At last year's Autodesk University, I was fortunate to deliver a session (twice!) on the new smart blockfeatures within AutoCAD. As AU 2025 is quickly approaching, what a perfect time to look at how AutoCAD 2026 improves these features.
Blocks are important in AutoCAD, but working with them is not always the most exciting. Because of this, Autodesk introduced tools in AutoCAD 2024 for working better with blocks. These features got even smarter in 2025 and although AutoCAD 2026 does not make the same advancements, it does apply some spit and polish, making the features better.
Placing Blocks
The original smart feature, Auto-Placement, stays mostly unchanged in AutoCAD 2026. What did change is that it got better at placing blocks.
Enabled with the AUTOPLACEMENT system variable, AutoCAD learns about the blocks you place and how you place them. When finding similar geometry, AutoCAD’s placement engine suggests an insertion method based on earlier behavior. The more times you insert a block, the better the suggestions get.
Smartly Replacing Blocks
Smart Blocks is the name given to the suite of features that improve the block workflows. In addition to smartly placing blocks, AutoCAD can also smartly detect collections of objects that should maybe be blocks.
AutoCAD 2026 renames the ribbon button to Detect and Convert and the command from DETECT to BDETECT. Still a tech preview, it uses machine learning to find and group similar objects in sets. A set is a group of similarly shaped objects you can convert into block instances. 2026 improves detection, meaning more matching sets of objects for conversion.
In AutoCAD 2026, BDETECT lists all sets in the Detect palette. The bubbled numbers show how many instances it found of each.
When selecting a set, AutoCAD highlights the instances within the drawing window. Use the Detect review toolbar to navigate through the found instances.
AutoCAD 2026 tidies this toolbar, making the workflow easier and clearer. For example, finish the process by selecting the Convert button. The conversion process converts the found instances to a new block or replacing them with an existing block.
You can now edit or change the primary instance, meaning you are no longer stuck with whatever instance AutoCAD considers the base. It was common for AutoCAD to select too many or not enough objects. Now you can edit the primary, adding or removing objects from the instance.
You may find bad suggestions, which you can report from the toolbar. This feature will only get better if we provide feedback when we get wonky, unexpected, or unwanted results.
Note, detection still works best with architectural objects like doors, windows, toilets, and lighting. It does, however, now work better with non-imperial units.
What are Tech Previews? Consider them public betas where everyone gets early access to new features. Autodesk gets your feedback in making the feature better, and you get access to features before they would normally be available. Win-win.
Search and Convert
No longer hidden, Search and Convert is now available within the ribbon (where it should be). Yes, previously it was commandline accessible only.
Where BDETECT uses machine learning to find multiple sets of objects for conversion. BSEARCH finds all instances of selected geometry. Think of it as you are selecting the seed, and AutoCAD looks for like geometry. AutoCAD 2025 introduced the conversion workflow, and AutoCAD 2026 continues with finding similar geometry and converting all instances into the same block definition.
For the replacement block, you can still pick an existing block from within the drawing. Or from the Convert dialog, choose a recently used block, pick from the drawing’s list of blocks, or choose a machine-learning-suggested block (AutoCAD suggests similar blocks, ones it feels are close to the selected seed)
With AutoCAD 2026, this feature uses the trace-like search review toolbar as with Detect and Convert. This makes it much easier to navigate through the found instances. It also allows you to adjust filters on the fly and see the total number of matching instances.
The big news is the new Include text variations. What this means is adding attribute tags, and during the conversion, AutoCAD includes the text variations, moving the text content into the new attributes. Boom!
If you want more information, including videos of the process look at my article on Design and Motion.
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