A New Era: AI Leads Next Chapter for Nemetschek and the AEC/O Industry

With the introduction of our artificial intelligence layer, we at Nemetschek couldn’t be more thrilled to embark on this next chapter of our journey, and even more so to usher in a new era for the architecture, engineering, construction and operations (AEC/O) industry, in which the boundaries of creativity and productivity can be pushed like never before.

Importantly, Nemetschek’s AI layer is so much more than a virtual assistant; it’s a revolutionary foundation aimed at addressing a variety of long-standing, industry-specific challenges facing stakeholders across the entire building lifecycle. For far too long, the creativity and productivity of AEC/O professionals have been stifled by outdated communication and collaboration processes, unnecessarily high costs, and a myriad of inefficiencies in design, engineering, construction, and building operations.

With new integrations across our full suite of brands and products, we are leveraging intelligence and automation to address these challenges and empower our clients with tailored AI-driven experiences that dramatically improve decision-making and workflow efficiency. And despite the growing diversity of potential use cases, Nemetschek’s AI layer has one clear and simple purpose: to transform how AEC/O professionals approach design, engineering, construction and building management by making creativity more creative, and productivity more productive.

To fully appreciate the value of Nemetschek’s AI layer and the opportunity it presents for professionals across the AEC/O sector, it’s first essential to understand the specific challenges and pain points it has been designed to address.

For one, coordination and collaboration have become notoriously strained throughout the industry, leading to an increasing loss of productivity amidst high material costs and labor shortages. In fact, not only do frequent miscommunications between architects, engineers, and contractors often cause frustrating and time-consuming errors, they also result in a loss of field labor expenses totaling roughly $30-40 billion each year.

Additionally, design, construction, and maintenance processes continue to be plagued by challenges related to both accuracy and efficiency. In the absence of meaningful technological innovation and digital transformation, AEC/O professionals often need to rely on more traditional methods, many of which are severely inefficient and make it difficult to make fast, well-informed decisions. And with inefficiencies across the board currently contributing to 15 percent of labor costs wasted, there has never been a greater need to leverage digital tools to streamline workflows, enhance design accuracy, and reduce unnecessary delays throughout the project lifecycle.

In addition to directly addressing the above pain points, Nemetschek’s AI layer represents our most ambitious contribution yet to the broader digital transformation of the AEC/O sector. The truth is that, while we have certainly made incremental progress over the years, our industry remains far behind others when it comes to technological innovation, and now is the time to accelerate transformation and create an AEC/O ecosystem that reflects our modern era, and in which the limits of creativity and productivity become virtually boundless.

But how, more specifically, does integrating this new AI layer into our existing products stand to benefit AEC/O stakeholders and the industry at large? Let’s talk about just a few of the advantages that Nemetschek clients and partners can expect:

Enhanced efficiency

When it comes to the AEC/O sector, AI doesn’t merely have the potential to enhance individual processes across the building lifecycle, but also to radically transform the very anatomy of how work is performed. More specifically, Nemetschek’s AI layer will be used to implement intelligent, data-driven, and constantly improving automation processes that vastly enhance efficiency and support productivity growth, while freeing up time for AEC/O professionals to focus on creativity and execution.

To be clear, this is not about replacing human workers with machines; it’s about augmenting human capabilities and empowering AEC/O professionals to push boundaries and do better, more creative, and higher quality work. Having worked with AI-based technologies throughout all stages of their evolution, we firmly believe their value is rooted in the ability to compliment human creativity rather than displace it.

Seamless communication and collaboration

As mentioned previously, the continued use of outdated, document-centric communication processes continues to thwart productivity in the AEC/O sector, and at a significant cost. But through AI-supported collaboration between stakeholders, frustrating and costly delays and misunderstandings can be a thing of the past.

Improved sustainability and waste reduction

It’s no secret that the AEC/O sector is a massive contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and releasesharmful waste into the environment. In the EU alone, construction processes are responsible for nearly 12 percent of national carbon emissions while accounting for more than 35 percent of total waste generation. And with global calls to address climate change sweeping across industries, the need to promote sustainable practices and outcomes in our industry has never been more important.

Despite these troubling numbers, however, the same studies show that the AEC/O sector could reduce emissions by up to 80% through greater material efficiency, and that’s what we hope to support through our AI layer. In fact, there are multiple ways in which AI-powered technologies can dramatically improve the sustainability of processes throughout each phase of the building lifecycle.

For example, using Nemetschek’s AI-driven design tools, we can ensure the creation of energy-efficient structures by producing optimized design simulations and generating increasingly accurate predictions around energy consumption. Moreover, by using AI to streamline construction processes for sustainability, it becomes much easier to identify ways to significantly reduce any associated material waste. Finally, with real-time monitoring via AI-integrated IoT devices, we can extend building lifespans through predictive maintenance, while leveraging analytics to adjust energy usage to minimize the built environment’s carbon footprint.

At the end of the day, there have been very few technologies throughout history that share the revolutionary potential of AI, and there are arguably few other industries that stand to benefit from AI-driven enhancements in creativity and productivity as much as the AEC/O sector.

 However, while we’re excited to be introducing these new capabilities, it is important to stress that Nemetschek’s vision for AI goes far beyond existing and even near-term capabilities. In fact, we are only at the beginning of a long and increasingly transformative journey, in which we continue to push the boundaries of what AI can accomplish in the AEC/O industry beyond even our own imaginations.