Generative rendering is now live in Fusion, and Autodesk Assistant is spreading through the D&M portfolio.
You’re reading Engineering Paper, and here’s the latest design and simulation software news.
Autodesk has a few AI updates, detailed in a recent blog post from Jeff Kinder, EVP of product development and manufacturing solutions.
For one, Kinder writes that Autodesk Assistant is live across several products in Autodesk’s design and manufacturing portfolio: Fusion, Inventor, Moldflow, and Vault. Autodesk Assistant has been around since early 2025 when it debuted in Fusion as a product support chatbot.
It’s evolved since then. By now the Assistant can “help execute tasks and orchestrate actions across your 3D models, not just answer questions,” according to Kinder. In Fusion, for example, Autodesk Assistant “has prompt to API capabilities allowing AI access to almost all Fusion functionality, streamlined onboarding, and a redesigned, context-aware experience.”
Kinder linked to this video demo showing off the Assistant’s latest capabilities in Fusion:
Interestingly, the video mentions another update that Kinder didn’t: AI rendering is now live. Autodesk first announced AI rendering at AU 2025, and it lets users generate a photorealistic render of their 3D model through the Assistant interface. The video revealed that commercial Fusion subscribers will get 20 image generations per month, with the option to pay for more. That seems overly limited to me. It’s not hard to burn through 20 AI generated images in a few minutes, let alone a month.
(For those keeping track, generative rendering is one of the AI features I predicted would come to every CAD program this year.)
Kinder’s second AI update was announcing two public MCP servers: Autodesk Fusion MCP and Autodesk Fusion Data MCP.
“[T]eams can use these MCPs to connect Fusion to their internal systems, automate multi-step engineering workflows, or query and reuse design data across projects, all powered by AI agents tailored to how they already work,” Kinder wrote.
Per the Fusion documentation, Autodesk Fusion MCP server runs locally and requires Fusion to be running. It’s meant for modeling and executing Fusion commands and is compatible with Claude Desktop, Cursor, or any MCP-capable HTTP client. Autodesk Fusion Data MCP server runs remotely and does not require Fusion to be running. It’s meant for querying and managing Fusion data through Autodesk cloud services and is compatible with Claude Desktop and VS Code.
Autodesk’s website suggests the company is planning to develop more MCP servers, such as one for Revit and another for accessing Autodesk documentation. To date all of them are described as “coming soon.”
Quick hits
- CAM developer ModuleWorks has released version 2026.04 of its eponymous software. The update adds GPU-accelerated machine simulation and several feature enhancements.
- Synopsys announced that it’s been selected by NASA to virtually analyze spacesuits on the moon. Electro Magnetic Applications (EMA) and Bentley Systems’ Cesium are also chipping in.
- Cadence and Google have announced a collaboration for AI chip design that will integrate Google’s Gemini models with Cadence’s ChipStack AI Super Agent.
- Dassault Systèmes and Omron have also announced a partnership that aims to bridge the IT/OT gap (haven’t heard that buzzword in a while) by combining Dassault’s 3D UNIV+RSES with Omron’s Sysmac industrial automation platform.
One last link
No, it’s not a pulse-pounding sci-fi thriller, it’s the latest article on AI’s PLM impact from Engineering.com contributor Peter Bilello: The disintermediation paradox.
Got news, tips, comments, or complaints? Send them my way: [email protected].
