Autodesk University 2026 took place on September 15–17 in Las Vegas under the broader theme of building AI for real-world industries. The conference attracted over 12,000 Design and Make professionals to Las Vegas. The event featured over 500 learning sessions and more than 100 sponsors, underscoring its scale as a major industry gathering rather than simply a product-announcement event.

Autodesk used the event to show how its Forma, Fusion, and Flow industry clouds are becoming the foundation for a new generation of connected, agentic workflows.

For architecture, engineering, construction, and operations professionals, the most important announcements involved Civil 3D and Forma interoperability, Forma Street Design, connected geolocation and infrastructure data, AI-powered workflows in Revit and construction, and a preview of the next generation of Autodesk Assistant. Here’s a complete recap of the Autodesk University 2026 Event. And it focuses on the AEC-related announcements.

Table of Contents

What Happened at Autodesk University 2026: Recap

The opening keynote, “Building AI for the Real World,” featured Autodesk CEO Andrew Anagnost and other Autodesk technology leaders, with Clara Shih as the guest speaker. The keynote focused on how AI can help address the capacity constraints facing design-and-make industries. Autodesk’s framing was that professional work cannot be merely “probably right” when the result becomes a building, road, product, or other physical asset.

Autodesk presented developments across its three industry clouds:

Forma for architecture, engineering, and construction.
Fusion for design and manufacturing.
Flow for media and entertainment.

Autodesk organized the event around AI in Action, Intelligent Data, and Integrated Workflows. And “project intelligence” served as the broader idea connecting those themes.

Autodesk argues that professional AI must understand more than a question or document. It must also understand the geometry, constraints, schedules, specifications, processes, and relationships that determine whether a real-world outcome can be designed, built, manufactured, or operated.

Read more: Civil 3D vs Revit

Civil 3D Connects More Closely To Forma

One of the main AEC announcements was that Civil 3D will become Autodesk’s newest Forma Connected Client. The initial capability is being developed as a tech preview and is intended to provide reference-based interoperability between Civil 3D, Forma, and Revit.

In practical terms, the goal is to let teams use Civil 3D information as part of early site and building planning in Autodesk Forma while allowing civil engineers to continue using Civil 3D’s detailed engineering workflows. Autodesk is positioning this as a way to preserve project context and reduce the need to recreate information as work moves from planning into detailed design.

This does not mean that all Civil 3D and Forma data can already move freely between applications without limitations. It means that Autodesk is previewing a connected, reference-based workflow intended to reduce manual exchanges and rework.

The announcement reflects a common AEC reality: a building project is also affected by roads, utilities, terrain, drainage, and other civil conditions. Bringing that information into planning earlier can help teams evaluate site and building options before changes become more expensive.

AU 2026 does not introduce a general AI system that automatically detects and generates road or pipeline alignments. Autodesk’s available Civil 3D 2027 materials refer to a pretrained machine-learning method for producing more consistent alignment-regression results when analyzing complex survey data. That is narrower than an autonomous alignment-generation system.

Forma Expands Into Infrastructure Planning

Autodesk also introduced Forma Street Design, a new solution for early-stage urban street and transportation planning. Autodesk says the tool is intended to help civil engineers and transportation planners explore lane configurations and intersections in real-world context. Users can work in synchronized 2D plan and section views, test vehicle turning movements, and review changes with stakeholders.

The planned workflow allows teams to carry the design into Civil 3D for detailed engineering without starting the design over. However, Autodesk described Street Design as a planned beta and invited customers to join a waitlist. It should therefore be presented as an upcoming or beta capability, not as a fully released product.

Autodesk also announced:

A unified geolocation engine and related workflows across Forma, Revit, and Civil 3D.
Deeper integration with Esri ArcGIS.
Integration with Fugro GeoDin and GroundIQ.

The purpose is to keep location information more consistent across applications and reduce manual transformations or model misalignment. The Fugro and Esri connections are intended to bring richer subsurface and geospatial information into infrastructure workflows earlier, helping teams understand site conditions before detailed design and construction.

These announcements reflect a broader direction for Forma: Autodesk wants planning, design, engineering, construction, and operations teams to work from connected project information rather than rebuilding context at every handoff.

Forma is Autodesk’s long-term successor to Revit

Autodesk confirmed at AU 2026 that Forma will replace Revit over time. Revit is not being discontinued immediately, and Autodesk says it will continue investing in it. However, the long-term direction is for more design, analysis, coordination, and documentation capabilities to move into Forma, with Revit serving as a production application and bridge to the newer cloud-based environment.

AI Inside Everyday AEC Tools

Autodesk’s AEC AI announcements focused less on a separate chatbot and more on AI embedded in existing workflows.

In Revit, Autodesk highlighted AI-powered capabilities that can help autocomplete room elements, optimize annotations, and automate documentation across multiple views. These workflows are intended to assist professionals, with users reviewing and accepting the results rather than handing over final design responsibility to an AI system.

Autodesk also described AI capabilities in Forma Data Management, including:

Searching within drawings and navigating directly to relevant sheets.
Drawing Change Analysis to identify meaningful differences between revisions.
Drawing Compliance Review, planned for early 2027, to help evaluate drawing packages against building codes, design standards, and owner requirements.

Drawing Compliance Review is intended to surface potential issues earlier. It is not a replacement for professional review, code officials, or the responsible design team. Autodesk specifically presents human review as part of the process.

Autodesk is expanding in construction with specialized AI-powered construction agents for tasks such as:

Searching project documents.
Reviewing submittals.
Processing bid proposals.
Surfacing items that need attention in project dashboards.
Turning spoken field updates into structured daily logs through the Daily Log Agent.

These systems are aimed at reducing repetitive document and information-management work while leaving consequential decisions with the people responsible for the project.

Autodesk also announced Forma Bid, which brings BuildingConnected bidding workflows into Forma. The beta capability allows contractors to manage invitations, compare bids with estimates, and identify potential scope gaps. Autodesk says it is available to customers with a Forma for Preconstruction or BuildingConnected Pro subscription.

The Next-Gen Autodesk Assistant and Project Intelligence

The biggest news of the event was the preview of a next-generation Autodesk Assistant. It’s worth being clear about what this is and isn’t. Autodesk Assistant already exists today, generally available inside Forma, Fusion, and Flow, helping with AI tasks one product at a time.

The next-generation version doesn’t replace that. It sits alongside it, built to work across products, projects, and teams instead of staying inside a single tool. A standalone, agent-first version of it is planned for 2027.

The point of the next-generation Assistant is to remove the step where a user has to know which product or feature to open first. Instead, someone describes what they’re trying to accomplish, and Assistant is meant to figure out the right tools and agents to pull in.

Autodesk is careful to add that this doesn’t reduce how much expertise a project needs. The Assistant is meant to act on a user’s behalf within their existing access and permissions, not replace the judgment that goes into a project.

Autodesk built the next-generation Assistant around three priorities.

1. Understanding what needs attention.

Personal Pulse surfaces prioritized issues and insights across a user’s projects, so problems don’t sit unnoticed in a dashboard somewhere. Assistant Spaces gives teams and their AI agents a shared environment to investigate a specific issue together and track its downstream effects.

2. Acting across workflows.

The next-generation Assistant connects natural-language or voice instructions to Autodesk’s specialized tools for design, engineering, simulation, manufacturing, and production. This means users do not need to decide which product to open before they can start work.

3. Bringing your own intelligence.

Assistant Builder is an Autodesk tool that lets customers connect their own AI agents, tools, and partner services into Autodesk’s project context. Autodesk also plans to support third-party agents from the Design & Make Marketplace.

Behind all three priorities sits an AI Orchestrator, which selects which AI model handles a given task based on accuracy, speed, security, and cost, rather than routing everything through a single model.

Autodesk calls the result of all this “project intelligence,” meaning actionable insight built from connected project data, industry context, and AI working together. The example used at the keynote was a structural change to a building.

The next-generation Assistant is meant to understand that change in context, identify its downstream effects on fabrication, schedule, cost, and construction sequencing, and bring forward the right Autodesk tools to act on it.

None of this is available yet. This is a preview, not a released product, and Autodesk has said availability, rollout timing, subscription terms, and regional details won’t be announced until sometime in 2027.

Read more: Autodesk vs AutoCAD

Tandem and FlexSim Connect Design to Operations

Autodesk also showed how it is connecting design and construction information with building operations.

At Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Autodesk is working with engineering firm WSP to organize asset, model, and operational information in Autodesk Tandem. The aim is to create a more reliable digital-twin context for the people operating the airport.

Autodesk announced a new integration between Tandem and FlexSim, adding process simulation directly within the operations platform. One example involves using airport data to model TSA checkpoint flows, test different screening-lane configurations, and compare equipment utilization before making a physical change.

This type of workflow could apply beyond airports. Hospitals, factories, stadiums, campuses, and other complex facilities also need to connect design information with the way spaces and systems perform in daily operation.

Autodesk is also using operational data to initiate maintenance workflows through MaintainX, which became part of Autodesk shortly before AU 2026. In the company’s example, Tandem can identify an asset operating outside its normal range and initiate a maintenance workflow before failure occurs.

The larger strategy is to create a continuous loop:

Teams design and build an asset.
Tandem and related systems capture operational information.
Operational events and maintenance history inform decisions.
That information can improve future design, construction, and facility management.

What This Means For The AEC Future

The AU 2026 announcements point to three significant changes in Autodesk’s AEC strategy.

First, Autodesk is trying to make project data more connected across planning, design, construction, and operations. Civil 3D’s planned connection to Forma, the unified geolocation engine, and the ArcGIS and Fugro integrations all support this direction.

Second, Autodesk is embedding AI into existing tools and workflows. Revit assistance, drawing search, change analysis, construction agents, and the Daily Log Agent are examples of AI aimed at reducing repetitive work rather than requiring teams to adopt a completely separate application.

Third, Autodesk is developing an intelligence layer that can work across products and teams. The next-generation Assistant is intended to help users identify important changes, understand their consequences, and connect those issues to the specialized tools needed to act.

However, most of the most ambitious capabilities are still previews, beta releases, or future plans. Firms should distinguish between:

Available capabilities, such as Autodesk Assistant in many products and Forma Bid in beta.
Planned beta capabilities, such as Forma Street Design.
Tech Preview or developing interoperability, such as Civil 3D’s planned Forma Connected Client status.
Future capabilities, such as the expanded next-generation Assistant planned to begin rolling out in 2027.

The commercial impact is also not yet clear. Connected workflows could reduce rework and improve access to project information, but they may also increase reliance on Autodesk’s platform, cloud services, subscriptions, and data structures. The real test will be how these tools perform on live projects, not only in keynote demonstrations.

Conclusion

Autodesk University 2026 presented a clearer picture of Autodesk’s AEC strategy: connect project data across the lifecycle, bring more real-world context into early planning, embed AI into everyday design and construction workflows, and eventually coordinate specialized capabilities through a cross-product Assistant.

For civil and infrastructure teams, the planned Civil 3D–Forma connection, Forma Street Design, unified geolocation workflows, and deeper geospatial and subsurface integrations are the most immediately relevant announcements.

For architects and building-design teams, Autodesk’s Revit AI workflows, Forma Site Design, Building Layout Explorer, and connected documentation capabilities show how Autodesk is gradually moving more work toward Forma while continuing to support Revit.

For contractors and owners, drawing intelligence, construction agents, Forma Bid, Tandem, FlexSim, and MaintainX point toward a more connected path from preconstruction through operations.

The next-generation Autodesk Assistant is the most ambitious part of the strategy, but it is still a preview, with expanded capabilities planned for 2027. The central takeaway from AU 2026 is therefore not that agentic AI has already transformed AEC. It is that Autodesk is building the connected data foundation and specialized software integrations it believes are necessary for AI to make reliable, reviewable contributions to real-world projects.

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