Many AEC professionals will tell you KA Connect is their favorite conference of the year.
We asked them why.
Here’s what they said.
Like No Other Conference
Leveraging Knowledge Management as a Competitive Advantage in AEC Firms
Knowledge Architecture founder and CEO Christopher Parsons recently joined the Engineering Management Institute podcast to discuss how knowledge management is evolving—and why it’s becoming a true competitive advantage for AEC firms.
In the conversation, Chris explores a shift we’re seeing across the industry.
For many firms, knowledge management has historically been treated as a support function—focused on organizing content, improving access, or preserving institutional knowledge. While those capabilities remain important, they only scratch the surface of what’s possible.
Leading firms are beginning to approach knowledge management differently.
They’re using it to accelerate learning, scale expertise, and improve consistency across projects and teams. In doing so, they’re turning knowledge into infrastructure—something that actively shapes how the business operates and competes.
The discussion also touches on the role of AI in this transformation. As AI-powered search and knowledge agents become more embedded in daily workflows, the ability to connect people to the right knowledge at the right time is becoming both more achievable and more essential.
This convergence of knowledge management, learning, and AI is opening the door to a new model for AEC firms: one where institutional knowledge is not just captured, but continuously activated.
If your firm is exploring how to improve performance, reduce reinvention, or better leverage its collective experience, this episode offers a thoughtful starting point.
Maximizing the Value of Learning & Development Investments | Chris and Susan of Knowledge Architecture
In this episode of the Smarter by Design podcast, Susan Strom and I discuss The Modern Learning Organization Pipeline—a framework for helping AEC firms prioritize and maximize the return on their learning and development investments.
For decades, most AEC learning programs have relied on familiar formats: lunch-and-learns, live training sessions, and recorded presentations. But a new generation of tools—AI search, modern intranets, modular learning systems, and knowledge agents—is dramatically increasing the potential ROI of learning assets. When knowledge can be searched instantly, accessed on demand, and revisited whenever someone needs it, learning assets become far more valuable than they used to be.
That shift creates a new challenge: how do firms decide where to invest their time and energy? You can’t manage all the knowledge in your firm. So the real question becomes: which knowledge and learning investments produce the greatest return?
In this conversation, Susan and I walk through how to identify, prioritize, and design high-impact learning experiences in AEC firms using the Modern Learning Organization Pipeline.
Along the way, we explore:
Why AEC firms need to evolve into modern learning organizations
How firms can maximize the value of learning and development investments
The DESIRE framework, a practical tool for prioritizing learning opportunities
Why learning experiences should increasingly be treated like products
How firms are modernizing learning experiences for the AI era
How learning content can become searchable organizational knowledge
Why learner involvement and piloting are essential to good learning design
The rise of dedicated knowledge and learning roles inside AEC firms
Underlying the discussion is a broader idea: the industry is entering a platform shift in how knowledge, learning, and expertise are developed and distributed. As AI-powered knowledge and learning platforms like Synthesis make knowledge more accessible and reusable, the potential return on learning investments is rising dramatically. The challenge for firms is where to invest their time and energy to create the greatest impact.
If you’re leading an AEC firm and wondering where to invest in learning, knowledge, and capability building, this episode introduces a practical framework for prioritizing the opportunities that will matter most.
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Overcoming the Unspoken Barriers That Keep AEC Experts From Sharing What They Know
In the last issue of Smarter by Design, I introduced the Modern Learning Organization Pipeline — a practical, end-to-end model for turning learning opportunities into durable capability inside AEC firms. The nine steps of the pipeline move through identifying and prioritizing learning needs, designing and delivering learning experiences, unlocking just-in-time retrieval, and ultimately to measurement and continuous improvement.
At a strategic level, the logic of the pipeline is straightforward. If firms systematically capture expertise, distribute it intelligently, and reinforce it in the flow of work, they become more capable, more resilient, and less dependent on any single individual.
But models on paper are the easy part.
The road to the Modern Learning Organization runs directly through subject matter experts — through their willingness and ability to share what they know — and through the organization’s ability to help transfer and scale that knowledge.
And this is where things get interesting.
If you ask a senior architect or engineer to document what they know, record a short course, or capture best practices from a recent project, what objection would you expect to hear?
For most people, it’s the same answer. “I don’t have time.” Or, closely related, “I’m too busy.”
Picture an iceberg. The visible portion above the waterline is what gets said out loud. “I don’t have time.” “I’m too busy.”
Those are socially acceptable objections. They are real, and they matter. But they are rarely the whole story.
Beneath the waterline sit quieter forces of the iceberg— unspoken barriers to keeping experts from sharing knowledge which revolve around identity, legitimacy, confidence, cultural norms, maintenance, and trust. Questions about whether sharing knowledge will actually improve the quality of someone’s workday. Questions about whether the effort will have an impact. Questions about whether they are truly the right person to step forward. Questions about whether the system will support them or simply ask them to do more.
If we respond only to the spoken barriers of “I don’t have time” or “I’m too busy” we miss a major opportunity to overcome more deeply-seated emotional barriers to knowledge sharing.
Over the past 25 years working in knowledge management in AEC — and through countless conversations with subject matter experts, knowledge and learning leaders, CEOs, and project teams — I’ve come to see a pattern. The resistance to sharing expertise is rarely about time. It is almost always about something deeper and more emotional.
In this article, I surface seven of those unspoken barriers. More importantly, I explore what leading firms are doing to address them — through culture, partnership, process, and modern learning infrastructure.
Read moreWhat Will It Mean to Be an Expert in 2030? | Christopher Myers of Johns Hopkins University
In this episode of the Smarter by Design podcast, I’m joined by Christopher Myers, Peetz Family Professor of Leadership and Faculty Director of the Center for Innovative Leadership at Johns Hopkins University, for a wide-ranging conversation about expertise, learning, and how AI is reshaping knowledge-intensive organizations like healthcare providers and AEC firms.
Christopher studies how professionals learn from experience and from one another. Together, we explore what happens when AI becomes extraordinarily good at synthesizing information but still struggles with judgment, context, and tacit nuance. In fields like healthcare, architecture, and engineering—where decisions carry real liability and long feedback loops—the distinction between synthesis and judgment matters deeply.
We examine a growing paradox: In the near future AI may be able to perform much of the “junior work” that once served as the apprenticeship path to becoming an expert. If AI creates the slide decks, drafts the notes, checks the drawings, and summarizes the literature, how do emerging professionals gain the reps, exposure, and judgment that traditionally came from doing those tasks? And if organizations eliminate junior roles in pursuit of efficiency, what happens to the future pipeline of senior expertise?
The conversation also explores how expertise actually forms. Christopher shares his research on vicarious learning—how professionals learn from stories, informal conversations, and communities of practice—and why hybrid work may be compressing or eroding some of those learning opportunities. We discuss why informal knowledge sharing sometimes outperforms formal systems, and how simulation and AI-powered scenarios may offer new ways to scale apprenticeship in the future.
At the center of the episode is a deeper question: What will it mean to be an expert in 2030? As AI raises the “standard of care” across industries, leaders must rethink not only how work gets done, but how judgment, responsibility, and organizational intelligence are developed over time.
If you’re leading an AEC firm and wondering how AI will affect your talent pipeline, apprenticeship model, or long-term expertise, this conversation offers a thoughtful and research-backed perspective on what may lie ahead.
▶ Watch or Listen
Watch or listen to this episode via YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Introducing Synthesis for Revit
We’re excited to share that Synthesis for Revit will be available to all Synthesis clients at the close of business on Friday, February 27th.
Synthesis for Revit brings your firm’s Synthesis content directly into the Revit environment. The goal is simple: reduce context switching and make trusted knowledge available at the moment it’s needed without leaving Revit.
The add-in:
Opens as a dockable panel inside Revit
Automatically reflects your firm’s branding and permissions
Connects directly to Synthesis content designed for Revit users (standards, guides, learning resources, and more)
Watch this short video overview to walk through installation and configuration.
As always, thank you for the feedback that helps shape what we build.
Happy Reviting!
What the Best Synthesis Teams Do Differently | Susan Strom of Knowledge Architecture
In this episode of Smarter by Design, I talk with Susan Strom, Chief Client Officer at Knowledge Architecture, about the patterns she’s seen across the most successful Synthesis teams. Drawing on years of implementation experience, Susan explains how great teams build momentum, lead change intentionally, and bring people into the process one person at a time.
We explore the human side of intranet, LMS, and AI Search rollouts—what strong project champions do, how they prepare their organizations, and the leadership behaviors that consistently set teams up for long-term success.
Whether you're evaluating Synthesis, preparing for a new implementation, or trying to take Synthesis to the next level at your firm, this conversation offers practical insight into what the best teams do differently.
▶ Watch or Listen
Watch or listen to this episode via YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
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The Modern Learning Organization Pipeline for AEC Firms
I believe learning and development in AEC is going to change more in the next five years than it has in the last twenty-five.
Outside of work, people have grown accustomed to immediate, searchable, personalized access to information. That experience is reshaping what they expect from learning and knowledge inside their firms.
Many AEC professionals now expect knowledge and learning to be accessible exactly when they need it, in the flow of their work, rather than scheduled far in advance. And they would like to be able to find answers to their questions on demand, without having to attend hour-long, day-long, or week-long training delivered in linear formats. That shift is being shaped by generational change, the increased pace of work, and the growing availability of on-demand and AI-enabled tools.
For the first time, AEC firms have a real opportunity to deliver the right knowledge and learning to the right person at the right time. Technology is a major part of that story—including recent advances in AI and video capture, editing, and transcription—but it’s not the whole story. The real shift will come from how firms bring together people, process, technology, and culture to support learning as a core organizational capability.
That kind of change doesn’t happen organically. It happens by design.
I believe the firms that take full advantage of this moment will be the ones that intentionally evolve into what I’ve been calling Modern Learning Organizations.
In simple terms, a Modern Learning Organization does three things:
Builds and maintains collective intelligence
Leverages technology to deliver knowledge in the flow of work
Continuously adapts and thrives in a rapidly changing environment
This issue of Smarter by Design is the first in a multipart series exploring what it means to design a Modern Learning Organization in the AEC industry.
In this issue, I’ll introduce the Modern Learning Organization Pipeline—a practical, end-to-end model for turning learning opportunities into real, durable organizational capability. The pipeline reflects my nearly 25 years of knowledge management work in AEC, insights from the Knowledge Architecture community, and lessons emerging from firms in the Synthesis LMS public beta actively experimenting with new learning approaches.
Some parts of this model reflect practices that have always mattered: thoughtful prioritization, intentional design, and continuous improvement. Other parts reflect what has changed dramatically—especially the ability to unlock just-in-time, dynamically assembled learning that meets people where work actually happens.
My goal with this model isn’t to prescribe a single “right” way forward for all AEC firms. It’s to offer a shared framework you can react to, adapt, and refine as you think about how learning really works inside your firm—and how it could work better.
Here we go.
Read moreJoin Us in Exploring the Future of Learning & Development at AEC TalentMAX 2026
We’re excited to share that Knowledge Architecture has curated a dedicated Knowledge & Learning Management track for PSMJ’s AEC TalentMAX 2026 conference, including main stage keynote presentations, a panel discussion, and multiple breakout sessions.
AEC TalentMAX will take place May 27–29, 2026 in Austin, Texas.
The focus of our track will be on the future of learning and development in AEC. Specifically, how firms are increasingly investing in becoming modern learning organizations—which blend knowledge management, learning and development, and artificial intelligence into a more integrated and intentional approach to capability building.
If you aren’t familiar with it, AEC TalentMAX is the essential skills and strategy conference for architecture and engineering firm leaders committed to sourcing and engaging the best employees, keeping them enthusiastically engaged, and providing them with the knowledge and learning management tools they need to excel.
Christopher Parsons, our Founder and CEO, will be delivering a keynote and facilitating a main stage panel discussion. An outstanding group of KA community members will be sharing real-world insights and case studies from their firms during the breakout sessions.
We believe it’s going to be an excellent few days—thoughtful, practical, and inspirational. We hope to see you there!
Read moreWhy AEC Firms Are Leveling Up as Learning Organizations Now | Turner Fleischer and Greenprint
In this episode of the Smarter by Design podcast, I’m joined by Ellen Bensky, CEO of Turner Fleischer, and Nicole Chavas, President and COO of Greenprint Partners, for a wide-ranging conversation about what it takes to level up as a learning organization in the AEC industry.
As both firms evolve beyond primarily live and synchronous training models, Ellen and Nicole share how they’re building systems to deliver the right knowledge, to the right people, at the right time—while reducing overload and lifting the burden from learning leaders to serve as “air traffic controllers.”
We explore how integrating their learning management systems with their intranets and AI Search is helping their teams access critical information in the flow of work, as well as how that shift is also encouraging more subject matter experts to contribute knowledge, knowing it will reach the right audience at the right moment.
We also dive into the mindset shifts required to scale learning effectively. From navigating the balance between live and on-demand learning, to designing hybrid programs that combine asynchronous content with meaningful human interaction, Ellen and Nicole show how their teams are rethinking training as a design problem—one centered on empathy, access, and adaptability.
This episode is a candid, behind-the-scenes look at how two growing firms are building learning organizations that reflect the pace of modern practice, the needs of emerging professionals, and the realities of day-to-day AEC work.
If you’re grappling with learning at scale, looking to reduce information overload, or wondering how to balance video, in-person, and AI-powered tools, this conversation offers fresh insight and practical ideas.
▶ Watch or Listen
Watch or listen to this episode via YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Introducing Stock Icon Favorites
We’re happy to share that Stock Icon Favorites will be available to all Synthesis clients at the close of business on Friday, February 6th.
With Stock Icon Favorites, teams can mark commonly used stock icons as Favorites, create new favorites directly from the stock icon search interface, and quickly access those icons wherever they’re working. This reduces repetitive searching and helps teams build pages that are more consistent and on brand.
A quick note on permissions: Stock Icon Favorites are global, meaning everyone in your firm will see the same set of favorites. To keep things intentional, only Global Administrators and users with Branding permissions can add, edit, or remove favorites.
This is a small feature, but one we’ve heard strong requests for, and we think it will make day-to-day content creation in Synthesis just a little smoother.
As always, thank you for the feedback that helps shape what we build. We’re excited to see how your teams use it.
Introducing Advanced Project Search
Finding the right project—whether for marketing, staffing, or learning from past work—is harder than it should be in most AEC firms.
That’s why we built Advanced Project Search—a powerful new AI Search capability in our Synthesis platform that helps teams explore their firm’s project history with far greater clarity. Whether employees are searching by project type, location, size, client, consultants, or team members, Advanced Project Search helps them find meaningful answers faster.
Advanced Project Search combines structured project data from integrations with leading AEC systems—such as Deltek, Unanet, aec360, and OpenAsset—with natural-language search. The result is AI-powered answers that reveal not just individual projects, but also their relationships with employees, clients, and collaborators.
In this short video, you’ll see how Synthesis can answer questions like:
What’s our average cost per square foot for higher education projects?
Which lab projects over 200,000 square feet have we delivered in Washington in the last five years?
Which projects have won AIA awards?
Which projects have we designed with automated humidification controls?
Which healthcare projects have we completed with LMNO Consultants?
Which architects have worked on projects in Wisconsin?
Which higher ed projects have Em Davisson and Ann Johnson worked on together with BCN Engineering?
Want to learn more about Synthesis? Let’s talk.
How Knowledge Agents Will Change the Way AEC Firms Scale Expertise and Accelerate Learning
Imagine you’re early in your career and newly staffed on a healthcare project. You’ve been asked to help work through the onstage/offstage model for a new facility—a concept you’ve heard before, but you don’t feel fluent enough in to start designing with confidence. You know your firm has done this work many times, and you know the knowledge exists somewhere. What you don’t know is where to look or how to get started.
So you turn to your firm’s AI-powered Healthcare Knowledge Agent.
You ask a simple, situational question: What are the key considerations when designing an effective onstage/offstage model for a healthcare project? The response you get is grounded in how your firm approaches healthcare work. It draws from internal best practices, past projects, and recorded talks from senior healthcare leaders. It highlights what to pay attention to early, where teams often run into trouble, and how different decisions affect patient experience and staff workflows.
Along the way, it points you to specific internal resources—an upskilling video on healthcare planning, linked directly to the exact moment where this concept is discussed; a standards page that captures onstage/offstage best practices; and a case study from a past project that shows how these ideas come together in the real world. If you want to go deeper, you can. If you just need enough context to start shaping a design direction, you have it.
Later that week, you’re asked to begin contributing to an imaging suite—something you’ve never worked on before. You ask the Healthcare Knowledge Agent what’s important to consider. Again, the agent synthesizes the firm’s best thinking, pulling together insights from different people, in different formats, shared at different times. And when follow-up questions move into territory it can’t answer with confidence, it doesn’t pretend otherwise. It clearly signals the limits of its knowledge and points you to the right subject-matter experts to answer the hard questions.
You’re able to stay in the flow of work—learning as you go, making progress, and building confidence.
Now imagine the same moment from the other side of the equation.
You’re one of the firm’s healthcare leaders. You’ve spent years building deep expertise through projects, research, and mentoring. You care deeply about developing the next generation, but you also know how often your time is consumed by answering the same foundational questions—important questions, but repeatable ones. Questions that interrupt deep work and pull you away from clients, strategy, and the harder problems that really need your attention.
By contributing to your firm’s digital knowledge base—through interviews, recorded talks, and curated guidance—your expertise becomes accessible on demand, 24/7, in a form that’s contextual, searchable, and connected. When emerging professionals come to you with questions, they’re better informed and more specific. Your time is spent mentoring at the right level, serving clients, advancing the firm’s thinking, and continuing to add new insights that strengthen the firm’s collective knowledge over time.
In short, your expertise has been leveraged so you can have more impact and your firm’s emerging professionals can develop faster.
Once you can imagine this working in healthcare, it’s not hard to extrapolate the same pattern applying elsewhere—whether that’s a Sustainability Knowledge Agent helping teams navigate materials and approaches, or a Revit Knowledge Agent supporting designers while freeing design technology teams to focus on innovation. Across disciplines, the dynamic is the same: expertise scales, learning accelerates, and the organization gets smarter.
This vision explains why Knowledge Agents will be the next major pillar in the Synthesis platform, alongside Intranet, LMS, and AI Search capabilities.
In this issue of Smarter by Design, I’ll take you deeper into how Knowledge Agents will work, what processes and cultural habits will make them successful, and how you can begin to lay the foundation for their arrival later in 2026.
Read moreRedesigning Learning for the Next Generation of AEC Talent | Dan Hottinger and Kari Shonblom of BWBR
In this episode of the Smarter by Design podcast, I’m joined by Dan Hottinger, Principal and Director of Professional Services at BWBR, and Kari Shonblom, Knowledge Manager at BWBR, for a deep conversation about how their firm is redesigning learning to meet the realities of today’s AEC industry and the expectations of the next generation of talent.
Dan and Kari take us inside BWBR’s Landmark Learning program, a decade-long effort to help emerging professionals build judgment, confidence, and technical fluency faster than experience alone would allow. We explore how BWBR uses quality assurance (QA) and construction administration (CA) feedback loops to identify recurring gaps in practice, translate real project issues into targeted learning, and continuously evolve what and how the firm teaches technical skills to emerging professionals.
Along the way, we talk about how learning itself is changing. As the next generation of AEC professionals has grown up searching first, watching short-form videos, and expecting knowledge on demand, BWBR is rethinking traditional training models. Dan and Kari share how the firm is experimenting with shorter, more focused content while preserving the value of longer, story-driven sessions where context, judgment, and tacit knowledge can be shared.
The conversation also explores a hybrid approach to learning: pairing on-demand resources with live discussion, designing learning paths that evolve across career stages, and connecting technical instruction with the softer skills—such as communication, leadership, and decision-making—that become critical over time. At the center of it all is a simple but demanding idea: learning only matters if it shows up as improvement in the work.
This episode offers a behind-the-scenes look at how learning, QA, and career development can be woven into a single system that allows BWBR to develop talent from within, adapt to changing expectations, and build resilient expertise over time.
If you’re thinking about how your AEC firm can redesign learning for a new generation, connect knowledge management to real project outcomes, or move beyond training as a one-off event, this conversation is for you.
▶ Watch or Listen
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NEW FEATURES | Synthesis Voice Search + Continue Watching
We’re excited to announce that two new features are coming to Synthesis at the end of the day on Friday, January 9th: Voice Search and Continue Watching.
Below is a quick overview of what’s coming.
Voice Search
Voice Search lets you interact with your firm’s knowledge in a natural, conversational way.
You can use Voice Search for:
Simple keyword searches
Longer, more conversational questions
Exploratory or multi-part queries where you’re not quite sure what you’re looking for yet
Voice Search works on both web and mobile and it supports follow-up questions so you can refine your search as you go.
Watch a short demo here.
Pro Tip: When you’re finished speaking, you can press Enter / Return on your keyboard to submit the search immediately.
Continue Watching
We’ve also added Continue Watching for videos across the platform.
Since September 23, 2025, Synthesis has been tracking video progress behind the scenes. With this update, that progress becomes visible and actionable.
What this means for you:
Videos now remember where you left off
A progress bar appears on videos you’ve started watching
You can easily resume unfinished videos or see which ones you’ve completed
This applies to all videos in Synthesis, and it’s especially useful as firms continue to use video more heavily for training, onboarding, and learning programs.
Welcome to the Smarter by Design Podcast!
The Smarter by Design podcast explores how leading architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) firms are reimagining knowledge management, learning, and AI to build smarter, more adaptive practices.
Hosted by Christopher Parsons, Founder and CEO of Knowledge Architecture, the show dives into the real stories behind how firms are scaling expertise, transforming culture, and creating modern learning organizations.
At the heart of the show is a simple belief: AEC firms should spend as much time designing their businesses as they do designing buildings, bridges, and infrastructure. The systems we design for capturing, sharing, and distributing knowledge shape everything else we create.
Through thoughtful conversations with AEC leaders, knowledge managers, and innovators, we explore how design, leadership, and technology intersect to shape the future of practice.
If you’re curious about how AEC firms are learning faster, working smarter, and designing better ways to grow—this is your show.
Subscribe to the Smarter by Design Podcast
Subscribe via YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes start January 7th.
Partnering with AI to Solve Knowledge Problems | KM 3.0 Podcast Series - Episode 7
In this episode of Welcome to KM 3.0, we talk with Todd Henderson—Director of Practice Improvement at Boulder Associates—about how one of the most inventive thinkers in our community is using AI, structured inquiry, and thoughtful experimentation to reshape how knowledge flows inside an expert-driven firm.
Todd takes us inside a series of real-world practices: from building a repeatable “conversation-to-content” pipeline that makes it effortless for subject matter experts to share what they know, to designing a medical planning accelerator that surfaces hidden assumptions, closes knowledge gaps, and strengthens a critical area of practice.
We also explore some of Todd’s more experimental work—building lightweight role-play scenarios to help teams practice difficult client interactions, designing short internal “med talks” to spread tacit expertise, and prototyping ways to use AI during medical planning interviews without losing the human nuance that matters most.
This episode is rich with practical ideas: how to extract high-value insight from busy experts; why interviewing novices reveals blind spots an organization can’t see from the top; and what it looks like to treat AI as a thinking partner—not a replacement, but a tool that sharpens inquiry, surfaces missing knowledge, and helps teams build a more resilient understanding of their work.
If you’re interested in designing learning organizations, exploring how experimentation can reshape learning inside AEC firms, or understanding how AI can help teams think more clearly—this episode is for you.
Read moreThe AI and Expertise Paradox
I found myself in a fascinating conversation with the COO of one of our clients last week. We were talking about something I’ve been circling around for months, but this discussion finally snapped the pieces into place.
It’s what I’m starting to call the AI and Expertise Paradox.
We all know the demographic story by now. Baby boomers are retiring in large numbers and there aren’t enough Gen Xers to replace them.
In AEC, that often means we’re losing some of the deepest technical knowledge in our organizations—codes, construction standards, quality practices, the kind of judgment that only comes from decades of watching real projects go from concept to completion.
Technical experts possess the kind of deep smarts that can look at a drawing and feel that something isn’t quite right.
And they are retiring.
At the same time, we’re seeing a wave of AI-powered tools arrive that promise to help fill the gap. Automated code checks. QA/QC scanners. Plan reviewers that highlight potential issues a junior architect or engineer would never recognize. Assistants that allow someone to work across jurisdictions with different codes and standards and at least have a baseline level of support.
In some ways, it feels like knowledge augmentation—almost like the moment in The Matrix when the character Tank uploads the knowledge to fly a helicopter into Trinity’s brain.
Similarly, there are numerous emerging AI tools in our industry which, if they deliver on their vision, will enable a junior team member to run a basic code review, an expert who is stretched thin across multiple projects to offload routine checks, or an architect or engineer working on a project in a different region to get a helpful second set of eyes on local code compliance.
On the surface, this looks like the perfect solution: AI tools that allow those with less expertise or who are super busy to do more.
But here’s where the paradox emerges.
Read moreDiscovering the Value of AI Through Experimentation | KM 3.0 Podcast Series - Episode 6
In this episode of Welcome to KM 3.0, we talk with Jim Martin, Chief Information Officer, and Jess Purcell, Design Technology Manager from Shepley Bulfinch about how one of the country’s most forward-thinking AEC firms is using AI, video, and thoughtful processes to reshape how knowledge is captured, shared, and sustained.
Jim and Jess walk us through a range of real-world practices—from compressing 200-hour technical documentation projects into five-hour video-first workflows, to using AI search as a tool not just for discovery but for surfacing outdated or irrelevant content. They also share how their team is managing the shift from informal knowledge sharing to intentional knowledge transfer—especially in the context of rolling out a new learning management system.
This episode is full of practical insights: how short, modular videos make knowledge more durable; why it’s essential to choose learning technology that fits your culture; and how caring more, leading behind the scenes, and crafting thoughtful processes can produce extraordinary knowledge sharing outcomes.
We also explore what it means to cultivate discernment in an age of AI, and how Shepley’s hybrid work model has made them double down on intranet-based connection, informal mentoring, and social learning.
If you care about making knowledge more accessible, adaptable, and human—this one’s for you.
I hope you enjoy it.
Best,
Chris
WEBINAR | Real-World AI for AEC: How 5 Firms Are Creating Business Value through Knowledge Management
Featured Guests
Christopher Parsons, Founder and CEO, Knowledge Architecture
Webinar Summary
Are you taking advantage of the data gold mine your AEC firm is sitting on? Is the institutional knowledge of your firm’s most valuable professionals available to others? Christopher Parsons of Knowledge Architecture shares 5 “We Gotta Try That!” examples of AEC firms applying an Intranet + AI Search solution to unlock the full value of their in-house knowledge:
BWBR created a healthcare upskilling series with 18 learning modules, best practice guides, and expert-curated content. AI search makes it all accessible to new hires so they can quickly get answers to their questions.
Turner Fleischer combined structured standards, #TechTalk videos, a searchable eTutor library, and an internal learning academy to build a robust KM foundation. AI search delivers just-in-time answers that support technology adoption at scale.
Boulder Associates uses expert interviews to capture knowledge, such as seismic compliance strategies and Bluebeam project workflows. AI search then surfaces this expertise so project teams can get answers and connect directly with in-house experts.
Bora Architecture & Interiors built a digital twin of their sustainability lead, Corey Squire, by integrating his best practices, project reflections, and even his book into their intranet. AI search (aka “Robo Corey”) now helps employees find standards, strategies, and subject matter experts for sustainable design decisions.
Shepley Bulfinch created a comprehensive onboarding knowledge ecosystem, answering questions such as “How do I get staffed on projects?” or “Who knows Affinity Photo in Houston?” in the flow of work. AI search allows access to answers long after orientation.
Enjoy!
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