Inside Autodesk Research – Exploring our Research Teams

At Autodesk Research, we are a team of researchers who seek new innovations that create opportunities for design and make industries. We work with our customers and other partners to explore what’s possible within our own facilities and in companies around the world.

The organization includes teams that explore new opportunities in Architecture, Engineering, and Construction; Manufacturing; Industrialized Construction; Media and Entertainment; and Industry Impact.

Our science teams examine new possibilities for artificial intelligence, how humans and computers interact, new opportunities for robotics, and computer simulation, mathematical optimization, and systems modeling.

Strategic Foresight examines long-term forces of change and how they could shape the future for Autodesk and our customers, and Research Engineering supports the projects undertaken by each of our teams.

Autodesk Research explores how technology can be applied to emerging design and make challenges to prepare our company for the future while helping to lead and inspire our customers. Learn more about our Industry Futures, Science, Strategic Foresight, and Advanced Engineering teams.

Industry Futures

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.

Industry Futures 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.

Industry Futures Manufacturing

We combine specialists from multiple fields to focus on cutting-edge design and manufacturing technologies and processes. Our research extends to nearly all major manufacturing vertical industries, including automotive, aerospace, space exploration, consumer products, heavy industries, and biomedical. We focus on smarter product design; faster, more adaptive manufacturing; and modeling, simulating, and measuring manufacturing workflows with data-driven digital twins.

Industry Futures 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.

Industry Futures Media and Entertainment

New content platforms and digital media experiences compete for audiences on innovative distribution platforms. Our Media and Entertainment team aims to arm creators with converging technology in various Autodesk platforms to offer a new generation of content creation tools.

Industry Futures 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.

Science

Autodesk’s core Science teams examine new possibilities for artificial intelligence, explore how humans and computers interact, discover new opportunities for robotics, and push what’s possible with computer simulation, mathematical optimization, and systems modeling. Our goal is to support Autodesk’s vision to improve the design and making process, working intentionally with our Research Engineering team on prototypes, research, and customer projects.

Artificial Intelligence

At the Autodesk AI Lab, we perform advanced AI research that can be applied to our customers’ workflows and processes. These solutions seek to make customers more informed and efficient, allowing them to maximize their creativity and do more with less. We also provide AI thought leadership and mentoring, in addition to partnering closely with other research and product teams on joint analysis in AI.

Human-Computer Interaction and Visualization

We develop a fundamental understanding of how humans perceive, learn, and interact with technology through rigorous scientific study, collaborations with leading academic institutions, and research partnerships with customers. Based on our learning outcomes, we develop novel interfaces and visualizations to solve current problems and explore future opportunities.

Robotics

We research the future of robotics in manufacturing, architecture, construction, and media production. Our work aligns with the company’s goal to automate and improve our customers’ design and make processes. We accelerate growth of the most favorable technology trends in robotics—and mitigate risk of unfavorable trends—by prototyping original research.

Simulation, Optimization, and Systems

Our goal is to radically increase and diversify the use of computer simulation, mathematical optimization, and systems modeling in the design and making of things. With a toolbox that includes physics solvers, sensor networks, and state-of-the-art algorithms, we build the foundations of new technology that will help designers improve both the mechanical systems on which people depend, and the built environments in which people live and work.

Strategic Foresight

The Strategic Foresight team helps identify and articulate long-term forces of change to reveal insights that shape the future. The team explores future scenarios in a STEEP (Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, and Political) framework to identify drivers of emerging themes and patterns, and how those will impact our company, our customers, and our customers’ customers. The goal is to anticipate and prepare for change while examining how current factors might signal what’s to come.

Advanced Engineering

Autodesk solutions rely on advanced, visual, real-time technologies including AI, simulation, optimization, graphics, and more. The Research Engineering team supports our core science and industry research by creating software platforms, prototypes, and experiences that move innovation quickly from the lab to our product teams and customers who use software engineering technologies and practices.