January Update - Intent Driven Design

[Richard.stubley]

Hi all,

With the latest update released today, you’ll have seen that the new Intent Driven Design workflows are now fully available to all users.

This has been in development for around six months, with heavy involvement from our Insider Program to help guide direction and gather feedback as we moved toward public release.

I wanted to share a few top tips to help everyone get up to speed as quickly as possible.

Choosing a document type

When you create a new document, you’ll now see a dialog allowing you to choose the type of design you want to work in:

• Part – A single component design. Parts can still be multi-body.

• Assembly – Used to bring multiple components together to build an assembly.

• Hybrid – The flexible Fusion workflow you’re already familiar with, allowing a combination of internal and external components.

All of this was technically possible before, but working in a fully external, component-based workflow was difficult for many users. That’s why this has now been elevated to a first-class workflow, allowing you to explicitly choose how you want to work from the start.

For those who prefer it, Hybrid remains fully supported, and you should see no change in Fusion’s behavior when using it.

Preferences and shortcuts

There is a new preference to pre-select the default design type. By default, this is set to Part, but you can change it to Assembly or Hybrid.

Once set, you can click Create New with minimal disruption. You can also use Ctrl + N to create a new document without showing the dialog at all.

For example, you could set Hybrid as your default, create a new document once, and then use Ctrl + N going forward to quickly create new designs without seeing the prompt.

Add-ins and scripts

You may notice some changes in how certain add-ins and scripts behave:

• In Hybrid, all add-ins and scripts should behave exactly as they did previously. Please let us know if you see any differences.

• In a Part experience, add-ins or scripts that attempt to create components are not allowed and will fail to execute.

• In an Assembly experience, some add-ins may not appear. This is typically due to panel IDs needing to be updated.

If you encounter issues, please contact the relevant third-party developer. They can refer to the updated documentation to ensure compatibility.

Changing experience type

If you choose the wrong experience type, don’t worry. You can change it at any time via Document Settings in the browser.

The only limitation is that you cannot switch back to Part once components exist—you can only do so while the design contains bodies only.

That’s a quick overview of some key tips for working with the new experience types. As always, please let us know how you’re finding it and continue to share your feedback.

Here is a more detailed write up on Intent Driven Design.  

[turtlecrawler]

Just installed the new update, and the first issue I noticed was that it reverted back to matching device theme, and it changed the enviroment to Dark sky, I always either have mine set to Dark Gray or Photobooth, depening on what I am doing.

I tend to toggle my fusion between dark and light manually at work. I take a fair number of screenshots to use in CNC setup sheets, and light mode works far better for that.

Please stop changing settings on users, I know where to change it. But I know others really struggle with this.

[bpetersen9BTH4]

Is there a way to have the dialog box not pop up everytime i start a new file?

im openming like 20-30 new parts and assemblies a day and need to save the parts indavidually and the extra click is very annoying, i see the Ctrl-N thing but like why do i need to be prompted at all? 

its bad enough that you cant even drag and drop step files into the blank space...

[jamieSW32L]

This update blows. You completely ruined modeling assemblies in one file. I'm upset.

@jamieSW32L -this post has been edited due to Community Rules & Etiquette violation.  

[davebYYPCU]

Took you six months to design limitations to a well known flexible software package.

Setting default to Hybrid would not effect anyone - but at least once everyone has to make that setting change in preferences.

Why would you knowingly introduce restrictive routines?  Use the new functions and you acknowledge things might no longer work as once did.

As I write this you have already adversely effected 3 users, more to come no doubt.

Please update to Hybrid as default.

Time would be better spent working on submitted bug reports.

[jamieSW32L]

I agree with the above. Change Hybrid to default so it's back to normal. 

I'm tired of the tinkering.

Major UI changes - waste an hour of billable time trying to figure out how to model as usual. 

Minor UI changes - who is setting the priority to screw around with background colors? Let's change dropdowns to icons, and icons to dropdowns, randomly change default settings. Are you just trying to keep developers busy with meaningless work? 

[Richard.stubley]

Hi everyone, 

I want to address the request of "can't I just never see the prompt".

We heard this during our testing. 
I can see the argument for users that want to 100% be Hybrid. 

However we / I decided not to give a preference to do this, the key reason here is what you see here is the start of our plans.
We want the prompt you see now to give more than just ways to make a blank document. Giving users a way to permanently dismiss the prompt would be a short term solution. 


A few tips on getting upto speed. 
On first launch the prompt can be dismissed by clicking anywhere in Fusion, so if your first interaction is with the data panel for example, the prompt will be dismissed and your default doc type will be created. 

Document settings will show what type of document experience you are in. This can be changed by using the pencil on the document type. 

You can change between document types, the only limitation is if the document has a child component then it cannot be changed back to a part. 

[kacper.suchomski]

The Assembly tab has been removed again. This is a disaster.

[ajay_krishna_t_s]

Hi Jamie,

Could you provide more details about the file corruption issue? If you can share the data set, it would be greatly appreciated, as this will help us determine the cause of the problem. Thank you.

[al_walker]

Agreed, the pop-up window is annoying and doesn't enhance my workflows. Another vote please to revert Hybrid to Default and make up the workflow window an option in user preferences if you must have it. However it's a rather condescending way to address professional users, as we have all evolved our own workflows anyway.

[aleksei_ovsienko]

I betcha I can do a Python script that would just skip the prompt for me by default.

My main beef with this update is that custom properties and parametric search (btw the pyramids were built faster than this most basic feature was implemented) are only available to Fusion Manage subscribers. I heard of it coming and was already planning how I could finally use it for our ERP/PLM integration. This is a real disappointment.

I am also disappointed that resources are being allocated to Automated Drawings of all the numerous Drawing features (and lack thereoff) that need addressing. It's the one feature that I have never seen used in anger and would never trust it with a single bolt.

As for the new default theme, I actually quite like the background color. However my own custom theme is still better as it has red constrained sketch lines and hot pink dimensions that give more contrast against aluminium metal-colored parts.

[mauisurferZB95J]

How can I disable the new dialog box? I have absolutely no idea what it's supposed to do. There's a complete lack of information about it, and even in the missing release notes I can't find anything immediately about the new feature. I have neither the time nor the desire to hunt down information about new functions from somewhere.

[bwalker145]

@aleksei_ovsienko wrote:

I am also disappointed that resources are being allocated to Automated Drawings of all the numerous Drawing features (and lack thereoff) that need addressing. It's the one feature that I have never seen used in anger and would never trust it with a single bolt.

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+1, drawings need a lot of work, and automation isn't it. Good technical drawings are such a critical component of effectively communicating design requirements, and it always turns into a fight on any component with any sort of complexity. At a minimum, we should be able to create drawings with all aspects specified in the relevant standards (E.g. ASME Y14-5, ISO GPS), but even that's not possible.

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@al_walker wrote:

However it's a rather condescending way to address professional users, as we have all evolved our own workflows anyway.

---

I honestly appreciate the Fusion team's consistent updates and addition of new features; it's great to see active development & interaction with the community. However, I'm constantly confused by who/what the target audience is for this software. Professionals? Hobbyists? The price keeps increasing to match other established industry programs, but then they'll dedicate resources to introduce features like Autoconstrain, which has no use in a professional workflow, and ignore glaring long-term deficiencies in other critical environments. Now this forced intent-driven design update, which I assume was intended to help provide direction for amateur users but has instead created unnecessary confusion. At some point, they need to decide if their focus is either a) ultra accessibility for new users, or b) creating a professional product.

[funny27_tells]

 I have work to do

@funny27_tells - this post has been edited due to Community Rules & Etiquette violation. 

[funny27_tells]

With the latest update I can't even export a file without it being corrupted. What a joke

[Richard.stubley]

@ kacper.suchomski
Were you in a part experience by any chance? The assembly tab should be there in Assembly and Hybrid documents. 

@mauisurferZB95J, did you get a popup video when you first launched after the update? This should have happened. 
If not. Here is a dedicated blog, with a dedicated tutoria. https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/blog/intent-driven-design/

You will see it referred to as Intent Driven design in the release notes / whats new found here
https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/blog/january-2026-product-update-whats-new/

@funny27_tells, can you provide any more details or if you have already done this via a support case I can look up the case number. 

[kacper.suchomski]

Well, I see a panel instead of a tab. This is terribly strange to me.

Could I have changed something through my own negligence?

[Phil.E]

Assemble was moved back to a panel like it was before, not on a tab now.

[kacper.suchomski]

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@Phil.E wrote:

Assemble was moved back to a panel like it was before, not on a tab now.

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It's a great pity.

[Richard.stubley]

Hi  @kacper.suchomski 

For Hybrid designs assemble tools are a panel like they have always been

For assembly designs they are in their own Tab. 

Part designs - no assembly tools.