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Music.

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Welcome to Engineering Influence, a podcast from the American Council of Engineering Companies.

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And we're very pleased today to be joined by one of our industry's greatest

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resources, I think, in the design field, and that's Autodesk.

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We're joined by Theo Aghiopoulos, VP of AEC Design Strategy.

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Then he comes today to talk about some new developments at Autodesk.

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Theo, thank you very much for joining us this morning.

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Well, thanks for having me. So for the audience out there who use Autodesk every day or, you know,

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are very well aware of it, Kind of just explain a little bit about yourself

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and what you do at Autodesk and how it directly affects the work that our member firms do.

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Okay. Yeah, happy to. So I've been with Autodesk roughly about around 17 years.

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And prior to that, I spent 13 years at Inagraph.

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I'm a civil engineer, but I've spent most of my career, I'd say,

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on the technology side of engineering.

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So you know what my what i do and essentially

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what my team does at autodesk is is we lead a

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lot of our strategic planning for the aec design business

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specifically i have a peer that's responsible for construction another one for

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operations and essentially what we do is we look at you know market trends we

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look at market opportunities we assess product opportunities for ourselves to

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build and bring to market products that help the industry digitally transform,

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And then, you know, we provide a lot of that information as we build our long-range

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plan to our product teams, our marketing organization.

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And then essentially we also lead things like, you know, M&A.

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As well as partnerships. So we really are, I would say, the business planning

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and industry strategy team for the Autodesk AEC design business.

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And Autodesk has really been expanding its investment in the AEC space,

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really across the board. Can you explain a little bit of Autodesk strategy behind the expansion and the

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increased investment and really what it's going to mean for the downstream customer

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who uses your products as a whole?

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Yeah. So, I mean, you know, it's funny as I meet, you know, many ACEC members,

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I think every single one of them is using Autodesk products at some point in

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their career, many starting with AutoCAD many, many years ago.

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So I think if you look at the 40 plus year history of Autodesk,

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we started in the 2D design space and then we kind of began going vertical from

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an industry perspective, starting with architecture.

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And then we expanded into different disciplines like MEP

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and structure and we expanded you know into the

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civil business and then we expanded into multiple civil markets between transportation

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water land development and then I'd say over the last decade you know a big

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shift you know we've had is moving downstream into construction and a lot of

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that was really about helping the construction industry digitize.

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But more importantly, it was about better connecting designers and contractors

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to optimize the way projects get delivered.

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And then I would say more recently, we've been making investments in the operations

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space through investments like digital technologies.

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Tandem, we acquired a company called Interbuyors that has different solutions

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in the asset management and plant operation space.

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So I would say our journey has been really to try and address the full asset

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lifecycle, primarily in the building and infrastructure space.

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And a lot of that is really about helping our customers deliver projects better.

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More sustainably, with less errors, et cetera.

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Yeah, there has, and all of this has really helped drive this,

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but there has been that increased move to digital, engineering,

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especially construction now, it seems as though the workflows are all.

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You can integrate them significantly across practice areas or disciplines.

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What are you hearing from your customer base on really what their challenges

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are, how they want the software to assist them in project delivery,

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in the general project development workflow?

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How do you think the customers are going to be pushing the technology forward?

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Yeah, so it's a great question. So here's what I would say. If I think back

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to my own career, when I first came out, and I'm dating myself many years ago,

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but it wasn't that we weren't using digital technology.

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I was using digital technology as a young engineer.

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The problem was is that independently, we're all using digital technology in silos.

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And so that created a lot of redundancy, a lot of rework, a lot of errors.

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People are using either different applications or people go from analog to digital processes.

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So I think, you know, at the end of the day, what I hear from customers,

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you know, number one is how do we eliminate a lot of the waste and redundancy

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even today in the work that we have? And a lot of that is quite frankly driven by interoperability.

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You know, how do we make products more interoperable?

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You know, even products within the audience portfolio, but more importantly,

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we live in a very hybrid technology ecosystem. You know, people are using a

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lot of different, you know, vendor applications.

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And that's actually one of the reasons we have been very focused on trying to

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build interoperability agreements with companies like Bentley, Trimble, Hexadon.

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So that's definitely one area I would say that I'm hearing from customers.

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The other thing I'm hearing from customers is it's really difficult to recruit and retain workers.

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You know, so we have to do more with less.

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So how do we basically you know optimize the way we use technology to bridge that gap so.

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You know we'll talk about it later i'm sure but things like a what does

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that mean for our industry what does an

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engineering firm look like you know 10 20 30 years from now and a lot of that

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even by the marketplace and how our customers get paid so if you think about

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a lot of the anxiety here from especially when i as i talk to different executives

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and board of directors of a lot of our customers, their concerns are.

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We're primarily, at times, a material company. We're like the McKinsey of the

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AEC and build hours, right? So on the one hand, we want to reduce hours.

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On the other hand, we want to optimize hours. So what's the right balance and

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how do we change the operating model where engineering companies can make money different ways?

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And I think technology definitely provides opportunities to do that.

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And I think that's a lot of the discussion, certainly, that I have with customers

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is how do we transform from being just a traditional engineering company,

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to being an engineering technology and product type of company where we can

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blend our discipline, knowledge or our subject matter expertise with technology

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to deliver a different product to market.

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And if you think about what happens today is that if you're a $100 million engineering

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company and you have 1,000 people.

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Say, whatever the number is, and you want to be a $200 million engineering company

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on the traditional model, you have to double the number of a number of people to yeah

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because it's a very linear growth model so so a lot

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of the questions i get is how do we change that linear growth model to

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be more like a hockey stick so that engineering companies

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can thrive and obviously i think the other

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reality is every every customer that i talk to

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ultimately wants to deliver a better product to their

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customer you know so we're all

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motivated you know and i think we work in a field where the

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things we deliver to the marketplace change the

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world so it's how do we do it more sustainably how do

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we do more efficiently so and then i think the final thing

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that i'm hearing more recently is definitely around

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and i mentioned it earlier you know there's all

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this hype you know two years ago three years ago i was around digital twins

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and now it's around ai and what what

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is ai is ai going to replace you

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know architects engineers and contractors and what role should

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we play you know is autodesk going to replace engineers

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you know with ai and so there's some of

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the questions we get and i think the answer is no i think my

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my response generally or my feeling at least

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is those architects engineers etc that use ai will definitely replace those

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that don't so i see we see ai more as a complementary you know co-pilot not

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to no pun intended but or an architect or engineer so anyway so that's probably

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what i hear from a lot of our customers Yeah.

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You really hit on a number of things that we are seriously considering because the seismic shift—.

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With AI and machine learning and the like, and its integration with the industry

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is really pushing efficiencies.

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And we're seeing a lot of that in the business development realm right now, the marketing realm.

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It's cutting down the time from the RFP responses.

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It's allowing firms to leverage their resources, their libraries of past answers

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and use AI to kind of streamline and respond quickly.

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You know, we're also looking at what, to your point, what is the firm of 2030

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going to be looking like? How is that going to be?

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How's that? What is it going to be in terms of staffing with AI really taking

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a more sizable presence in the firm?

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Are you going to have more licensed engineers?

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You're going to have fewer licensed engineers and more people who are on the software side.

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Are you going to allow the technology to kind of help guide a plan and have

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fewer people to be able to sign on the actual plans.

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It really is a good question of how with the demand for technology to create efficiencies,

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the idea of having a firm whose billing model for generations has been pretty

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much billing time on projects. You cut that down, And then it's a question of how do you move your billing model?

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You know, one of the things I've heard about is the idea of you're designing a bridge.

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It's the idea of actually owning that digital twin and being able to service

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the client through the lifecycle of the project from inception to completion

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to maintenance and replacement.

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And being able to almost offer that as a firm would offer software as a service.

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You're actually offering the engineering as a service throughout the entire

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life cycle of that project. What kind of opportunities do you see or do you kind of think are out there

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for firms that are agile and forward-looking to be able to adapt to this changing marketplace?

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Yeah, I mean, I think you just, you gave a couple of really great examples of

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what is happening and what probably should happen.

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But it is how, I think it's going to be.

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You know, transformational in a shorter time than what we've seen technology

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transform our business in the far. So that's the first thing.

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But we believe, you know, what may have taken five, you know,

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I'll give you a good example. Building information modeling has been around now for almost 20 years, right?

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And building information modeling is really a premise around a process.

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It's not about buying a product. The products we or other, you know, technology companies build enable a digital

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engineering and a digital construction process, but it's our customers that

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are doing the building information modeling.

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If you think about building information modeling, even today.

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You know, we're not there yet. Like, different levels of maturity in different markets, and I don't think it's

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a technology problem. I think it's a change management problem, right?

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The difference with AI is what we've been trying to, you know,

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incorporate into our more traditional delivery processes, AI is going to take

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that from, say, 20 years to three, right? So we see in the next three years, you know, a dramatic change in the way our

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customers think, plan their business, plan their customers' projects,

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and ultimately how they deliver and operate. And here's what I think you're going to see, and it's already happening at some level.

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To your point, we're seeing a lot of customers using, you know,

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AI and machine learning to do things around better

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optimizing even the projects that they pursue and

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i've seen examples where customers say you know what in

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this country in this state for this project type we lose money so we're going

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to stop pursuing those types of projects and we're going to focus on these types

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of projects where we make money so there's already kind of a you know i always

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think about this kind of data information knowledge kind of spectrum right and

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and we're moving to this knowledge you know,

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place where people or customers and firms can make better decisions, right?

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You're starting to see within products and even our own products,

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whether you realize it or not, you know, we're using AI to do things like help.

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And that's about helping customers be more efficient with using our products.

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But fundamentally, you know, in order to leverage the power of AI,

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you need to have an underlying data and platform that you can essentially build LLMs.

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And then on top of that, you can build different agents that do different things, right?

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That's actually, you know, what we're focused on right now. And I think,

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you know, many technology companies, you know, in the AI space are doing the same thing.

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And fundamentally, how do you put your data or structure your data or your customer's

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data in a way, okay, that then allows you to leverage the power of AI to solve

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these different problems. And throughout what we're doing is today, I'll give you an example.

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Autodesk Docs, you know, is our data environment, carbon data environment, right?

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And when our customers are collaborating in an Autodesk cloud environment,

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on top of that docs environment, which is basically a bunch of files,

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we're actually deconstructing those files into what we're calling an AEC data model.

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So now we're not managing files, we're actually managing parts and pieces.

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So as long as you're using the Autodesk platform, we're essentially helping

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you structure your data in a way that then allows us to do the things that you

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just talked about, right? So I would say right now we're doing two things at Autodesk in this front.

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One is, and I should premise this by saying this is not new for Autodesk.

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ChatGPT, which is kind of text-based AI, has seen a massive kind of progression

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primarily because of the volume of people using text-based AI or investing in text-based.

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We've actually been doing research around 3D models and AI for over a decade.

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We're actually, I think, the number one published technology company in the space, right?

15:14

So that's that AI now has come to the forefront and we're beginning to incorporate

15:18

it into products, right?

15:20

So we've got a lot of experience, I think, when you start talking about 3D AI.

15:27

And so what we're doing is what we've seen in multiple phases.

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One is make sure we set up the data and platform for Autodesk to bring to market

15:35

different types of applications that leverage AI. Same platform is intended to be a marketplace for our engineering and our architecture

15:44

customers and our construction customers to do their own things with AI so they

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don't have to go build all the platforms and data.

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We want this to be a way for them to accelerate their use of AI.

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So if you think about the examples that you talked about, if I'm a firm and

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I want to build some kind of really cool AI tool for a bridge for an owner,

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I just have the ability to essentially build that app like you're building an

16:09

app on the Apple store and deliver that app as an offering to my customer.

16:14

So now, if you go back to what I said earlier, I'm not just delivering time and materials.

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I'm actually delivering a product that the customer is paying me for on an extended

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period of time. So the business model has completely changed.

16:29

What our customers deliver to their customers has changed.

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It also requires that the type of people that our customers hire changes.

16:38

Now you're going to hire civil engineers or bridge engineers or whatever,

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but you're also essentially going to have to hire different types of skill sets like data scientists.

16:46

And I think certainly technology is getting to a place where you're not hiring

16:52

a traditional developer, you're hiring a different type of technical person

16:57

that can assemble parts to deliver something, right?

17:00

So I think that's kind of where we're going.

17:05

That's happening, I'd say, in some cases already.

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Now, there's one thing that we didn't mention that I think is going to be critically

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important and certainly something we're trying to do our part,

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and I think ACEC has a critical role in this, right?

17:19

In order for that to work, ultimately, the business models have to change of how owners pay firms.

17:27

And owners need to shift away from time materials to paying for value.

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So we need to move to this value-based business model. And I think you guys

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play, I don't know, I think we're members of AC, so we all play a role in influencing

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and educating owners on why...

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This is critically important for them and why the

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value for them is actually has the most value

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in the whole value chain so if you think about and there

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was an interesting study a few years ago this was primarily done on

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bim on a building but it was kpmg i

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can't remember but they were they were hired by the uk government and

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they wanted to kind of quantify where's the you know when you because i

18:06

have a bim mandate right so when you have a bim mandate what where's

18:09

the value in the value chain who gets the most value out of bim right

18:12

and there was definitely value for design right

18:15

more value for construction because

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the cost is higher but at the end of the

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day when you look at the total operating cost of a capital asset

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you know 90 of that value of

18:28

the cost is really in operations and maintenance so ultimately the owner

18:31

is the one that gets the most value so we

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need to convince you know capital asset owners regardless

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whether it's a private building or a building or a

18:40

road or whatever that you know they're making

18:43

an investment making that upfront value-based investment

18:46

drives a bigger rate of return so now

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of course the challenge is always the fact that politicians get stifled

18:52

every four years i mean all right so so but this is this is i think in my opinion

18:58

this is one of the most critical things we have to solve for and i think influencing

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policy public policy influencing industry or industry associations you know

19:08

play a critical role in that. Yeah. I, I agree with you a hundred percent. I, you know, the.

19:14

The, we have as engineers, it's a, it is always that vow selling their value

19:20

and not just, like you said, time

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and materials that, that, that model no longer works when you have, uh,

19:28

the efficiencies that technology brings and the opportunities for firms to do

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more than just do initial design, hand it off, and there you go.

19:38

That's the part in the process. And it is that ability to touch the whole life cycle of a project.

19:44

And I would say that the interesting thing, and I'd like your take on this,

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because technology is, to an extent, a great equalizer.

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And firms now, it always used to be, well, the large firms have the capital.

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You know, the CapEx expenditures and then the investments to be able to bring

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on new technologies and take risks because they have that ability.

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But really, firms of all sizes, small, medium, and large can take advantage of this technology.

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To your point, you know, really what you're doing is you're curating the data

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and the tools that you offer are actually helping firms organize their data

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in such a way that it can actually be leveraged by AI, which is,

20:24

of course, a large part of the puzzle, right?

20:27

It still is that the result you get out of the AI model is as good as the agent

20:32

you create and the data that you actually put into the model to teach it.

20:38

You know, how, you know, do you see this as, to me, it seems as though it's

20:45

going to be really across size of

20:47

firms and the entire industry that this opportunity is going to be there.

20:51

And it's just going to be a question of who's going to be grabbing the technology and using it best first.

20:57

Yeah. So I think, yeah, I agree. And I think that's – so look.

21:02

The – like we auditors have gone through multiple transformations, right?

21:07

And I'd say, you know, without going through the whole history again,

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you know, the transformation we are in right now is about transforming from

21:16

being a traditional product company where we – these individual products.

21:20

And we target the different individuals and donors for a certain job to be done.

21:26

To a platform company, okay? And that transition, and I have this conversation

21:32

all the time with a lot of our customers who come to me and are concerned about price, right?

21:37

And we have a lot of these pricing discussions all the time.

21:40

And the problem with the traditional model is most of our customers use a very

21:44

small percentage of that application.

21:47

So, well, I'm paying this much, but I'm only using this much, right?

21:50

When you move to this platform model and you

21:53

start to deconstruct products into apps you

21:57

know think about you know always use the analogy of your phone right

22:00

you know people have seen me speak before probably they're going

22:02

to switch off but but you know when you buy your phone you don't

22:05

get trained on how to use your phone right what you

22:08

do is you basically depending on who you are what

22:11

you do whether it's personal or professional and this is why these phones

22:14

have become now you know common way of doing business in the

22:17

professional world is you'll pull apps on your

22:20

phone based on the job that you do right and knowing

22:23

you don't go to training like a lot of our customers do today to get to get

22:26

taught revit or civil 3d or plan 3d or whatever right so so as we're making

22:31

that shift we're moving to that type of model so what is what does that mean

22:35

right so what it means is one my cost you know you know getting young engineers

22:41

or architects or whatever. To a point where they can get they bring value to

22:46

the firm you know right that's number one number

22:49

two when i curate the experience for that

22:52

architect and engineer because not every engineer does the

22:55

same job right i'm i'm a civil engineer but i

22:58

could be on a project i could be doing lighting i could be striping or

23:01

i could be doing you know geotechnical so there's probably

23:04

a hundred different things i can do but when you

23:06

start curating the offering to the job to

23:09

be done you narrow the the application and

23:12

you let them be highly efficient you know you know

23:15

you know without having to have all these onboarding costs okay

23:18

but more importantly is those apps

23:21

are all all that data is connected right so now

23:25

i can have different people manipulating different data that surfaces to other

23:29

individual and you start to build a real-time decision support system it starts

23:35

to be it starts to trigger reactions you know real time so you know give another

23:41

example So if I'm a project manager and I've got 1,000,

23:44

it could be five people or 500 people, right?

23:47

But I'm a project manager. I don't need to get into any of the authoring tools

23:51

to look at models, right? All I care about is someone behind schedule and do I need to go and talk to

23:58

that person because they're setting up the whole project, right?

24:01

So having a simple dashboard that has a red light that flashes and said,

24:06

go talk to this guy. I mean, that's the kind of real-time decision support we need to create.

24:12

And I think that's what this move to platform allows.

24:16

So now if I'm a small firm, okay, I'm going to stop and say the most valuable

24:21

thing our engineering customers have,

24:25

is their people and the subject matter expertise and the intellectual knowledge in their heads.

24:31

So the question is, how do you take that domain knowledge that they have and

24:36

scale it across your firm in a way that is not financially crippling, okay?

24:45

I think what we're trying to do is build that underlying platform that allows

24:49

anyone to essentially take that knowledge,

24:52

build it in potentially an app and scale it through their enterprise and deliver

24:57

different types of services and to their clients so that's that's where i think

25:02

that's the journey we're on so so at the end of the day the most valuable thing

25:06

i think that that you have is the data.

25:09

Intellectual property and then the platform approach

25:12

allows our customers you know to put that together so that's

25:15

the that's the next transformation that we're on

25:18

and some of the examples that you you've called

25:21

out for example the bridge example with the digital twin you

25:24

know we don't want that to only be available to

25:27

the the largest firms that have you know

25:30

who have the most you know money to be

25:33

able to deliver that kind of application right we want any

25:36

firm okay to be able to deliver an experience

25:39

okay that is unique to help drive their business and that's the it's the business

25:45

model transformation that i'm talking about because the platform we're building

25:49

yes it's an underlying data platform but it's also going to be a business a e-commerce platform,

25:57

allow you to monetize potentially now we're not there yet so i don't want to

26:01

i don't want to tell you you go build an app on the autodesk store you're going to get paid that's not,

26:05

on that journey right so i'm just telling you but that's the vision we have

26:09

is where We commoditize technology so we can accelerate the digital transformation.

26:16

We can transform the way projects get delivered. That's anywhere on, I would say.

26:22

Yeah, it is an exciting one because it's completely upending the way that business has been done.

26:27

And it really is allowing firms to choose really how they're going to be delivering

26:35

their services and how they want to kind of position themselves in the market

26:39

and differentiate themselves from competition.

26:42

You know, with the speed of technology, it's, you know, always, always –.

26:51

It moves so quickly that it seems as though we went from talking about AI in

26:57

a very, very general sense just maybe two years ago,

27:00

and then all of a sudden now, we're all of a sudden talking about how firms

27:04

are actually actively integrating it into their business systems.

27:07

What do you think is – do you think AI is probably the next transformational

27:12

technology that's really going to take a while to get completely baked in?

27:16

Do you think that there's something else out there which is on the cusp or something

27:20

that we need to be thinking about in advance?

27:23

You know, how is Autodesk looking at the rate of change and what the next big

27:29

thing could possibly be for the industry? Yeah, I mean, I think as I think about my own career over the last 30 years,

27:35

you know, we saw, you know, many technology transformations, right?

27:40

From i'll give you an example i lived through you know

27:43

traditional surveying you know total stations

27:46

and then you know reality capture you know i lived through you

27:50

know you know aerial acquisition systems from you

27:53

know analog film to digital right i lived through you know

27:56

this whole you know airborne reality capture you know of how we you know correct

28:01

collect the terrain so and then obviously the whole 2d to 3d and then you know

28:07

cat to bim and so yeah so here's what i would say And I don't think I'm exaggerating,

28:13

right? So time will tell. Is what I see different, what we see right now is the big technology shifts

28:20

that happen, like, for example, cloud and big data has enabled this thing called

28:25

AI to accelerate, right? So we were already shifting to cloud because computing, better collaboration,

28:32

all the value costs came down.

28:35

So customers could eliminate some of the on-prem costs for a heavyweight IT

28:39

environment to outsourcing it to somebody else.

28:43

And then big data came along, which was really the foundation for a lot of the

28:46

stuff I just talked about. So I actually believe that this next phase right now, it's hard to see beyond

28:55

that because of the implications of AI, right?

28:59

In this next, and I'll go back to my earlier statement, the

29:02

next three years are going to be transformational you know

29:05

in the business and here's what's different is technology companies

29:09

like autodesk are already implementing ai in different parts

29:12

of the product in just help but when you

29:14

use autocad it's telling you what the next command should be as an example right

29:19

and so you're going to see more and more examples just you know i would say

29:23

evolving and being surfaced in the existing products that you use so that's

29:27

that's pretty transformational we're seeing customers that

29:32

Independent of companies like Autodesk using AI to make business development

29:37

decisions, like you said, to accelerate their internal knowledge of their business,

29:41

to accelerate the way they do proposal development, estimating, code compliance.

29:47

It's happening on multiple fronts, right?

29:50

The next three years isn't so much about AI. what's going to be disruptive is

29:54

how do technology companies and our clients actually incorporate it into so

30:01

many different value cases that it's I think it's infinite in many cases, right?

30:07

So I think without thinking about what's beyond AI, because I think the AI transformation

30:13

is going to actually be what drives the next transformation beyond that, right?

30:18

So that's, I think, why we're doubling down on our side to try to build the

30:24

right foundation for the AEC industry to allow that acceleration and ultimately

30:30

be the platform for the next transformation and beyond.

30:33

So if there's any executives that watch your podcast at any of the ACEs firms,

30:39

I will tell what I always tell and create anxiety for a lot of BODs or boards

30:44

of directors is if you're not thinking about technology as being a transformative

30:49

lever in the future of engineering,

30:51

you are making a grave mistake and you're behind and

30:54

that's how that's how profound i think this is in my

30:57

opinion right i agree i agree i think that

31:00

this is one of those times where those companies that embrace it and figure

31:05

out how to best integrate and use it as a an efficiency tool and then also a

31:12

tool to kind of restructure their business to your point earlier about you know

31:17

even deciding which projects to go after, which not.

31:20

You know, which would be more expensive or time-consuming to go after for the

31:23

return on the investment. I mean, it really is going to be a question of, you know, those firms that are

31:28

going to succeed are the ones that are using and leveraging technology,

31:31

not in a uniform sense, but really tailored to what their firm needs and how their firm operates.

31:40

It really is an exciting time. And I know that, you know, I remember talking

31:44

to a member of the Autodesk team a couple months back at our last conference,

31:49

talking about the AI integration into some of its software platforms,

31:53

going from tech space, moving into the 3D world and getting to that point where

31:58

it's almost the holy grail of allowing AI to assist in the drawing capability

32:03

in the actual graphic and design work.

32:06

It really is amazing. You know, for those firms that are out there that are trying to figure out exactly

32:13

how they can best leverage this technology.

32:18

What support does Autodesk apply to those executives to really help,

32:24

tailor the software to their business yeah so

32:27

i mean i think it's a it's a mix right we have

32:30

our own internal consulting teams that are helping and by

32:33

the way i want to say a lot of this is going to be an evolution you know towards

32:36

a revolution right so just not to freak anyone out but yeah yeah and my sense

32:43

of urgency is people need to start thinking about it trying to incorporate into

32:47

their business and the way we're supporting customers today obviously we're trying to build,

32:51

We're trying to make it so customers that use auditors, technology,

32:55

and cloud services are already on that journey, whether they realize it or not.

32:59

So as long as they continue to use our stuff, we're going to bring them along one way or another.

33:04

Two, I think for a lot of our larger clients, we have auditors consulting services,

33:09

and we spend a lot of time understanding different use cases and helping them.

33:12

In many cases, it's more like train-the-trainer, helping them evolve how they

33:16

incorporate, certainly our platform and technology as part of their AI and various

33:21

other technology initiatives. And then Autos has the largest partner network in the industry.

33:26

So a lot of this for the smaller to medium-sized firms, we also are developing

33:30

and maturing our partner network to provide those services.

33:33

So in the U.S., there's a multitude of local partners that we leverage,

33:38

and we'll continue to invest in those partners to help them provide those services to our customers.

33:45

Fantastic. Well, Theo, we covered a good amount of ground here.

33:48

I mean, is there anything else that you want to make sure our listeners know before we wrap up?

33:55

No, I think we covered a lot. I mean, all I would say is that I want ICC,

34:00

you know, firms to, you know, to know that we are listening to them.

34:04

You know, we value feedback, good and bad. Sometimes, you know,

34:08

we have tough discussions and we always want to receive that feedback and try

34:13

and address their concerns. I don't want our customers thinking we're just off on a tangent doing things that we want.

34:19

We don't care. We care a lot about our customers.

34:22

We care about the industry and we care about the world we live in.

34:25

And that's one of the main value, one of the key values that Autodesk as a company,

34:30

regardless of industry, cares about.

34:33

I'd say we're here to, we're building the platform of the future.

34:37

We want to bring our customers along. We're going to make some mistakes along the way, but we will always try and

34:43

pivot and do the right thing as much as we possibly can, you know,

34:47

to service the broader market. And I would encourage customers to reach out and leverage us where they need

34:54

help, you know, and I think that's what we're here for.

34:56

So we want to support, you know, our customers in the industry as much as possible.

35:00

And again, you know, we want to do the right thing.

35:04

We want to digitally transform the industry. We want the world a better place.

35:08

But somehow there's always trade-offs in those objectives, right?

35:12

So that's all I would say. But no, thank you for the opportunity. Absolutely.

35:17

And to follow on at some point. No, I would love to.

35:20

I mean, this is something which is, I mean, it's important to try to keep abreast

35:25

of the biggest changes that are happening, especially with software that enables our firms to operate.

35:30

You know, we see changes all the time as we look forward to that firm of the future.

35:36

There are a lot of different areas where I'd love to have you back on the show

35:39

to talk about, you know, either where the evolution of the firm is going,

35:44

the business model itself, the application of the technology into those business

35:49

models. There's a lot to cover. So it's a good, you know, first step in, I think, a longer conversation.

35:55

So, Theo, thank you very much again for taking the time out of the day to join us.

36:00

Of course, and thank you again, and thank you to all our customers,

36:03

obviously, that continue to invest and believe in order of software.

36:07

Yes, absolutely. And again, that was Theo Agiopoulos.

36:11

He is the VP of AEC Design Strategy with Autodesk, and this has been Engineering

36:17

Influence Podcast from the American Council of Engineering Companies,

36:20

and we'll see you next time. Music.