TT5: What Clients Don't See

April 30, 2026

This weekly email is my curated selection of interesting and useful topics related to BIM, design, and technology. I aim to provide you with some good information and a few laughs along the way. So, what did I find interesting this week? Read down to find out!

Most of this week's links approach the same question from different angles: what does the architecture profession do when software starts handling the visible work? It’s not "AI is changing everything" (we've heard that), but the harder questions: what gets undervalued, what training collapses, what the firm should learn, and what we should be asking. For good measure, I also include a sharp Revit fix you'll wish you'd known sooner, and a career question worth sitting with this weekend.

Alright, here are five things to check out this week. 

#1: AI Headlines You Might Have Missed 

Nathan Miller pulls together recent AI research and policy news that hasn't gotten much airtime: a Danish study showing AI saves 2.8 hours a week but adds enough new tasks to wash out the gain, "AI brain fry", Stanford data on entry-level job erosion, and proposed New York legislation on AI tools impersonating professionals. Each section ends with the actual question your firm should be asking. Thanks Nathan!

Click here to read the full article at Proving Ground.

#2: Will AI Make Expertise Easier to Misprice?

Chad Reineke argues that as AI speeds up the visible parts of design work (drawings, code analyses, options), clients will assume the underlying expertise has gotten cheaper. The trap is that the most consequential parts of practice (judgment, risk anticipation, reconciling competing priorities) are the least visible when setting fees. Worth reading if you're rethinking how you describe what you actually charge for. 

Click to read the full article at Common Ground.

#3: The Learning Organization Maturity Model

Christopher Parsons lays out a seven-level model for how firms develop learning capability, from "learning by doing" through codified processes, structured training, hybrid courses, and ultimately AI-powered just-in-time retrieval. The useful insight is that you don't have to be at one level across the firm; some markets or disciplines might be at Level 6 while others are still at Level 2, and that difference is normal. A good read for anyone trying to figure out where to invest in learning next.

Click here to read the full article at Knowledge Architecture.

#4: When It's Not What You Expect

Jason Kunkel hit a Revit bug where linking to cloud models kept redirecting paths to his desktop. After exhausting the usual fixes (Revit updates, disabling add-ins, refreshing the Autodesk license), Autodesk support asked one question: do you have Windows God Mode enabled? Deleting that folder fixed it. File this one under "weird Revit gotchas worth knowing about before you waste a day." 

Click here to read the full article at Design Tech Field Guide.

#5: The Career Question That Too Few People Ask 

Behavioral scientist Danny Kenny opens with himself staring out a plane window, asking, "What is this actually for?" The piece is less self-help than a method: when work feels off, the right move is to interrogate what it's supposed to serve, not just to work harder. A useful contrast to the rest of this week's links! 

Click here to read the full article at Big Think.

That’s all from me. I hope you’re having a great week.

Michael