I think we might have reached AGI!

[cwr001]

When opening Civil3d 2026.2 today, I got an alert that the Autodesk Assistant is here and naturally, I gave it a try:

It's just about what you would expect from an Autodesk implementation of AI! 🙂

[Todd_Rogers]

They didn't put the fully integrated AI in this release. I thought they told me at AU it was going to be in the 2026.2 update, but it isn't.

[AllenJessup]

I thought that rephrasing your question might help.

"WHY WOULD MY ALIGNMENT LABELS IN CIVIL 3d DISAPPEAR"

But I get the same results.

I tried "why wouldn't the alignment labels show in Civil 3D" and I broke it. No answer and no box for a follow-up question.

[CodeDing]

Autodesk Budget:

Cloud Infrastructure that 1% of companies use:

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Literally any existing software they have that 99% of their users use:

$

Hurts to see them forget the little guys that drive 99% of projects (local companies, local municipalities, etc). Instead they are trying so hard to focus on "the future" and the other 1% of projects managed by big companies.. They're alienating their main base and just keep shouting from atop their cloud infrastructure "THINGS ARE WAY BETTER UP HERE, PROMISE! COME ON UP!". Then when you get up there it's literally empty. Just wild they don't see this.

Oh, this also applies to Microsoft while we're at it 🤣

[TimYarris]

Hi everyone,

The Autodesk Assistant that is in the Civil 3D 2026.2 update has the same capabilities that have been there since we initially shipped it in the Civil 3D 2024 release. The current capabilities enable you to quickly get help on how to use Civil 3D. For example, if you ask it "how do I show alignment labels" it will return help and tutorial links to tell you how to do that. 

We're still polishing up what we showed at AU (where I remember @Todd_Rogers being pretty psyched about it!). In an upcoming Tech Preview, the Autodesk Assistant will have awareness of the objects that are in the drawing. For example, if you ask it to "highlight any pipes that are >n% slope", it will list them and select them in the drawing so you can make decisions about what to do with them. 

I can't give you a specific date of when the new, model-aware capabilities will be in the product, but I can promise it will be soon.

[neilyj666]

@CodeDing that sums it up very succinctly

[cwr001]

I might be tripping but the icon in the top right is definitely new and not present e.g. in Civil3d 2025. Civil3d 2026.2 also notified me activly that it is here now.

Prompting it "how do I show alignment labels" doesn't return anything but the beforementioned "Sorry, I'm having trouble understanding that." (as do all prompts).

The only thing consistent is the visual glitch when panning the window.

So yeah, it's a fun start, but as with most things in Civil3d, I'm sure everything will be fine in the vaguely defined future: "Check the ever changing roadmap if you want to know more."

[neilyj666]

---

@cwr001 wrote:

So yeah, it's a fun start, but as with most things in Civil3d, I'm sure everything will be fine in the vaguely defined future: "Check the ever changing roadmap if you want to know more."

---

I'm tempted to think of finding crock of gold at the end of the rainbow - you will never get there...!!!

[cwr001]

😀

[Cadguru42]

---

@cwr001 wrote:

When opening Civil3d 2026.2 today, I got an alert that the Autodesk Assistant is here and naturally, I gave it a try:

It's just about what you would expect from an Autodesk implementation of AI! 🙂

---

Did the Autodesk AI actually give an example of "alignment labels disappeared" and it couldn't understand the topic that it literally gave as an example?

The online Autodesk AI also is horrible. Tried it once when I was having an issue getting one of the behind the scenes software updates from Autodesk Access. The Autodesk AI didn't even know that the software existed.

Autodesk is killing itself by pushing features before they're ready. I'll most likely never use the Autodesk AI because it's failed so many times on the small stuff already. But the things us users have been asking for over a decade? Autodesk won't do that but they'll work on AI and cloud stuff that no one is asking for. Even with the Autodesk push to use ACC so much there is hardly any support for it. I created an empty TXT file on an ACC folder using Windows File Explorer. Went to rename it to a CSV and Desktop Connector said that CSV is an unsupported file type. No way to troubleshoot that except to create the file off of an ACC folder then drag it back. Basic issues like this still exist with ACC and Autodesk has moved on to the AI craze that'll do nothing helpful for the users. 

[TimYarris]

Following up on a couple things:

I'm getting the same results (prompts not working) from the Autodesk Assistant. This is very much a defect and I will chase down a resolution.

On the roadmap and availability for the model-aware Autodesk Assistant capabilities I mentioned earlier: legally I can't offer dates or versions of when these or any other capabilities will be in the shipping product. 

[Cadguru42]

Saw this the other day and it reminds me of Autodesk now.

Last quarter I rolled out Microsoft Copilot to 4,000 employees. $30 per seat per month. $1.4 million annually. I called it "digital transformation." The board loved that phrase. They approved it in eleven minutes. No one asked what it would actually do. Including me. I told everyone it would "10x productivity." That's not a real number. But it sounds like one.

HR asked how we'd measure the 10x. I said we'd "leverage analytics dashboards." They stopped asking. Three months later I checked the usage reports. 47 people had opened it. 12 had used it more than once. One of them was me. I used it to summarize an email I could have read in 30 seconds. It took 45 seconds. Plus the time it took to fix the hallucinations. But I called it a "pilot success." Success means the pilot didn't visibly fail.

The CFO asked about ROI. I showed him a graph. The graph went up and to the right. It measured "AI enablement." I made that metric up. He nodded approvingly. We're "AI-enabled" now. I don't know what that means. But it's in our investor deck. A senior developer asked why we didn't use Claude or ChatGPT. I said we needed "enterprise-grade security." He asked what that meant. I said "compliance." He asked which compliance. I said "all of them." He looked skeptical. I scheduled him for a "career development conversation." He stopped asking questions.

Microsoft sent a case study team. They wanted to feature us as a success story. I told them we "saved 40,000 hours." I calculated that number by multiplying employees by a number I made up. They didn't verify it. They never do. Now we're on Microsoft's website. "Global enterprise achieves 40,000 hours of productivity gains with Copilot." The CEO shared it on LinkedIn. He got 3,000 likes. He's never used Copilot. None of the executives have. We have an exemption. "Strategic focus requires minimal digital distraction." I wrote that policy.

The licenses renew next month. I'm requesting an expansion. 5,000 more seats. We haven't used the first 4,000. But this time we'll "drive adoption." Adoption means mandatory training. Training means a 45-minute webinar no one watches. But completion will be tracked. Completion is a metric. Metrics go in dashboards. Dashboards go in board presentations. Board presentations get me promoted. I'll be SVP by Q3. I still don't know what Copilot does. But I know what it's for. It's for showing we're "investing in AI." Investment means spending. Spending means commitment. Commitment means we're serious about the future. The future is whatever I say it is. As long as the graph goes up and to the right.

[neilyj666]

ROFL but very much an element of reality in this - that said I have used CoPilot recently to help with a Dynamo/Python workflow which eventually worked.

[will_young]

The low hanging fruit has been all harvested, hence the focus on all theoretical cloud-based fruits... also known as pie in the sky..

[Cadguru42]

Low hanging fruit like "why can't the survey figure properties window allow me to pan/zoom in the model space"? That's only been requested for 15+ years. 

[Cadguru42]

---

@TimYarris wrote:

Hi everyone,

The Autodesk Assistant that is in the Civil 3D 2026.2 update has the same capabilities that have been there since we initially shipped it in the Civil 3D 2024 release. The current capabilities enable you to quickly get help on how to use Civil 3D. For example, if you ask it "how do I show alignment labels" it will return help and tutorial links to tell you how to do that. 

We're still polishing up what we showed at AU (where I remember @Todd_Rogers being pretty psyched about it!). In an upcoming Tech Preview, the Autodesk Assistant will have awareness of the objects that are in the drawing. For example, if you ask it to "highlight any pipes that are >n% slope", it will list them and select them in the drawing so you can make decisions about what to do with them. 

I can't give you a specific date of when the new, model-aware capabilities will be in the product, but I can promise it will be soon.

---

While this seems on the surface as something useful, how would that work in real world use? Even if the Autodesk Assistant could select in the model space all pipes that have a slope greater than 2%, what could be done with them that's not plain ACAD related (i.e., change layer)? You can't change the slope of multiple pipes at a time. It's not like C3D allows the pipe properties dialog to show more than one pipe at a time, let alone even pan/zoom in the model space while that dialog is open (a request for over 10 years). The ACAD properties window can't be used to change pipe slopes. Can't use multiple selected pipes and say, swap their parts. If you do the swap parts on preselected pipes it just prompts to reselect pipes. Will the Assistant be allowed to work in the middle of a command? Can the Assistant edit properties of objects, even multiple ones at a time?

These are the types of things that it seems Autodesk doesn't pay attention to. The first questions asked should be "How can this help a designer/drafter? How will this work within current workflows?". Those types of questions don't seem to be asked with anything new from Autodesk in their software.