You’re reading Engineering Paper, and here’s the latest on design and simulation software.
A few weeks ago I reported on Siemens Realize Live 2026, the user conference that took place in Detroit, Michigan. I’ll start today by returning to a topic I left hanging then: AI in Designcenter.
In Detroit I met with Brian Grogan, Siemens’ product management lead for Solid Edge, and John Fox, marketing lead for Solid Edge, to discuss the CAD platform.
Before we got into AI, I asked about the current relationship between NX and Solid Edge, given that they now exist under the same Designcenter umbrella.
“There’s certainly been a lot of sharing of technology,” Fox told me. “We’ve also updated the product names… Solid Edge is now Designcenter Solid Edge, Solid Edge X is now Designcenter X Solid Edge, and similar name changes happened for NX.”
(Actually, if you check Siemens’ website, the landing page for Designcenter is split into “Designcenter” and “Designcenter Solid Edge” with nary a mention of NX.)
Some of that technology sharing is familiar, such as both CAD tools being built on Siemens’ Parasolid kernel. But there’s some new sharing, too. Both NX and Solid Edge (forgive me for abbreviating the official names) now share a common token pool for value-based licensing, which allows users to temporarily subscribe to add-ons in either platform. Both Solid Edge X and NX X now also come with browser-based access via Designcenter X Essentials (formerly Zel X), which is included as a bundled app with every Solid Edge X subscription and as a native feature for every tier of NX X.
Ok, let’s move on to AI.
“Solid Edge 2026 has a number of AI-powered capabilities,” Grogan said. That number is three.
One: The AI Design Copilot, which is currently just a product support chatbot. However, Grogan told me that the copilot will evolve, and soon.
“In the not too distant future, it’s not only going to tell you how to execute a command, it will go execute the command for you,” Grogan said. “We’re not there yet, but that’s what we’re working toward.”
“Will it be ready before next Realize Live?” I asked, always hungry for a timeline.
“Probably,” Grogan ventured. “I’d put some money on that.” Too bad we were in Detroit and not Vegas.
Two: Magnetic snap. With this feature, users can drag a part onto an assembly and Solid Edge will automatically mate it in place with its best guess at the correct constraints. Fox says that users love it and that it’s a good example of how Siemens is working to embed AI in normal workflows.
Three: Automated drawings, a familiar AI feature, but one with high time-saving potential.
“Our customers spend 25 to 30 percent of their time creating drawings, which is time they could spend doing more innovative work,” Grogan told me. “So our goal is to automate as much of that drawing creation process as possible.”
He continued: “AI automated drawings takes your model and it automatically selects the right sheet size, the right base views, the number of views, the scale of the views, where the views should go on the drawing, and it automatically applies dimensions to the views. We’re making another big wave of enhancements to that, so this is going to keep getting better over time.” (This time I didn’t ask.)
The AI Design Copilot is available only in Solid Edge X, while magnetic snap is available to all Solid Edge users. Automated drawings is available as an add-on through value-based licensing.
Quick hits
- Synopsys has launched several of what it calls Multiphysics Fusion Solutions, a portfolio that “combines Synopsys’ AI-powered EDA solutions with Ansys golden signoff analysis across timing signoff, design closure, multi-die design, and analog workflows,” according to the news release.
- Siemens announced two new capabilities for its Eigen Engineering Agent for industrial automation engineering: ECAD integration and standards-compliant project generation. The new capabilities are included with the existing Eigen Engineering Agent subscription.
- Spatial computing developer Gravity Sketch has updated its 3D collaboration platform with new augmented reality (AR) features. Users can now create and save alignments between virtual data (such as a 3D model of a car) and physical objects (such as a clay buck).
One last link
A questionable article from my colleague Michael Ouellette: Questions manufacturers should ask AI vendors but rarely do.
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