Achieving Interoperability in AEC: Confluence Seattle Recap

Within AEC industry firms, technology platforms all too often exist as disparate silos of information. At AVAIL’s Confluence Seattle 2026 event in April, a group of architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) technology leaders gathered to discuss how we can increase the dialog between various platforms, reduce redundancy, and bring silos together in new ways. We’ve put together key takeaways from each presentation below. Our next event, Confluence Chicago, is May 20, 2026.

Jump to

• AEC Platforms: Elevating the Dialog
• Revit + Rhino.Inside
• ArchVision FOVEA and the Democratization of Visualization Content
• From Play to Practice: Integrating New Technologies at Olson Kundig
• Beyond Generative Design: AI and the Next Phase of Intelligence in the Built Environment
• Continuing the Conversation: Upcoming Events

AEC Platforms: Elevating the Dialog

AVAIL is passionate about leveraging technology advancements to improve our content management solutions and started hosting our signature professional development Confluence Lexington events in 2019 as a way to explore what architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry firms are needing, wanting, and thinking around technology. 

To bring these important, timely conversations to a wider audience, we started to organize single-day regional events in 2023. Confluence Seattle took place April 2, 2026, and Confluence Chicago is planned for May 20, 2026. 

Exploring how AEC platforms can move from disconnected tools to truly connected systems, Confluence Seattle speakers included Scott Davidson from design software company (Rhino) Robert McNeel & Associates, Corey Rubadue from visualization technology company ArchVision, and Marlene Chen and Gavin Argo from global design firm Olson Kundig. Additionally, Michael Jansen from AI and digital twin technology company TwinMaster led a panel discussion featuring his colleague Dr. Prasanta Bose alongside Simon Manning from design firm NBBJ, Alex Woodhouse from design firm LMN Architects, and Tomás Méndez Echenagucia from University of Washington. 

Explore the key insights from our Seattle sessions.

Confluence Seattle brought together leaders from AEC technology companies like Robert McNeel and Associates, AVAIL, ArchVision, TwinMaster, and Intel alongside firms like Olson Kundig, NBBJ Design, LMN Architects, The Space Age, HDR, HED, Material Design Architects, The Miller Hull Partnership, and Weber Thompson.

Revit + Rhino.Inside

Scott Davidson, Business Development at Robert McNeel & Associates (Rhino), kicked off Confluence Seattle by announcing the AEC industry is still chasing a decades-old vision. The promise of BIM and being more efficient, Scott mentioned, was articulated by Douglas Engelbart in 1962 in his paper entitled Augmenting Human Intellect. “I feel like we're still chasing that same thing,” Scott said. With BIM came mountains of data that have overwhelmed many firms, and transferring data across file types creates friction and information loss. Scott’s vision for the future is toward a governed, production-ready workflow where platforms like Revit and McNeel’s Rhino operate in true dialog.

Key Insights

• The goal isn’t more data — it’s the right data

“Many firms seem to be drowning in data,” Scott said. Instead of transferring all the data embedded in each file type as the project moves through the stages of design and construction, Scott reframes platform success, asking, “What's the minimal amount of information you can pass on in the next stage?”

• True platform “dialog” requires deeper integration

True integration between design tools goes beyond just file format interoperability. Instead, Scott advocates for deeper integration where tools like Rhino.Inside can directly access and operate on other tools’ data and objects, allowing for a more seamless and efficient exchange of information across the design and construction workflow.

Following programming sessions, the Confluence Seattle group walked together to a social gathering at Olson Kundig’s stunning Seattle office.

ArchVision FOVEA and the Democratization of Visualization Content

Corey Rubadue, ArchVision CEO, turned the conversation to the growing fragmentation of 3D assets across tools. Switching visualization tools often means rebuilding work from scratch — wasting time and introducing inconsistency. “Every single one of these applications has an asset library associated with them. Those asset libraries are all sitting in walled gardens,” Corey said. “If I use my Enscape asset library and I need to switch TwinMotion on a project, what happens? I can't use those assets anymore. I have to rebuild everything.”

 Key Insights 

• Standardization efforts aren’t keeping up

Efforts like USD and glTF aim to improve the portability and interoperability of 3D assets, but adoption and implementation across different software tools is still fragmented and inconsistent. “They’re just not penetrating,” Corey said.

• The opportunity: a single source of truth for assets

ArchVision has developed FOVEA, an RPC-based platform that allows for more seamless sharing and reuse of 3D assets across different tools and workflows.

What Tools Drive AEC?

Discover the results of Confluence’s 2025 AEC Technology Stack Survey

Download report for free

From Play to Practice: Integrating New Technologies at Olson Kundig

After lunch, our firm partner for the event, Olson Kundig, turned the conversation toward practice. How are firms actually adopting new tools and making them stick? “What worked really well was the play,” Associate / Design Technology Strategist Gavin Argo said. “That explorative, organic, unique moment when you're actually playing with these different mediums proved well to get people invested and their hands dirty so they buy into the process.” Presenting alongside Gavin was a member of Olson Kundig’s leadership team, Principal / Owner, COO Marlene Chen, who exemplified what a supportive culture from the top-down really looks like. Scaling innovation depends on how firms organize, support, and communicate — not just what tools they use.

 Key Insights 

• Experimentation drives adoption

Giving teams space to explore tools builds confidence and engagement.

• Workflows — not tools — scale across the firm

At 300 people, Olson Kundig emphasizes documentation and knowledge sharing. “If it gets siloed in one person's head, it's not going to work very well," Gavin said. “We are giving people the guardrails, guidelines, and safety net to experiment, test the tools, and refine the process in a way that they feel safe, secure, supported, and actually can do it.”

• Culture matters

Beyond accepting the use of AI and supporting it in your team, the leadership team rolling up their sleeves to experiment and play with the tools, as well, makes a huge difference culturally. During their session, Gavin and Marlene shared stories of Olson Kundig owners following their curiosities with AI tools like mnml.ai and ChatGPT in front of and with their teammates. The goal of leadership is to celebrate the individuals playing and building these guides for the rest of their team. “All of us want to do better, and these processes and tools can help people do the best work that they want to do,” Marlene said.

Beyond Generative Design: AI and the Next Phase of Intelligence in the Built Environment

The day closed with a panel curated by Michael Jansen, Chief Business Officer at TwinMaster. He brought together perspectives from practice with NBBJ’s Design Technology Integration Leader Simon Manning and LMN Architects’ Design Technologist, Tech Studio Alex Woodhouse, alongside education-minded Tomás Méndez Echenagucia, Associate Professor from the University of Washington’ Department of Architecture, and Michael’s TwinMaster colleague, CEO and CTO Dr. Prasanta Bose. “We have more AI tools than at any point in history and less clarity than ever about what’s actually working,” Michael said. What is working, and what’s next?

• AI is strongest early, weakest in delivery

“A lot of the tools in their current state are great at the schematic and conceptual design phase, but as they move more into documentation and process of drawing buildings to deliver, that's where AI struggles,” Simon from NBBJ said.

• Trust is the biggest barrier

Automation isn’t the issue — validation is: NBBJ, for example, hasn’t explored a lot of AI automation tools because it is challenging to validate the output. “In fact, we're building out a whole governance committee in our firm for vetting and validating all of our data,” Simon said. 

Trusting the tools themselves to remain available in a certain form is also difficult for firms like LMN Architects, Alex said. “You don't know how long this company's going to be relevant. The models, for instance, they've changed so rapidly,” he said.

Structured, usable data and a level of nimbleness to shift tools will bring competitive advantages to firms in the future. 

Scaling Technology at Global AEC Firms Populous, IMEG

Speaking at Confluence Lexington 2025, technology leaders from both global architectural design firm Populous and global engineering firm IMEG discussed how they are navigating high growth in their respective companies and intentionally building technology systems to scale … with people as their top priority.

Read blog

Continuing the Conversation: Upcoming Events

To sum up the day’s conversation: dialog between AEC technology platforms is improving, but it’s still a work in progress. Themes that kept popping up in discussions included:

• Platforms are only as strong as the connections between them
  

• Data is abundant — but not always usable
  

• AI is powerful — but not yet fully trusted
  

• Progress depends as much on culture as it does on technology
  

To explore these themes further, be sure to join us at our upcoming events, listed below.

Wednesday, May 20, 2026

Also centered around the theme AEC Platforms: Elevating the Dialog, Confluence Chicago’s programming will take place at SOM’s Chicago office and feature leaders from TwinMaster, HOK, EXP, Gensler, and AIA Chicago TAP, among others. Tickets for Confluence Chicago are currently on sale and available to anyone who would like to attend.

Get tickets to Confluence Chicago

Thursday, October 8- Saturday, October 10, 2026

New this year, Confluence Lexington 2026’s programming theme will be selected by a panel of Confluence Ambassadors made up of past attendees from the industry’s top firms. Confluence Lexington 2026 is invite-only, but you can register interest below.

Register interest in Confluence Lexington

Why Confluence Matters: Q&A with Evan Troxel

Read Q&A

Thanks to our Sponsors

Confluence Seattle 2026 was hosted by AVAIL in partnership with ArchVision, TRXL, Olson Kundig, TwinMaster, and Robert McNeel & Associates (Rhino).

About Confluence

Hosted by software company AVAIL, Confluence is a series of architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry professional development events that bring design technology and product management leaders together in collaborative discourse. Its signature conference, Confluence Lexington, is a three-day, invite-only event themed around a pressing industry technology issue and held in the fall every year. In 2023, regional, one-day events were added, as well as a podcast hosted by AVAIL CEO and Founder Randall Stevens and TRXL Media Director Evan Troxel.

Learn more about Confluence

About AVAIL

Founded in 2016 as a solution for architecture and engineering firms to find the information they need faster, AVAIL creates software for the global architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. AVAIL’s content management system (CMS) platform and Revit, AutoCAD, and Civil 3D application tools help designers and engineers take control of their intricate network of files in one visual, streamlined solution. AVAIL’s customers include industry leaders Gensler, Perkins&Will, IMEG, LEO A DALY, and Populous.

Learn more about AVAIL