithms. “It’s a virtuous circle.”
Robotics is another frontier. “Our software guides dog-shaped robots that patrol sites, scanning progress and flagging hazards. The autonomy algorithms are tuned in Pune,” she says. The same codebase controls robotic arms on shop floors, learning assembly tasks without laborious programming.
The manufacturing side benefits just as directly. The firm’s browser-based product-development platform, built with Pune engineers, lets startups prototype, simulate and machine consumer goods end-to-end. Bunszel cites India’s Atomberg (known for their smart ceiling fans) as a showcase. Asked whether AI might design a building at the push of a button, she laughs. “There’s no ‘easy’ key. Our customers erect hospitals and stadiums that must stand for decades. The machine proposes; the engineer disposes.” Still, she expects agentic systems to iterate floor-plans in minutes once humans supply the brief and carbon target.
Now the company is writing a fresh chapter in Bengaluru and Pune, where its India-based R&D teams are weaving artificial intelligence into the day-today realities of construction sites and factory floors. “We’ve doubled the size of our engineering team here in the last year, and we’re still hiring,” Amy Bunszel, executive VP for architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) solutions, told us during her recent visit to India. “They’re not just supporting code written somewhere else – they’re writing the future of construction.”
Autodesk’s journey from a single CAD package to a portfolio spanning design, manufacturing, media and entertainment is well known, yet Bunszel argues that the Indian labs are now the proving ground for its most ambitious leap. One flagship contribution is an AIpowered natural-language tool that trawls the thousandpage specification documents issued for large projects. “A site manager can simply ask, ‘What glazing is mandated for the façade?’ and the model surfaces the exact clause,” she explains. “That single feature saves hours and prevents costly mistakes.”
The same engineers wrote algorithms that sift every invoice flowing through the company’s cloud-based construction management software . “The system spots patterns humans miss – it can tell you that whenever supplier A and B appear together your schedule slips,” she adds. “Generative scheduling was born in Bengaluru, but its benefits are global.”
At the foundation of these advances is Building Information Modelling (BIM). “BIM created a common data environment long before the term was fashionable. Because every pipe, beam and circuit lives in the cloud, you have the structured data AI craves,” she says. Indian public agencies now mandate BIM on airports and metro projects, feeding ever richer data back to Autodesk’s algorithms. “It’s a virtuous circle.”
Robotics is another frontier. “Our software guides dog-shaped robots that patrol sites, scanning progress and flagging hazards. The autonomy algorithms are tuned in Pune,” she says. The same codebase controls robotic arms on shop floors, learning assembly tasks without laborious programming.
The manufacturing side benefits just as directly. The firm’s browser-based product-development platform, built with Pune engineers, lets startups prototype, simulate and machine consumer goods end-to-end. Bunszel cites India’s Atomberg (known for their smart ceiling fans) as a showcase. Asked whether AI might design a building at the push of a button, she laughs. “There’s no ‘easy’ key. Our customers erect hospitals and stadiums that must stand for decades. The machine proposes; the engineer disposes.” Still, she expects agentic systems to iterate floor-plans in minutes once humans supply the brief and carbon target.
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