From Research to Real-World Interaction at AU 2026

AU 2026 brought thousands of Design & Make professionals together in Las Vegas last month. Across the Expo, classrooms, meetups, and stages, our Research team shared our work, invited customers to experience new ideas, and explored some of the biggest questions shaping the future of Design & Make.  And a major focus this year was getting research into the hands of AU attendees.

At the Autodesk Research booth, visitors stepped into an interactive vision for more connected Design & Make workflows through three experiences: Touch, See, and Speak. Built around a real-world public park design challenge, the experience explored how AI, intelligent agents, connected data, spatial computing, and more natural forms of interaction could help teams move more fluidly from ideas to decisions and outcomes. Check out a virtual tour of the experience.

Elsewhere on the Expo floor, attendees could get hands-on with Project Quill, which explores what happens when we combine sketching, voice, and AI. Visitors could sketch and describe a building, refine their ideas using pen and voice, and see those inputs transformed into a 3D design.

Together, these experiences offered a glimpse at a future where technology adapts more naturally to how people think, communicate, collaborate, design, and make. Hear more from Mike Haley, SVP Research and Generative AI Development, as he explores how Autodesk Research is using AI, spatial computing, and connected data to rethink the way people interact with design tools and project knowledge.

AU gives the team a unique opportunity to do something central to how Autodesk Research works: share research while it’s still research.

Putting emerging ideas in front of the people who design and make every day lets our team see how they respond, hear where the challenges are, and learn what feels useful, surprising, or different.

See you next year at AU, September 14-17, 2027 back in Las Vegas!