Autodesk boosts civils functionality

Justin Stanton

Editor, DC+

15 September 2026

Autodesk University 2026 has kicked off in Las Vegas with the software giant announcing increased civil engineering functionalities.

Civil 3D is now a Forma connected client. Image: Autodesk

In response to customer feedback that every building project is also a civils project, Civil 3D has become the latest Forma connected client. “Designers can bring Civil 3D data into Forma as a starting point for planning and building design, while civil engineers can continue using the detailed workflows they rely on, helping teams maintain project context more consistently and reducing the need to rebuild information as projects advance,” said Amy Bunszel, executive vice-president of architecture, engineering and construction solutions at Autodesk.

Alongside this development, Autodesk has announced Forma Street Design, which enables civil engineers and transportation planners to shape urban streets during early-stage design. Bunszel said: “[Forma Street Design enables users to] explore lane configurations and intersections within a real-world context, design in 2D plan and section in sync, and test turning movements with vehicle tracking. Teams can explore changes live with stakeholders, and then carry the design, without rework, directly into Civil 3D for detailed engineering.”

Forma Street Design is available in beta.

Autodesk is extending connected infrastructure workflows in other ways:

a unified geolocation engine and workflows across Forma, Revit, and Civil 3D will make it easier to keep location information consistent as teams move between solutions, reducing manual transforms and model misalignment; and

deeper integrations with Esri ArcGIS and Fugro’s GeoDin and GroundIQ will bring “richer subsurface and geospatial context into infrastructure workflows”.

Next-gen AI assistant

Autodesk also revealed details of its next generation of AI assistant. It is built around three priorities:

understanding what needs attention – Personal Pulse surfaces prioritised issues and insights across projects; Assistant Spaces gives teams and their agents a focused environment to investigate a problem, collaborate on it, and see its downstream effects;

acting across workflows – the assistant brings Autodesk’s design, engineering and creative AI together “with the precise capabilities professionals rely on to simulate, manufacture, and produce their work, turning intent into trusted, reviewable outcomes through natural-language and voice interaction”; and

bringing your own intelligence. – the assistant builder lets customers connect their own AI agents, tools and partner services to Autodesk project context, with support planned for third-party agents from the Autodesk Design & Make Marketplace.

Behind the scenes, an ‘AI orchestrator’ evaluates models based on the needs of a particular task, including accuracy, speed, security, and cost, allowing the system to draw on different forms of intelligence rather than relying on a single model for every problem.

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