AU 2025: A New Era of Design and Make with AI-Powered Autodesk Cloud Platforms

Attending Autodesk University 2025 in Nashville – either in person or virtually - was nothing short of transformative. The conference showcased how Autodesk is rewriting the rules of creation across architecture, engineering, construction, operation (AECO), design and manufacturing (D&M), and media & entertainment (M&E). The ubiquitous spotlight was on AI-native workflows and AI-powered cloud platforms - a very practical, realistic vision how AI is enhancing and will enhance and supercharge our daily workflows. With the cloud platforms Forma, Fusion, and Flow leading the charge, the future of design and make is not just imagined—it’s being built. The new era of making. And ARKANCE, as a big Autodesk partner, is part of it.

AECO: Forma and the Future of Built Environments

Autodesk’s Forma platform is now the first end-to-end, AI-native cloud for AECO, connecting planning, design, construction, and operations in a unified environment. From early-stage site planning to detailed BIM-level design, Forma empowers teams with granular data, real-time analysis, and seamless collaboration.

Highlights from AU included:

• Forma Site Design: The new name for the existing Autodesk Forma.

• Forma Building Design: A new solution enabling detailed building modeling with AI-assisted tools (LOD200 level) inside the cloud-based Forma.

• Forma Data Management: CDE is now part of Forma (former Docs), will be included also in Revit and Civil 3D.

• Forma Connected Clients: Revit is now deeply integrated, allowing users to tap into Forma’s cloud capabilities without leaving the desktop.

• Autodesk Assistant: A natural language AI agent (agentic partner) that can automate tasks like checking design standards in Revit or Civil 3D, generating and optimising floorplans, inviting users to your hub, adjusting details in your design (like "make the front windows wider"), and analysing lighting variants.

• Forma Extensions: a number of new extensions for Forma – ArcGIS (mapping), FenestraPro (facades), OKNodes (Dynamo), Finch (floorplans), InfraSpace (road design), Podium (design of datacenters).

• Digital Twins: Integration with Tandem Insights enables proactive building management using IoT data and spatial context. For FM applications, building performance dashboards, pro-active maintenance.

• Mobile Apps: Field app analysing photos of the construction progress, detecting any issues, handover apps – all working with data from Forma, the single source of truth.

Real-world applications were showcased, such as the Dubai Cancer Hospital and Denver International Airport renovations, where Forma facilitated collaboration among hundreds of contractors without disrupting operations.

Manufacturing: Fusion Unlocks AI-Powered Productivity

The Fusion platform is revolutionising manufacturing with AI-driven design, automation, and native collaboration. Autodesk’s investments in Fusion are enabling manufacturers to do more with less—especially critical amid global labor shortages.

Key innovations include:

• Generative AI-powered editable geometry: Users can generate detailed CAD models from a single prompt. Resolves the “fear of empty canvas”.

• Autodesk Assistant in Fusion: Your agentic AI-partner. Automates project invites, sketch constraints, CAM toolpaths, and even generates presentations.

• Vault–Fusion Manage Connector: Ensures a single source of truth across PLM workflows. Autodesk has also acquired OneIPM for project management.

• SwissDrones Case Study: The company used Fusion to completely design and produce unmanned helicopters with LiDAR, reducing CO₂ emissions by 90% and enhancing safety.

Fusion’s integration with Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI services enables photorealistic rendering and seamless export to PowerPoint, streamlining the entire product development lifecycle.

Media & Entertainment: Flow and the Democratisation of Creativity

Autodesk’s Flow platform is empowering creators with tools that make content creation faster, smarter, and more accessible. From indie artists to major studios, Flow is redefining how stories are told.

Breakthroughs presented at AU:

• MotionMaker in Maya: AI accelerates animation, reducing weeks of manual work to hours. It was trained in Autodesk’s own motion studio.

• Flow Studio: dynamically replace actor in the scene with a 3D model, this advanced tool is available even for small studios.

• Face Animator: Generates facial and lip sync animations from audio files.

• Flow Production Tracking: former ShotGrid is a cloud-based tool for big digital production studios.

• AI 3D Character Generator: Converts text prompts and images into animatable 3D models.

• Autodesk Assistant in Maya: Enables intuitive scene manipulation and style matching.

Studios like Boxel are using AI to replace actors with digital characters, while FlowCapture integrates camera data for enhanced production tracking. These tools are not replacing artists—they’re giving them time back to focus on creativity.

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The Common Backbone: Autodesk AI, MCP Servers and Agentic AI

At the heart of these platforms is Autodesk AI. A cloud-based set of tools, trained data and secure communication interfaces (both human and machine) developed and gradually implemented for over a decade. The Foundation models are neural, geometry- and physics-aware CAD models trained for AI (which is much more complicated than usual LLM and image models). Autodesk also has the ISO 42001 certification for trusted, responsible AI.

The AI data flow is based on MCP Servers—Autodesk’s secure, context-aware infrastructure for agentic AI workflows. These servers enable AI agents to understand geometry, behavior, and industry-specific reasoning. MCP Servers are available also for developers.

Autodesk’s neural CAD Foundation models are a leap beyond traditional parametric systems. They allow for spontaneous design generation from sketches, text, and images, bridging the gap between ideation and detailed design.

The new APS business model supports developers and users of this web services platform with generous free tiers and flexible licensing (Flex Tokens or pay-as-you-go), making it easier than ever to build on Autodesk’s AI infrastructure.

An important part of the AI data flows is data granularity. There is no need to transfer complete large files if you need to process just a subset of the design in a different software tool. This is where the new Autodesk Data Exchange Connectors come together. One of those connectors – between ACC and Bluebeam – was developed by ARKANCE.