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Beyond Technology: Leading AI-Driven Transformation in Architecture
At the AIA Colorado Practice + Design Conference, Brooke Grammier, CIO of CanonDesign, delivered the session “Beyond Technology: Leading AI-Driven Transformation in Architecture,” exploring AI’s transformative impact on the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. CanonDesign, recognized by Fast Company as a top innovator workplace for two consecutive years, exemplifies innovation through its diverse practices, including architecture, engineering, consulting, and software services. Grammier emphasized the critical role of leadership in driving AI adoption, highlighting Canon Design’s AI steering committee, which ensures secure implementation of tools like Billie, an internal large language model (LLM) enhancing data accessibility.
Grammier detailed the Innovation Design Consortium (IDC), founded by 41 major architecture firms, including CanonDesign, to advance AEC collaboration. The IDC promotes data sharing and joint tool development, reducing redundancy and accelerating progress. Firms can join via idc-aec.com and access consulting outputs such as data readiness surveys, glossaries, and job descriptions for emerging roles. She outlined the four phases of the data journey—orientation, readiness, ownership, and advanced use cases—emphasizing most firms are in early stages.
CanonDesign’s AI Week educated employees on AI ethics, copyright, bias, and practical applications, achieving high engagement across the firm. Grammier highlighted Recon, an agentic AI tool that automates client research, reducing weeks of manual work to minutes, and Billie, which integrates secure LLMs and agentic AI tools for seamless data access. She also introduced D5 Render, a design tool enabling in-house rendering, reducing costs and empowering designers to create floor plans and visualizations efficiently.
Grammier explained the emotional journey in digital transformation, noting the importance of leadership in maintaining morale during challenges. She referenced an MIT study showing higher success rates for generic LLM adoption over custom-built tools and emphasized reskilling gaps in smaller firms, urging them to prioritize training. CanonDesign focuses on capturing market share, improving project delivery, and advancing smart building practices, ensuring AI adoption aligns with strategic goals. Grammier concluded by encouraging firms to embrace AI as a tool for innovation, emphasizing that professionals who adapt to AI will outperform those who resist it.
Takeaways
Architecture firms are wasting resources by independently developing the same tools. The Innovation Design Consortium demonstrates how industry collaboration can reduce costs and accelerate innovation by sharing development efforts and data.
Every firm that I know was building a revit health check several years ago, and we each spent probably fifty grand each, and we should have just had one revit health check that we each spent maybe $500 each and created that for the industry.
70% of digital transformations fail due to the emotional journey that occurs when expectations don’t match reality. Leadership must manage expectations and maintain team morale through the inevitable challenges of data cleanup and process refinement.
70% of digital transformations actually fail, mostly because of resistance from employees and organizational culture… if you get too steep and you get into that red zone. From a company perspective, it’s really hard to bring yourself back up. And this is where most digital transformations fail or most business transformations fail.
The majority of architecture firms are positioned between phase zero (data orientation) and phase one (data readiness) of the four-phase data journey. This represents a significant opportunity for firms that advance more quickly through these phases.
Phase zero is data orientation. This is what the 41 firms that are founders of the Innovation Design Consortium went through last year. So we had CEOs and CEOs and other C level executives from the 41 largest architecture firms sit through data orientation with consultants to just understand what this was, what the terms were, what the process was, why it was important. Most firms in our industry are sitting somewhere between phase zero and phase one.
Effective AI governance involves multiple departments working together to ensure safe and compliant tool usage. Canon Design’s AI steering committee, led by legal but including risk, marketing, design, and other departments, reviews all AI tools before implementation.
We also at Canon Design have an AI steering committee. We have a team of people that’s actually led by our legal department, but it includes people from our risk department, our marketing from design, from practice, quality, sustainability… this group gets together and looks at tools. So we have a process for when somebody wants to use a new AI tool. They have to run it through this group.
The pace of innovation is directly tied to how quickly people adopt new tools and technologies. Successful firms focus on building tools that many people will use rather than sophisticated tools that only a few will adopt.
Innovation moves at the speed of adoption. I believe our firm is pretty innovative, because we’ve been really successful at getting people to adopt things because we do think about how we meet people, where they are, and how we get people engaged and how we get people to adopt those tools. And so when people are adopting, things move a lot faster.
AI implementation requires fundamental business transformation across the entire organization, not just a technology upgrade. Leadership at all levels must be deeply engaged because this transformation affects every aspect of the business, from hiring practices to organizational culture.
This is not your typical technology initiative. This is business transformation. This is transforming all of our businesses. It’s transforming the industry. This is more than just the technology initiative, which means you better have your CEO understanding what this is and all of the other leadership at your company, because if they’re not understanding data and AI at a level that they need to understand it, and they’re just pushing it off to your technology team, then your company is not going to survive this because it is business transformation.
The architecture profession requires comprehensive reskilling to remain competitive. Professionals who learn to use AI effectively will replace those who don’t, making training and adaptation essential for career survival.
Architects will not be replaced by AI, but architects that use AI will replace architects that do not use AI. So that means architects need to reskill themselves to understand how to use AI and how to better their processes. Because if you don’t, then the ones that do learn how to do that are going to be a lot more efficient and likely replacement.
AI tools are enabling architects to perform tasks they previously contracted out, such as high-quality renderings. New tools like D5 Render allow designers to create professional renderings in-house, reducing costs and increasing creative control.
This is something that our designers would normally contract out. So we would normally hire an external firm to do all of our renderings, and we would spend however much money doing that. And with this tool, they were able to use it. And the comment back from the designers was, it was so easy that even I could do it.
Successful AI tool adoption requires meeting users in familiar environments. Canon Design’s Billy LLM succeeded because it resembled ChatGPT, which users already knew how to use, resulting in the highest adoption rate in the speaker’s 24-year career.
This is actually one of the most adopted tools I have ever rolled out at any company in my 24 years of working. It has been so popular because we’re meeting people where they live, right? Everyone’s using ChatGPT 90%, according to that last slide a couple slides ago. So if people are already familiar with using that tool, meet people where they are.
Successful AI implementation requires business leaders, not technology teams, to lead initiatives. Canon Design’s approach has business unit heads leading AI workshops and development in their respective areas, ensuring practical relevance and adoption.
But the important key is all of these things are owned and led by the business. So when I talk about we’re trying to get more market capture. Our head of marketing is running these workshops with us. He’s leading it. When we’re talking about smart buildings, our smart buildings leadership is leading that. It’s not me trying to lead all of this stuff as a cio.