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Your media buyer opens Slack at 8am. There's already a cross-platform brief in #growth: Google Ads spend vs. ROAS, Meta CPA by campaign, Stripe revenue by channel. Viktor posted it at 6am. Nobody asked for it.
Same colleague caught a spend spike overnight on your brand campaign. Flagged it before anyone logged in. The problem was handled before the first standup.
Your strategist reviews trends. Your account manager checks attribution. Same Slack channel. Same colleague. Before anyone's first coffee.
Google Ads, Meta, Stripe. One message. No Looker. No Data Studio. No dashboard tab left open since Tuesday.
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Hi there,
After speaking to 100+ architecture practices, one pattern keeps surfacing. The firms that feel most exposed aren't running too many tools. They're dependent on too few.
This week: the structural argument for why that matters, a practical breakdown of what to do about one specific line item (Adobe), and a different kind of signal from the AJ100 New Talent 2026 shortlist.
Let's get into it. 👇
What Sparked the Most Discussion This Week
1. The next generation of architects isn't waiting for permission to change how practice works. The AJ100 New Talent 2026 shortlist is evidence of that.
Click here to read the full post: LinkedIn.
2. Revit gets scrutinised. Adobe doesn't. They're roughly the same cost. Think about that.
Click here to see the full post: LinkedIn
3. After speaking to 100+ architecture practices, here’s my view: Software cost is becoming structurally unsustainable.
Click here to see the full post: LinkedIn
Theme of the Week: The lock-in problem most practices haven't named yet
This week's first post names something a lot of practice leaders feel but haven't articulated directly: software cost isn't rising because you're buying more tools. It's rising because a handful of vendors - Autodesk, Adobe, Nemetschek, Dassault, Trimble, Bentley - sit at the centre of the workflow and know exactly how hard they are to move.
That's not a procurement problem. It's a structural one. When 2-3 vendors control your cost, your direction, and your ability to change, the leverage doesn't sit with you. That's lock-in. And most practices haven't named it as such.
The Adobe post is the practical counterpart. Most practices scrutinise Revit and not Adobe, because Adobe just arrived from university and stayed. The post maps 10 exit points: Acrobat alternatives, Photoshop replacements for editing and for visualisation separately, InDesign options for designers and non-designers, Illustrator substitutes, presentation tools, and critically a licence audit as the non-negotiable starting point. Most practices are carrying ghost seats and don't know it.
The AJ100 New Talent 2026 shortlist rounds the week out differently. 21 people across three categories: Part 1, Part 2, and newly qualified architects. What's striking isn't that they're using technology - it's how they're using it. AI working groups. Retrofit strategy. Circular economy research. Inclusive design embedded from the start. Not add-ons. Core to how they practise. The practices giving people like this room to lead are the interesting ones to watch.
Featured - DIRT Dispatch
DIRT Dispatch is the (free) newsletter where nothing stays buried.
Written by Nikita Morell, founder of DIRT and messaging strategist for the built world, it digs up the branding insights, messaging examples and positioning truths AEC software teams need to hear. Sign up here.
Events
Live Event: Constructech x ConTech Is... "A World of Disconnection"
Thursday 28 May | 6:00pm – 8:30pm @ Laminar Projects, London
Two of London's construction tech communities are joining forces for one evening. Constructech and ConTech Is... are co-hosting an event focused on one of the most persistent problems in the built environment: the tools are multiplying, but they're not connecting.
I'll be delivering the interactive talk - exploring how architecture and construction practices can move from software accumulation to deliberate digital strategy.
The agenda:
6:00pm – Networking
6:45pm – Interactive Talk
7:45pm – Networking
8:30pm – Post-event drinks
Come if you can - it's the conversation this industry needs to have. Limited numbers - register here: https://luma.com/nw6nacnm
Infrared SDK Buildathon - 27-31 May 2026
Three days to explore what's possible when urban climate data becomes an API call. Build an app, a workflow, a reporting tool, a plugin — and win up to €5,000 in infrared.city credits. Sign up here.
Digital Construction 3-4 June Week 2026
EXPLORE THE FUTURE OF THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT - Learn about the latest trends in digital construction, from BIM and AI to robotics and sustainable solutions.
Meet companies driving architecture and design, construction, engineering and operation forward. Discover how to use new technology to improve your projects, teams, business and the built environment. Get your free ticket here.
5 Tools Added to the ConTech Database This Week
LandArchGrade - Grade the Earth. With Love.
LandArchGrade generates a live terrain surface from your spot heights, breaklines, and structures. Slopes are colour-coded against thresholds you set, contours and flow arrows update live, and every edit happens directly in the viewport. Drag nodes, adjust elevations, move structures. The terrain rebuilds as you work. LandArchGrade | Real-Time Terrain Grading for Rhino | LandArchTools
MEPSketcher - Professional MEP Design Tool for PDF Drawings
Design, manage, and visualize MEP networks directly on your PDF drawings with an intuitive, powerful interface. MEPSketcher - Professional MEP Design Tool for PDF Drawings
Harcus - Bring every listing to life.
Edit any space with AI. Walk through it in 3D. Embed it where buyers explore, and every interaction becomes a buyer signal. https://www.harcus.ai/
Grabthat - Stop digging through deep project folders. grabthat is the digital assistant that hands you the right project resource the moment you need it.
Today keep track of how much time you spend searching through your scattered and unorganized data. If you feel like it is too long, come back here. https://grabthat.ai/
Avoice - The AI Workspace for Architects and Engineers
The all-in-one AI-native platform for project delivery, from design to construction. https://www.avoice.co/
One Role Worth Noticing This Week
“Things you will support me on, not own:
-/ Strategic decisions (you are in the room, you push back)
-/ Product direction (you understand it well enough to brief on calls)
-/ Engineering work (you do not write code, but you live close enough to call bullshit)”
→ View role: Here
See all roles here: www.aectechjobs.com/search
What this issue means for practice leaders;
The lock-in conversation and the Adobe breakdown are the same conversation from two angles. One names the structural problem. The other gives you something actionable this week.
Neither requires a full stack overhaul. The Adobe post is deliberate about that: map your usage to four products, replace each one deliberately, not all at once. Start with an audit. Most practices are carrying ghost seats and don't know it.
The harder question under all of this is whether software decisions in your practice are active ones. Most aren't. Tools arrive, embed, and become invisible. Cost becomes fixed. Exit becomes harder. The vendor knows this.
Three questions worth sitting with this week:
Which vendors in your stack would be genuinely difficult to replace and do you actually know why?
Is your Adobe spend a deliberate choice, or a legacy assumption that's never been properly tested?
What would it mean for your margin if you ran a licence audit before your next renewal?
Get in touch: eply to this email or book a call. 30 min with Allister Lewis
This newsletter exists to help architects navigate technology with confidence, not hype by focusing on workflows, decisions, and real practice constraints.
Thanks for reading!
Allister
Richard says hi!
