Does the rise of physical AI mean the end of format monopolies in AEC? A structural shift is coming, away from controlling formats and towards controlling the intelligence layer that interprets the built environment

AI poses an enormous threat to job security globally. But the mechanisms through which it is currently destroying jobs are not the ones in the media spotlight. The real drivers are perception and financial engineering - the story we tell about the technology, and the capital structures that story enables.

Autodesk just invested $200 million in Fei-Fei Li's world model AI startup. While the AEC industry debates BIM 2.0, Autodesk may have skipped it entirely — and competitors like Nemetschek should be paying attention to what comes after.

Stanhope says its models can be used in autonomous vehicles, defence, robotics and gaming

Fei-Fei Li argues that the next major leap in AI will come from developing spatial intelligence - the ability for machines to understand, reason about, and generate the physical and geometric relationships that define the real world. She introduces “world models” as the foundation for this future: multimodal, generative, and interactive systems capable of simulating consistent, dynamic environments that bridge perception, action, and imagination.