In a recent opinion article for AEC Magazine, Amy Bunszel, executive vice president of architecture, engineering, and construction solutions at Autodesk, argues that artificial intelligence’s most impactful role in AEC in 2026 will come not from faster tools but from helping teams make better, earlier decisions. Until recently, AI in architecture, engineering, and construction has focused on automating routine tasks such as documentation, coordination, and repetitive workflows. While those efficiencies remain important, firms now face greater complexity, tighter budgets, growing demands for sustainability, and little room for error, making decision quality more critical to project success than ever before.
Bunszel points out that early choices about site strategy, design assumptions, and sequencing have a disproportionate influence on outcomes, and the tolerance for revisiting those choices later in a project has declined. Owners expect credible analysis of feasibility, performance, and risk well before detailed design begins. AI’s emerging strength lies in helping teams analyze data, including site conditions, environmental context, systems performance, and constructability, so that trade-offs can be explored while change is still practical. In this environment, having more information is not an advantage; the advantage lies in how teams evaluate trade-offs and make decisions that balance performance, risk, and long-term value.
The next phase of AI integration, Bunszel suggests, will also enable continuity across the project lifecycle. Instead of treating early design and detailed building definition as separate phases with hand-offs and reinterpretation, AI will help carry design intent and assumptions forward in a connected data environment. Shared analysis and simulation will empower architects, engineers, and constructors to test performance, feasibility, and risk together early and continuously, closing gaps that have long caused issues downstream.
Ultimately, Bunszel sees AI’s value not in speeding up isolated tasks but in reducing surprises, improving project performance, and enabling teams to meet rising expectations without burnout. In 2026 and beyond, AEC firms that focus AI on decision quality and data continuity will have an edge in delivering resilient, high-performing assets.