Forget hype, Autodesk University 2025 shows how designers can actually thrive

Walking into Autodesk University for the first time, I expected the kind of spectacle you get at Adobe Max; glossy lights, hype, and more whooping than a Sabrina Carpenter gig. Instead, AU is, well… quieter. More thoughtful. The kind of place where a single “Woo!” from the back row behind me gets swallowed by polite silence and the occasional awkward cough. This isn’t a design rave; it’s a gathering of engineers, architects, and creators who take their craft seriously and who all want to learn a little more about the best CAD software.

But don’t mistake thoughtful for boring. The Nashville conference has its share of LED glitz and blue-pink spotlight strobes and flashes. Andrew Anagnost, president and chief executive officer at Autodesk, delivered a keynote that still offered plenty of “wow” moments and demos, but it just did so with the kind of measured calm you’d expect from a company that creates the tools shaping skyscrapers, building cities, and making blockbuster films.

Autodesk isn’t here to dazzle us with flash videos and Billie Eilish drop-ins (though Train is promised); it’s here to argue for something bigger: a future where designers don’t just survive the grind, but actually thrive.

Make and build

The theme was “make more with less” – less time, fewer resources, better results. Not exactly a line that makes you want to paint your face, hit Burning Man, and start a chant, but by the end of the demos, which included innovative AI models, animation made easier, and how everybody's a product designer now, it clicked. Autodesk is showing us how the heavy lifting, whether it’s floor plans, CAD sketches, or interpreting documentation, can finally shift from us to AI. And that means less time trapped in software menus, more time spent on actual creative thinking.

Forma, Autodesk's new architecture cloud, was a standout for me. Watching it generate facades, adjust layouts, and run daylight analysis in real time felt like fast-forwarding through hours of drudgery. Revit integration made it even more practical, proof that Autodesk isn’t ripping up your old workflows, but instead making them more efficient. My inner-George Costanza is already designing his Art Vandelay branding, because AU 2025 just made archviz accessible.

Fusion did something similar for engineers and manufacturers. The live demo had AI sketch an air fryer from a blank screen, not a napkin doodle, but fully editable CAD geometry ready for production. The buzz wasn’t “this is replacing us” but “finally, the boring bits are gone”. (Now Art Vandelay is brushing off that importer/exporter dream.)

And then there’s Autodesk Assistant, the new AI co-pilot tucked inside apps and tools. It doesn’t just fetch help docs, it drafts plans, adds annotations, and takes care of the kind of tedious tasks that normally eat half a day.

Day one and done

Away from the keynote that launched the day, I find the expo floor a place where conversation is easy and the ideas are big. I can be digging deep into Autodesk's AI plans for physics models and then literally digging, with RC diggers in a floor-filling sandpit. There are insights into everything from VFX and animation to drone manufacturing, and each person I meet is passionate about making, well… everything.

So yes, Autodesk University is calmer than other creative conferences. You won’t get celebrities on stage, free tattoos, or a queue for neon-lit selfies. But what you do get is a clear, careful vision of how the tools we all rely on are changing (as well as delicious cookies).

As a first-timer, I left feeling less like I’d been to a party and more like I’d been shown a blueprint for the next decade of creative work. And honestly? That feels pretty refreshing.

For more, read my coverage of how Autodesk’s new modelling AI just made every designer's job easier.