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Hi there,
This week’s two posts look at the same change from opposite ends. Neil Leach’s lecture, The Death of the Architect, argues that the first part of the practice to be automated will be the wide base of graduates and juniors who do the production work. The second post looks at what that production work actually involves in a normal week. A client changes every window at 4pm on a Friday, and someone spends time finding the windows, swapping the types, updating the details, checking the drawings and reissuing them by hand. Five AI plugins for Revit can now do most of that. Put the two posts together and the question is no longer whether this work will be automated but what practices do about the people who used to learn their craft by doing it.
Below you will find both posts, the full Beyond the Hype report from the AI roundtable we co-chaired with Revizto in London, where to find me at RELEASE [AEC] in Paris next week, the late-change workflow tools in the ADDD Database, two new videos and one role worth noticing.
Let’s get into it. 👇
What Sparked the Most Discussion This Week
Neil Leach argues the architect Alberti defined in the 1450s is dying. The first thing to go is the junior base of every practice pyramid.
5 AI Revit plugins can now handle a late client change. Most practices still do it by hand.
BEYOND THE HYPE: HOW ARCHITECTURE PRACTICES ARE REALLY USING AI
In September, heads of design technology, BIM and AI from leading international architecture practices met in London to talk honestly about AI. The discussion took place at a roundtable hosted by Revizto and co-chaired by ADDD, with contractors, consultants and software leaders also taking part.
We opened with two direct questions. Which AI tool does your practice pay for, and would you renew it tomorrow at the same price? And what is the biggest mistake practices are making with AI right now? The conversation was held under the Chatham House Rule, so people spoke far more candidly than they would on a conference stage. The report draws ten themes from what was said.
The ADDD Workshop: a practical starting point for AI and technology decisions
The Workshop is a focused half-day session, held in person or online with your team, that looks at where technology and AI can help your practice and where they are currently causing friction. We begin by talking through how your team actually works, from early design through to delivery, so that the conversation is grounded in your real workflows rather than in a generic view of what a practice should be doing. From there we go through practical examples of tools that are relevant to your discipline, which gives everyone a shared and realistic picture of what is available and what is worth paying attention to.
I have been running workshops for Orms, Haworth Tompkins, Levitt Bernstein, DMWR, EPR and Morris & Co.
Within the session we identify the main problems holding the practice back, agree on which opportunities are worth pursuing first, and talk openly about the cost of leaving things as they are. Within a few days you receive a written report that sets out the key findings, the priorities and the recommended next steps, so the discussion turns into something you can act on and share with the wider team or the partners.
The Workshop is intended to give you strategic clarity, and it is not a technical audit of your systems. It works well as a first step for practices that know their tools and processes need attention but are not yet sure where to begin, and it can lead on to deeper work such as a early stage workflow software, Technology Blueprint or ongoing advisory support if that turns out to be useful.
Book a call here: 30 min with Allister Lewis
News & Events
RELEASE [AEC], Paris
I will be at RELEASE [AEC], the tech event for the AEC community, so if you are going, come and find me. The day brings together live demonstrations from around 50 companies and startups, five keynote sessions on how technology and AI are changing practice, workshops, the Architizer Vision Awards and an evening networking party. Speakers include Thomas Heatherwick, alongside leaders from BIG, Benoy, KPF and Sweco Architects.
When: Tuesday 20 October 2026, 9:00am - 10:00pm
Where: Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie, Paris
New this week: 5 AI Revit Plugins that save you time
Each week I share new software added to the ADDD Database, plus specific categories, to help you find the right solutions and stay up to date on what's emerging.
The late-change workflow: five Revit plugins and the infrastructure underneath
Nonica - a Revit add-in whose AI Connector lets Claude read, report on and modify your Revit model, so you can ask it to find every window of the old type and swap it for the new one. The free version is read-only, and editing needs the PRO tier. (https://nonica.io)
Ideatura - an AI platform that automates drawing production inside Revit from typed or spoken requests. Once you have refined a fix, you can save it as an automation that anyone on the team can run with one click, building a shared library tuned to your office standards. (https://ideatura.ai/)
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D.TO - a Revit-integrated platform that analyses the model as you work, flags detailing challenges and suggests building assemblies with the real manufacturer products behind them, which you can insert straight into the project. (https://www.dtoaec.com/)
Structured AI - an AI drawing review platform that checks the model against drawings, specifications, schedules and codes. Its Revit add-in shows findings beside the model and proposes fixes that are only applied once someone has approved them. (https://www.getstructured.ai/)
Chaos Veras - AI visualisation that runs inside Revit and other design tools, turning the model you already have into photorealistic images so you can test materials and façades and show the client a revised elevation the same day. (https://www.chaos.com/veras)
IMSCAD Services - hosted Lenovo ThinkStation workstations in Equinix data centres, so Revit and its plugins run on one managed setup that the whole team reaches remotely, without a VPN and without moving project files back and forth. It is priced per user per month. (https://www.imscadservices.com) Email [email protected]
Videos You Need to Watch
One Role Worth Noticing This Week
Circuland is a London startup whose SaaS platform creates Digital Passports for construction products and buildings, supporting circularity, net zero, safety and transparency. The role sits between sustainability expertise and product development: collecting and validating sustainability data at product and building level, turning regulations and industry needs into product requirements, and keeping track of standards in carbon, circularity and certification.
They are looking for someone from an architecture, engineering or wider built environment background with at least two years of sustainability experience, familiarity with BREEAM, LEED or WELL, and strong Excel and data skills. The role is hybrid, with three days a week in the London office, and equity is offered alongside salary. It is a good example of the kind of job Leach expects to grow, where built environment knowledge is combined with data and product work.
→ View role: Here
See all roles here: www.aectechjobs.com/search
What this issue means for practice leaders
Read together, this week’s posts describe the same shift from two sides. Neil Leach expects the base of the practice pyramid to be automated first, and the Friday late change shows exactly what that base does: it finds the elements, swaps the types, updates the details, checks the drawings and produces something the client can react to. Each of those steps now has a tool that does most of the work, and the report from the Revizto roundtable shows that the practices furthest ahead are not asking which tool is the cleverest, but which ones they would pay for again once they have tested them against a defined purpose. The growth Leach describes in the middle of his rocket is the people who can set up and run that chain, and the Circuland role is a small example of the kind of job that sits there.
The question Leach leaves open is one practice leaders cannot leave open. If juniors no longer learn by doing the production work, the practice has to decide how they will learn instead, whether that is by reviewing what the automation produces, owning a step in the chain or working alongside the people who build it.
The practical step is to take one task that happens every month, such as a late change, and map who does each step today, which steps could be automated and what the person doing that step currently learns from it. If you would like help doing that properly, that is what the ADDD workshop is for: a half-day session, in person or online, that looks at where technology creates friction across your workflows and ends with a written report on the problems, the priorities and the next steps.
That's it for this week.
If something in here landed - or if you disagree - reply and tell me. I read every response.
Thanks for reading!
Allister
This is where you will find Richard most days..
