Our team at Autodesk is called Strategic Foresight. We help identify and articulate long-term forces of change and their implications shaping the future for Autodesk and our customers. As Strategic Foresight, we do not attempt to offer definitive answers about what the future will hold. No one can do that. Instead, we recognize that there are many possible futures, some more plausible than others, some more desirable. Our team helps reveal insights across the entire company by working with Autodesk leaders to shape a preferable future (out of the many possible futures) that delivers value for our customers and our business.
Autodesk University is our conference for learning about Autodesk products and services while networking with Autodesk experts and customers. It offers in-person and on-demand sessions, classes, Theater Talks, exhibits, events, and more on various topics and industries. Autodesk University 2023 took place from November 13-15 in Las Vegas. One of our teammates used the opportunity of Autodesk University to pose as a traveler from the future with a suitcase of artifacts to get some feedback on what the future might hold for the industries Autodesk serves (i.e., AECO, PDMU, M&E):
Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Operation (AECO)
-
Given today's global movement of construction workers, what if emerging technologies (e.g., language translating hard hat) enabled collaboration across multi-lingual and multi-skilled teams on fast-changing global job sites?
-
With shortages of senior living facilities in 2023, what if industry tools (e.g., handheld scanners) could help assess and reconfigure built environments for adaption as we age?
-
Emotion-responsive clothing debuted in 2022, so what if designers used emotion sensors and AI to customize and personalize urban designs in real time?
-
With biotech kits hitting the market and July 2023 as the hottest month on record, what if cities invited residents to disrupt heat islands by selectively altering local biological systems? (i.e., using microbe kits)
-
With sensors becoming ever more ubiquitous, what if real-time environmental sensors could monitor the health of natural landscapes, giving them a voice in governmental decision-making?
Product Design, Manufacturing, and Use (PDMU)
-
With manufacturing-critical minerals so scarce, what if lithium countries form an organization (i.e., see jersey) to manage and control the supply of minerals critical to the transition to a green economy?
-
As automation improves factories worldwide, what if conversational AI makes robotic machinery feel so lifelike that workers form emotional bonds with their assembly line counterparts (e.g., robot replica doll)?
-
Given today's increasing availability of 3D scanning hardware and the rising value of AI training data, what if gig workers used homemade scanners to capture rare, never-before-scanned 3D geometry for the growing data economy?
Media and Entertainment (M&E)
-
With today's increasing threats from generative AI, what if deep fakes become so ubiquitous that companies introduce yearly awards for employees who spot and detect them?
Autodesk has always been a forward-looking company. We deliver a trusted design and make platform that connects people through automation, data, and insights to help our customers achieve better outcomes for their businesses and the world. We help them embrace the future of making, where they can do more (e.g., quantity, functionality, performance, quality) with less (e.g., energy, raw materials, timeframes, waste of human potential) and realize the opportunity for better (e.g., innovation, user experience, efficiency, sustainability, return on investment). Autodesk customers can make anything, so artifacts like the ones in the suitcase may one day be possible. Considering speculative artifacts is one method of considering preferable futures of a better world designed and made for all.
"Oh, let the sun beat down upon my face
And stars fill my dream
I'm a traveler of both time and space
To be where I have been
To sit with elders of the gentle race
This world has seldom seen
They talk of days for which they sit and wait
All will be revealed"
— "Kashmir," Led Zeppelin
Speculative artifacts are alive in the lab.
Subscribe
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Instagram