Autodesk Assistant for Revit: AI-Powered BIM Help (and How ArchiLabs Goes Further)

In the world of Building Information Modeling (BIM), efficiency is king. Autodesk Revit users – from BIM managers to architects and engineers – are always looking for ways to save time and reduce tedious work. Recently, Autodesk introduced a new helper inside Revit’s ecosystem: Autodesk Assistant. This AI-driven assistant is designed to help users find answers and support more quickly, right within Revit’s interface. In parallel, a wave of AI tools is emerging to not only answer questions but actually execute Revit tasks automatically. In this post, we’ll explore what Autodesk Assistant for Revit is, how it’s changing the support experience, and why AI automation tools like ArchiLabs are taking things a step further by performing real work in your Revit models. We’ll look at the benefits of Autodesk’s built-in assistant and then dive into how ArchiLabs – an AI-powered platform for Revit automation – can handle tedious tasks like sheet creation, tagging, and dimensioning for you, potentially transforming your workflow.

What is Autodesk Assistant for Revit?

Autodesk Assistant is essentially an AI-powered help chatbot integrated into Revit (and other Autodesk products) to improve how you get support and answers. Autodesk’s VP of Product Development described it as an “AI-guided natural language search tool” embedded in Revit’s help system. In practical terms, it means you can ask questions in plain English (or other languages) within Revit’s help pane and get relevant answers without scouring forums or manuals yourself. The Assistant uses AI to interpret your question and then searches Autodesk’s vast knowledge base for solutions. It’s like having a smart support agent on standby inside the software.

Introduced around Revit 2023 and Revit LT 2023, Autodesk Assistant appears as a small question-mark icon or chat bubble in the lower corner of the Revit help interface. When you click it or press F1 (the help shortcut), a chat window pops up where you can type your question. The Assistant will do its best to find the answer, often suggesting help articles or troubleshooting steps. If it can’t figure out the solution, it will seamlessly hand you off to a human support option – for example, by initiating a live chat with an Autodesk support agent, letting you request a call back, or helping you create a support ticket. In other words, the Assistant tries to answer common “How do I…?” or “Why is this error happening?” questions automatically, and if it’s stumped, it connects you to real support.

Autodesk Assistant’s chat interface appears directly in Revit’s help pane (seen here in an Autodesk product). It invites you to ask questions in natural language and offers AI-suggested solutions. If it can’t resolve your issue, it will offer to connect you with a support agent.

The benefit for BIM professionals is obvious: instead of leaving Revit to Google an error message or dig through documentation, you can get help on the spot. For example, a BIM manager encountering a tricky IFC import issue can simply ask the Assistant, “How do I open an IFC in Revit?” and get a direct link to the relevant help page or instructions. An architect who forgets how to create a particular roof type could ask the Assistant and be guided to the answer. This saves time and keeps your focus within the Revit environment. Autodesk Assistant essentially serves as a bridge between you and Autodesk’s entire support knowledge base, but with a conversational interface that feels more intuitive than keyword searches.

Another advantage is the consistency and availability of support. The Assistant is available 24/7 and gives all users – regardless of experience – a first stop for help. New Revit users might use it to learn basic commands (“How do I create a sheet?”), while veterans might use it for obscure problems (“What does error XYZ mean in Revit?”). Autodesk is continually updating the Assistant to improve its answers, so it gets smarter over time as more people use it. And by keeping the Q&A inside the software, it shortens the feedback loop when you’re troubleshooting. If the Assistant finds the solution in a help article, you can click the link and read it right inside Revit’s help tab, then immediately try the solution in your model.

It’s worth noting that Autodesk has been investing in such AI-driven support tools for a while – their previous virtual agent (AVA) laid the groundwork for this integrated assistant. Now, Autodesk Assistant covers Revit and many other Autodesk products through a unified interface. You’ll find the Assistant not only inside Revit, but also on Autodesk’s website and Autodesk Account portal (look for the little “?” icon). No matter where you access it, it’s the same system working behind the scenes to understand your question and retrieve answers. This shows Autodesk’s commitment to leveraging AI to enhance customer support and user learning.

AI in BIM: From Answering Questions to Doing the Work

While Autodesk Assistant is great for getting answers, it doesn’t actually modify your Revit model or automate design tasks – that’s not its role. It might tell you how to do something, but you (or a human) still have to do it. However, the rise of AI in BIM is not limited to support and FAQs. A new class of “AI assistants” for Revit is emerging that can take action in the model itself, automating those repetitive modeling and documentation tasks that eat up so much time.

Think of all the rote tasks a BIM manager or architect does in Revit: creating dozens of sheets for a set, placing views on those sheets, tagging every room or door, dimensioning floor plans, coordinating model elements, and so on. These tasks are essential but time-consuming and rather mind-numbing. Traditionally, firms have used tools like Dynamo (visual programming for Revit) or writing custom macros/plugins to speed this up. For example, Dynamo scripts have been known to save “over 90%” of the time on batch tasks like renumbering sheets or tagging hundreds of elements. But not everyone is fluent in Dynamo or coding, and setting those up can be a project in itself.

Enter the new AI-driven automation assistants. These tools leverage advancements in natural language processing and generative AI to let you simply tell the computer what you want – and have it figure out the Revit API calls or Dynamo nodes needed to make it happen. An article in AEC Magazine recently highlighted one such tool, Pele AI, describing how it understands plain English prompts and automates tasks like tagging elements, generating views, organizing sheets, or modifying elements in Revit. The user can type something like “Make dimensions for all the rooms in this plan” or “Highlight clashes between ducts and beams in the 3D view,” and the AI assistant will execute those instructions directly in the model. This represents a big leap beyond just getting help info – the AI is actually doing the work on your behalf inside Revit.

Why is this significant? For one, it can dramatically accelerate BIM workflows. Routine tasks that normally take hours can potentially be done in minutes with an AI assistant. It also lowers the barrier to automation – you don’t need to be a programmer or BIM expert to automate something; you just describe what you need. And because the AI can handle the logic, it might also reduce human errors. For instance, if you ask it to tag all rooms, it’s not going to miss one because it got distracted – it will methodically tag them all and even ensure consistency in tag placement.

This is where ArchiLabs comes into the picture. ArchiLabs is one of the pioneers of this AI-for-Revit automation movement. It’s an AI-powered add-in for Revit that positions itself as an “AI co-pilot for architects.” The idea is that instead of manually coding or visually scripting automation, you can let ArchiLabs handle it through a smart interface. In fact, ArchiLabs claims architects can “10× their design speed with simple AI prompts” using its automation assistant. Let’s explore what ArchiLabs does and how it differs from Autodesk’s built-in assistant.

Meet ArchiLabs: AI-Powered Revit Automation Co-Pilot

ArchiLabs is a specialized add-in for Revit that focuses on automating tedious BIM tasks through AI. Unlike Autodesk Assistant – which is about answering questions – ArchiLabs is about taking direct action in your Revit model. You give it a high-level instruction, and it figures out the steps to execute it, leveraging Revit’s API under the hood. Essentially, ArchiLabs acts like a supercharged combination of Dynamo and a chat-based assistant, wrapped in a user-friendly package. It’s like having a junior BIM specialist who never gets tired, embedded in your software.

So, what kinds of tasks can ArchiLabs handle? A lot of the grunt work that BIM managers know all too well: creating and laying out sheets, generating multiple views, tagging elements throughout a project, placing dimensions uniformly, and more. These are exactly the pain points ArchiLabs targets. The platform provides pre-built automation routines for common tasks such as Sheet Creation, View Creation, Tagging, and Dimensioning, among others. For example, you could ask ArchiLabs to “Create a new sheet for each level and place all floor plan views on them, then tag all rooms and add dimensions.” A job that might take you half a day to do manually, ArchiLabs can do in a couple of minutes, with perfect consistency.

One of the key features of ArchiLabs is that it’s designed to be intuitive and accessible, even if you’re not a coder. Earlier versions of ArchiLabs offered a drag-and-drop visual interface – kind of like Dynamo but more guided – where you could build an automation by connecting functional blocks (e.g., a “Create Sheet” block, then a “Place View” block, then a “Tag Elements” block). The AI would help configure these blocks and even suggest what you might need next. However, ArchiLabs has been evolving rapidly, and it has moved toward even simpler interactions now. Today, you can interact with it largely through natural language or very minimal setup. No more node graphs if you don’t want them – the AI figures out the graph behind the scenes. In fact, ArchiLabs operates as an intelligent layer on top of Revit’s automation engines: the user never has to see Dynamo or Python code at all. As one ArchiLabs technical article explains, the tool runs on Dynamo and the Revit API under the hood, but “you as the user don’t see Dynamo at all” – the AI assembles the necessary nodes or API calls based on your request. This means you get the power of Dynamo/Python without having to write or maintain scripts yourself. ArchiLabs explicitly touts that “no Dynamo or external scripting” is needed from the user – it handles that complexity behind the scenes.

Another standout aspect of ArchiLabs is what we might call its “intelligent automation” capability. It doesn’t just blindly execute literal instructions; it has some reasoning to interpret your intent. For instance, if you tell a typical script “tag all the rooms,” it might require you to specify which tag family to use, what view to tag in, etc. ArchiLabs, on the other hand, tries to infer those details. It is focused on “intelligent” automations – it uses reasoning to fill in the gaps of your request. So if you say “Tag all the rooms,” ArchiLabs will figure out that you likely mean room tags in the floor plans; it will pick the standard room tag family, ensure that tags are placed without overlapping, and basically do what you intended, not just what you literally typed. This context-awareness is a huge time-saver. It’s like instructing a human assistant who understands the project standards and will make sensible decisions on their own.

ArchiLabs’ New Agent Mode – A BIM Assistant That Acts and Answers

The ArchiLabs team has recently introduced what they call an “Agent Mode” – effectively turning their tool into a full AI agent within Revit. In this mode, ArchiLabs can not only execute commands but also answer questions about the model, combining the functions of a support assistant and an automation tool. For example, you could ask something like, “What is the total door count on level 2?” and ArchiLabs could query the model and give you that number. Or, more powerfully, you might say, “Check this model for any untagged rooms and tag them.” In a traditional scenario, Autodesk Assistant might respond with a help article about tagging rooms. ArchiLabs’ agent, however, will take that prompt and directly perform the task in your project – it will identify any rooms without tags and actually place the appropriate tags on them automatically. As one ArchiLabs article envisions, you simply give a command and the AI “not only figures out the solution but actually runs a script to do it.” In other words, the AI agent bridges the gap between knowing and doing. It can both inform you and act for you.

Imagine how this agent mode plays out in practice for a BIM manager: It’s like having a conversation with Revit itself. You could ask, “Are there any coordination issues between the architectural and structural model?” and instead of just getting a list of possible issues to check, the AI could run a clash detection in the background (via the Revit API or an analysis engine) and give you a report or even highlight elements in the model. Or consider an architect mid-design asking, “Generate a 3D view of the lobby and place it on a new sheet for presentation.” ArchiLabs could create the view, apply a view template, create a sheet, place the view, maybe even set up a nice camera angle – all in one go. This is a radically different workflow from manually doing each step or writing a custom script for it.

It’s important to note that ArchiLabs is currently focused on Revit only (the company has explicitly said they are Revit-only for now, honing in on architects’ needs). This focus allows it to be very tuned to Revit’s quirks and capabilities. The team behind ArchiLabs comes from architecture and engineering backgrounds, and they built it specifically to address those “long tail” of tedious tasks in the architectural design process. The tool is effectively like having a Dynamo expert and a Revit API guru at your beck and call, but available to everyone on the team via a simple interface. By supporting rich interactive panels (ArchiLabs can incorporate modern web-based UI elements in its plugin interface), it also provides a nicer user experience for any custom tools it generates – for example, an ArchiLabs-generated plugin might present you with a clean dialog or form in Revit to fine-tune a task, rather than the rudimentary interfaces of older add-ins. This means firms can build internal tools with ArchiLabs that feel professional and easy to use, without having to do heavy software development themselves.

Autodesk Assistant vs ArchiLabs: Two AI Tools, Two Different Purposes

By now it’s clear that Autodesk Assistant and ArchiLabs serve very different purposes within the Revit ecosystem, even though both leverage AI. It’s worth comparing them directly to understand how a BIM manager might use each:

Autodesk Assistant for Revit is all about support and knowledge. It’s essentially an AI-enhanced help system. You ask it questions like “Why is my Revit file so slow?” or “How do I create a curtain wall?” and it will fetch answers or guide you to solutions. It’s a replacement for manually searching forums or the help manual. What it does not do is change anything in your model. Think of it as an always-available support rep or tutor inside Revit, but one that stays hands-off with your actual project data. Its biggest value is saving you time when you encounter problems or need to learn how to do something.

ArchiLabs is about action and automation in Revit. You “ask” ArchiLabs to perform a task for you (“Generate sheets and views”, “Tag all doors according to standards”, etc.) and it goes and executes those changes in the model. It doesn’t just tell you how or give advice – it delivers results. In fact, ArchiLabs could even use something like Autodesk Assistant as a source of knowledge (for instance, ArchiLabs might know the best practice for a task from help resources), but then it actually applies that knowledge to your project. ArchiLabs is more of a doer, whereas Autodesk Assistant is a guide.

To illustrate: Suppose you want to label all the rooms in a complex building model. If you use Autodesk Assistant, you might ask “How do I tag all rooms automatically?” The Assistant might answer with a step-by-step: it could point you to a Revit help article or suggest using a Dynamo script or an add-in, and if you struggle, it will offer to connect you to support. On the other hand, if you have ArchiLabs, you could simply say to it, “Tag all the rooms in the project,” and it will understand and carry out the command right away – creating tags in each room on each relevant view, in accordance with your standards (choosing the right tag family, avoiding duplicates, etc.). The difference is night and day in terms of immediate productivity.

It’s also worth noting integration and scope. Autodesk Assistant is built by Autodesk and integrated into many of their platforms; it’s not specific to Revit content (it can assist with any Autodesk product question, and it doesn’t have deep knowledge of your particular Revit model). ArchiLabs, conversely, hooks directly into your live Revit model via the API, so it has full access to model data and can manipulate it. ArchiLabs is a third-party solution (a startup in the Y Combinator accelerator built it), so it’s not pre-installed – you’d typically add it as a plugin. Many forward-thinking BIM managers are starting to experiment with ArchiLabs or similar AI automation plugins, whereas Autodesk Assistant is available to anyone on subscription by default.

From a BIM manager’s perspective, these tools can actually complement each other. Autodesk Assistant can help your team resolve issues and learn features faster, reducing downtime spent on support queries. Meanwhile, ArchiLabs can help your team actually produce documentation faster and with fewer errors, reducing overtime spent on deadlines. Both tools address “efficiency” but in different dimensions – one is efficiency in finding information and the other is efficiency in accomplishing tasks.

Why ArchiLabs Raises the Bar for Revit Workflows

It’s clear that ArchiLabs and similar AI automation tools represent a new frontier in how we work with BIM software. Let’s summarize why a tool like ArchiLabs can be a game-changer, especially compared to traditional methods (or even compared to relying solely on Autodesk Assistant):

Massive Time Savings on Tedious Tasks: Revit power-users have long known the value of macros or Dynamo scripts to shave hours off repetitive work. ArchiLabs takes this to another level by making those automations accessible to everyone. Tasks like sheet setup, view creation, tagging, dimensioning – which could consume days on a large project – can be done in minutes with ArchiLabs. One user scenario claimed that architects could potentially “10× their design speed” by offloading grunt work to AI. Even if you achieve a fraction of that, it’s still a huge win in time saved.

Improved Consistency and Quality: When an AI assistant handles the repetitive documentation tasks, it does so consistently every time. Sheets get named and numbered following the exact rules, tags are placed systematically, dimensions follow the standard style – no human lapses or Friday afternoon mistakes. ArchiLabs, for instance, is designed to not just do tasks faster but also enforce standards and best practices automatically. This means fewer QA/QC errors down the line. A BIM manager can encode firm standards into ArchiLabs’ automations, and trust that they’ll be applied uniformly, which is harder to ensure when multiple humans are doing manual work.

No Need for Coding or Visual Scripting Expertise: One of the biggest barriers to widespread automation in BIM has been the skill required. Dynamo and the Revit API are powerful but not every firm has people comfortable using them. ArchiLabs removes that barrier by handling the technical heavy lifting itself. It leverages Dynamo and Python behind the scenes, but the user never has to touch them. You can build quite sophisticated automation routines just by describing your goal or by piecing together a few high-level blocks in a simple interface. This democratizes automation – even a small firm without a dedicated “BIM programmer” can use ArchiLabs to automate tasks.

Rich, User-Friendly Experience: ArchiLabs allows building internal plugins that can include modern, web-like interfaces. While this might sound minor compared to its AI capabilities, it’s actually a big deal for adoption. Traditional custom Revit add-ins often have clunky dialogs, and Dynamo graphs aren’t exactly user-friendly for the average designer. In contrast, ArchiLabs can present interactive forms or dashboards (powered by web tech under the hood) for any tools you create, making them easy for end-users to interact with. For example, if you set up an ArchiLabs routine for sheet creation, you might have a nice window pop up asking which levels to create sheets for, with checkboxes and dropdowns – rather than expecting the user to edit a script. This lowers the friction for your team to actually use the automation, increasing the likelihood that you’ll reap the benefits.

Continuous Learning and AI Improvement: Being an AI-driven system, ArchiLabs can improve over time. The more you use it and provide feedback, the smarter it gets in understanding your intents and preferences. The ArchiLabs team is likely fine-tuning their models with more architectural data, meaning the assistant gets better at architectural reasoning as it goes (for example, it might learn how to better lay out views on a sheet in an aesthetically pleasing way, or how to interpret more complex multi-step requests). Autodesk Assistant also improves but primarily in answering support queries; ArchiLabs’ improvements directly translate to doing your work faster or better.

Finally, ArchiLabs’ new agent mode points to a future where your BIM software might feel almost like a collaborator. Instead of clicking dozens of buttons, you might be having a dialogue with your BIM “co-pilot” – part command line, part conversation. We’re already seeing hints of this future: ask ArchiLabs to perform a task, and it not only executes it, but could also explain what it did or ask you clarifying questions if needed (e.g., “I tagged all rooms; do you also want me to tag doors and windows?”). This kind of intelligent back-and-forth could drastically streamline workflows that currently require a lot of human decision-making and manual checking.

Embracing the AI-Augmented Workflow

The introduction of Autodesk Assistant in Revit and the rise of tools like ArchiLabs are both signs of a broader trend: AI is becoming an integral part of the AEC toolkit. For BIM managers, architects, and engineers, this is great news. It means that help is always at hand – whether you need a quick answer or you need an entire task taken care of – and much of the drudgery of model management can be lifted off your shoulders.

Autodesk Assistant for Revit represents Autodesk’s commitment to enhancing user support with AI. It’s a handy tool that every Revit user should be aware of, especially when encountering problems or learning the software. On the other hand, ArchiLabs showcases what’s possible when you push AI further into the core of how we work: not just answering questions, but directly manipulating the building model per our intent.

For those in the industry, now is the time to pay attention to these AI developments. If you’re a BIM manager, consider how an AI automation tool could standardize and accelerate your team’s workflows (imagine shaving off days from each project’s documentation phase). If you’re an architect or engineer, think about the mundane tasks you’d happily never do again – because that’s where AI can help you, letting you focus on creative and high-value work. And if you’re responsible for training or support, tools like Autodesk Assistant can shorten the learning curve for new staff and reduce frustrating downtime.

In summary, Autodesk Assistant and ArchiLabs are two sides of the AI coin in Revit: one helps you get answers and support faster, the other helps you produce work faster. Both can make life easier for Revit users. The era of AI-powered BIM is just beginning, and early adopters of these technologies (like those using ArchiLabs’ co-pilot for automation) are likely to gain a competitive edge in efficiency and innovation. By embracing these tools, AEC professionals can reclaim time and energy to put back into design excellence, coordination, and truly impactful work – while the AI takes care of the boilerplate. The future of Revit workflows is here, and it’s looking smarter already.