Research Area

Industry Futures

Our Industry Futures teams work to research and unlock solutions based on the unique requirements, processes, and challenges of individual sectors.

Overview

Our Industry Futures teams explore emerging technology to help our customers design, manufacture, and construct a better world. Working in parallel with various teams throughout the Research organization and other Autodesk groups, the Industry Futures teams reinforce the goals of Autodesk and its customers.

The Industry Futures teams explore new opportunities in

Architecture, Engineering, and Construction; Manufacturing; Industrialized Construction; Media and Entertainment; and Industry Impact.

Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC)

We learn from industry specialists about their requirements, processes, and challenges, and empower the AEC community with valuable Autodesk technology, thought leadership, and unique perspective. Our AEC Industry Futures team gathers key insights and validates new design and make technology. The team focuses on data-driven design intelligence, responses to future demands, and new approaches to make AEC more efficient, scalable, and collaborative.

Manufacturing

We are a multi-disciplined team with a focus on cutting-edge design, manufacturing technologies, and processes. We are committed to driving forward manufacturing of the future in a sustainable way for the entire industry, where we envision a seamless end-to-end digital thread that ties together design, manufacturing, and operation using product lifecycle data to realize Industry 4.0 and beyond. We focus on large sophisticated digital twin models with detailed design, simulation, and operational data; smarter products that provide feedback on their own design; and data insights that allow engineers to make well informed decisions. Research in AI will enable manufacturing processes to be fully automated and perform required processes with little human intervention to enable push-button manufacturing and inspect, improve, and quality check products.

Industrialized Construction

We explore how the industrialization of construction is shaping residential buildings and critical infrastructure. We aim to help our customers design and create low-waste, cost-effective, componentized buildings that can adapt to various business and environmental impacts by reimagining the tools for design and construction.

Media and Entertainment

Creative content and digital experiences compete for audiences on innovative distribution platforms that reach far beyond traditional film and games. Our team of researchers in Media and Entertainment Futures are leading the next generation of content creators to more accessible, AI-driven workflows built on the Autodesk Flow platform, offering a preview of future technologies for creative minds.

Industry Impact

Our Industry Impact team focuses on research that is at the forefront of technology for our customers. We work with industry and academia to explore the future of materials and sustainability for the AEC and Manufacturing industries. Our aim is to create impactful innovations through data, knowledge, models, algorithms, and machine learning. This creates the future of design, simulation, and optimization tools for our customers. In addition, our team actively seeks to promote convergence between the AEC, MFG, IOC and M&E industries by leveraging our team’s expertise in materials, sustainability and applied AI. We collaborate closely with teams across these industries to identify common challenges and opportunities, and jointly explore them through research. By working together, we develop cutting-edge solutions that address shared challenges and unlock new possibilities.

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