The Future-Ready AEC Firm: Confluence Lexington 2026 Program

Built for Us: How Our Software Developers are Changing the Way We Practice

Speaking:

Artyom Savin
Turner Fleischer Manager of Digital Practice

Built for Us explores how Turner Fleischer uses in-house software development to connect design technology, business operations, and project delivery. Through practical case studies, the session shows how firms can turn institutional knowledge, shared processes, and reliable data into scalable capabilities that support better decision making and prepare architectural practice for automation and AI.

From Standards to Strategy: Scaling Design Technology for a Future-Ready AEC Firm

Speaking:

Steve Bennett
Taylor Design Senior Associate and Director of Design Technology

As AEC firms invest heavily in digital tools, the differentiator is no longer access to technology, it’s how effectively organizations operationalize it. This session focuses on how design technology leaders can move beyond tool management and into firm-wide strategy by aligning people, process, data, and project knowledge. Drawing from real-world implementation experience at a multi-office architecture firm, Steve will explore how to build scalable systems that transform fragmented workflows into cohesive, high-value operations. Attendees will learn how to establish governance frameworks that balance flexibility with standardization, enabling project teams to work efficiently without stifling innovation.

The Human Layer of Interoperability: Communication as Strategic Infrastructure

Speaking:

Alexandra Blanchet
KTGY Design Technology Manager

Building on the foundation that soft skills are the binding agent of interoperability, this session explores how intentional communication design transforms organizational capability. In most corporate environments, communication is treated as an assumed competency rather than a deliberate system. Yet, communication breakdowns are often mistaken for technology failures, resistance to change, or execution gaps. The reality: organizations that treat communication as infrastructure — something that must be planned, maintained, and continuously refined — outpace those that don't. This session examines how communication strategy directly impacts technology adoption, team alignment, and the success of cross-functional initiatives. We'll explore the relationship between clear communication and the ability to connect people, platforms, and practice into a cohesive whole.

Practice Transformation Panel

On the Panel:

Artyom Savin
Turner Fleischer Manager of Digital Practice

Steve Bennett
Taylor Design Senior Associate and Director of Design Technology

Alexandra Blanchet
KTGY Design Technology Manager

What does it really take to build a future-ready AEC firm? After their individual sessions, Alexandra, Artyom, and Steve will come together for a panel discussion connecting internal capability, strategy, communication, and adoption.

The Hard Part is Not the Tool

Speaking:

Kenton Grant
Kenton Grant Consulting, Fraction CTO

Most transformation efforts do not fail because people dislike change. They stall because firms avoid the conversations required to make change real. This facilitated session explores the human and organizational side of becoming future-ready. While technology, AI, BIM, and digital transformation often create the visible need for change, the harder work usually sits beneath the surface: decision-making, accountability, capacity, trust, priorities, incentives, and culture.

Innovation Governance Panel

Speaking:

Dan Dankert
Mead & Hunt Digital Practice Director

Stephen Smith
Walter P Moore Computational Design Manager

Sean Page
RDG Planning & Design, Inc. Senior Partner

How do firms decide which innovations deserve continued investment? This panel will focus on how firms move from experimentation to enterprise practice. How are ideas evaluated, pilots structured, and build-versus-buy decisions made? Panelists from large, multi-disciplinary firms will share lessons from their own approaches to experimentation, internal development, AI, and scaling innovation across the firm.

Bottom-Up Innovation. Top-Down Trust.
Leading the Future-Ready Firm When Everyone Can Build

Speaking:

Jason Gardner
Populous Regional Digital Lead

Artificial intelligence has fundamentally changed who can create technology. Today, architects, designers, engineers, project managers, and business teams can all build solutions to real problems without waiting for traditional software development. This shift creates enormous opportunity, but also new challenges around alignment, governance, knowledge, and trust. This session explores how leadership must evolve from directing innovation to creating the purpose, standards, and context that allow bottom-up innovation to scale across the enterprise.

Archiving Ingenuity: Subconscious Shifts to Capture Tacit Knowledge

Speaking:

Garrett Olson
MA Design Design Technology Manager

How do we move beyond storing explicit project data and build the human momentum required to harness the intuition and knowledge of subject matter experts? In this session, Garrett will explore archival and documentation strategy, as well as the need for mentorship and feedback. When experienced employees or project teams move on, what does the firm actually lose, and what can it realistically preserve?

Knowledge Capture Panel

Speaking:

Garrett Olson
MA Design Design Technology Manager

Reg Prentice
TonicDM CEO

Kristina Williams
Lionakis Director of Knowledge and Digital Strategy

Dr. Prasanta Bose
TwinMaster CEO & CTO

Following Garret’s presentation, this panel will explore what firms should capture, what can be captured automatically, what still requires human reflection, how knowledge should be structured, and how captured knowledge can become useful again rather than simply archived.

Design to Construction Panel

Speaking:

Juanita Garcia
Pepper Construction High Performance and Sustainable Construction Project Executive

Micah Gray
KAI Enterprises Director of Technology & Innovation

Miles M Smith
GRAPHISOFT Senior Industry Growth & Strategy Manager

This panel will move our conversation downstream into project delivery. Juanita, Miles, and Micah will look at how design intent, project data, standards, product information, and performance requirements move into construction — and how RFIs, substitutions, coordination issues, field conditions, commissioning, and closeout should feed knowledge back into future practice.

One World, One Games: LA28 Leading BIM Delivery and Olympic Venue Lifecycle Management Through Global Collaboration

Speaking:

Matthew Anderle, IAM, LEED AP, FCC-T
AECOM Associate Vice President, Director of Digital Strategy

Philip Storrs
LA28 Olympic & Paralympic Games Senior Manager, Digital Project Delivery

LA28 is on track to become the highest attended Olympics in history, and – for the first time – it will be delivered entirely through existing venues rather than new construction. That distinction changes everything. Coordinating fields of play across a diverse portfolio of competition venues means aligning stakeholders across sport federations, host cities, and infrastructure owners around a shared digital foundation. It means navigating the complexities of adapting mature facilities, some never built for Olympic-caliber performance, into world-class stages for global competition.

BIM is the backbone of that transformation, driving full lifecycle venue management from initial assessment and fit-out through Games-time operations and legacy handback. Global collaboration across AEC teams, technology partners, and venue stakeholders is what makes a digitally coordinated approach possible at this scale. LA28 isn’t just hosting the Games, it’s proving what’s possible when the world’s most complex logistical challenge meets a unified digital strategy.