WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE?

THERE’S NO ONE-SIZE-FITS-
ALL DEFINITION

HOW DOES AI FIT INTO

USER EXPERIENCE?

ASPIRE AND INSPIRE WITH

DATA-DRIVEN DESIGN

WILL AI AND MACHINE

LEARNING REPLACE HUMANS?

CAN MACHINE LEARNING

AND AI BE TRUSTED?

WHAT’S NEXT? THE FUTURE

OF AI AND MACHINE LEARNING

AI DOESN’T HAVE TO COST

A FORTUNE

TRIED AND TESTED—THE

AHA! MOMENTS

THE WILD IMAGINATION

OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
1
 WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE?
THERE’S NO ONE-SIZE-FITS-
ALL DEFINITION

Imagine. That was the theme of 2022’s 3DEXPERIENCE® World, the SOLIDWORKS®
annual user conference.
WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE? THERE’S NO ONE-SIZE- HOW DOES AI FIT INTO
FITS-ALL DEFINITION USER EXPERIENCE?
Now imagine if you could save more time designing and shave off time getting
products to market. Imagine if you could discover new things, things you didn’t even Two years ago, former SOLIDWORKS CEO Gian Paolo Bassi, (now executive VP
think were possible. of 3DEXPERIENCE Works, Dassault Systèmes) was quoted in a "Design World" ASPIRE AND INSPIRE WITH
article saying, “AI doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all definition within any industry yet. DATA-DRIVEN DESIGN
Welcome to the way forward, where machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) Today, there’s a huge debate about what AI is. People say AI is machine learning, or
technology lead the way. But don’t worry, you always have the final say. In fact, you’re they say it’s related to the neural network or to neuroscience. Definitions vary.”
probably already using the technology, as machine learning and AI functionality is WILL AI AND MACHINE
embedded in many Dassault Systèmes solutions. Fast-forward to 2023: Manish Kumar is now the SOLIDWORKS CEO, and the Harvard LEARNING REPLACE HUMANS?
graduate looks at it this way: “We must first ask, what is intelligence?” He answered,
When it comes to applying machine learning and AI to design and engineering, you “The ability to accomplish a complicated goal.
can think of it like a robot vacuum cleaner that is programmed to automate a task for CAN MACHINE LEARNING
you. But AI and machine learning functionality in design software is even more clever “By reading a book, we become intelligent and start to act independently on our own. AND AI BE TRUSTED?
than an AI-powered vacuum. It does more than automate a task, as it can provide Similarly, a machine learns to develop its intelligence such that it can start to perform
design guidance and alternative solutions, leading to discoveries you might not have tasks on its own, and then that artificial machine becomes intelligent.
ever imagined. AI can also do some things not humanly possible, like calculate high- WHAT’S NEXT? THE FUTURE
dimensional data, fast. “You can think of it in the same sense when it comes to design. But it goes beyond CAD, OF AI AND MACHINE LEARNING
and can be applied to the entire design process, including conceptual design, simulation,
CAM, manufacturing, and life cycle.”
AI DOESN’T HAVE TO COST
Dr. Savant believes there are two areas where AI and machine learning come into play—in A FORTUNE
the design process and the end design. If you look at it regarding the end design, he sees
it as designing the next generation of products by using collective human knowledge
and expertise when designing products. “So as people are designing things, we don't TRIED AND TESTED—THE
want their expertise and knowledge to get lost. We want to harvest that knowledge and AHA! MOMENTS
use it for subsequent users and implement those workflow patterns into our solutions
to automate workflows.”

This is where solutions like the cloud-based 3DEXPERIENCE platform fit i nto t he
equation, because it captures all that knowledge by storing and tracking the full history
In this article, we’ll explore how machine learning and AI can help you imagine, and of the design cycle.
how you can embrace it in the design process and life cycle; its relevance in the CAD
Similarly, the SOLIDWORKS browser-based roles, like 3D Creator, embed machine
world today; and its future potential. We talked to Manish Kumar, SOLIDWORKS CEO,
learning algorithms or workflow patterns that automate tasks. For example, the Design
along with Dr. Shrikant Savant, SOLIDWORKS data analysis & science director, and
Assistant uses that knowledge to provide design guidance using AI. So, for instance,
3DEXPERIENCE Works Product Portfolio Managers Daniel McGinn and Chris Pagliarini
if you make a selection, the Design Assistant can suggest or predict what should be
to get their insights on how this technology is shaping the design industry and where
selected next, based on the work completed to this point. There are also AI tools for
it has potential.
mating and sketching to automate those tasks and help with problem-solving.
Let’s start by breaking down the technology.

2
The Wild Imagination of Artificial Intelligence
 WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE?
THERE’S NO ONE-SIZE-FITS-
ALL DEFINITION

The way McGinn sees it, machine learning is essentially the brain for AI. “So, in our case,
machine learning is the brain for the Design Assistant. And that gives us a lot of potential HOW DOES AI FIT INTO
for the Design Assistant to solve problems and make decisions.” USER EXPERIENCE?

That goes back to what Kumar said at the beginning about how intelligence is used to
accomplish a goal. In this case, the objective is to create the best product possible. But ASPIRE AND INSPIRE WITH
SOLIDWORKS believes that, to stay competitive, to stand out, you have to create not only DATA-DRIVEN DESIGN
the best product possible, but an experience.

Yes, the days of designing just for functionality and aesthetics are over. In addition, to
WILL AI AND MACHINE
having those qualities, many other factors must be taken into consideration. “Customers LEARNING REPLACE HUMANS?
aren’t just delivering a product anymore, they are delivering an experience,” said Kumar.
“They must take into account more than functionality. You must consider: Does it work?
Does it look good? Will it break? Can you recycle it?” CAN MACHINE LEARNING
AND AI BE TRUSTED?
“When you deliver an experience, you become unique. And that’s the ultimate goal of AI
in the context of design—to move from designing a product to designing an experience.”

“We want our users and our clients to stop thinking about delivering a product and to start WHAT’S NEXT? THE FUTURE
OF AI AND MACHINE LEARNING
delivering an experience,” said Kumar. “Now, what is an experience? And the simplest
possible way I can explain to you is that an experience is a moment in time that is imprinted
in your memory. To me that is an experience. Because if you think of any experience in
your life, it might be something amazing that you saw. It might be an amazing place that AI DOESN’T HAVE TO COST
A FORTUNE
you went to. It might be some amazing product that you used for the first time. These are
moments in time that get imprinted in your memory.

“In order for our clients to be able to succeed where there are multiple players out there, TRIED AND TESTED—THE
AHA! MOMENTS
delivering the same exact product won’t work. Whereas if you deliver an experience, then
you become unique. Your customers start to create a loyal bond with you, and they will
never leave you. They will always stick with you. So that's why we believe that you must
create an experience, not a product.”

“When you deliver an experience, you become unique. And that’s the ultimate goal of AI in
the context of design—to move from designing a product to designing an experience.”
— Manish Kumar
As you know, Dassault Systèmes, the 3DEXPERIENCE company, is all about the experience.
Not only do they want to enable customers to create an experience, they also want to
provide the best user experience possible through their solutions.

3
The Wild Imagination of Artificial Intelligence
 WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE?
THERE’S NO ONE-SIZE-FITS-
ALL DEFINITION

HOW DOES AI FIT INTO USER EXPERIENCE? HOW DOES AI FIT INTO
USER EXPERIENCE?
For starters, AI frees up time for you to do what you love—design, explore, and experiment!

What if you had more time to design? AI can help here because AI automates tasks,
reduces redundant activities and tedious things, such as selecting edges or working with ASPIRE AND INSPIRE WITH
mates, and frees up more time for you to focus on being creative or on the things that DATA-DRIVEN DESIGN
need more attention.

WILL AI AND MACHINE

LEARNING REPLACE HUMANS?

CAN MACHINE LEARNING

AND AI BE TRUSTED?

WHAT’S NEXT? THE FUTURE

OF AI AND MACHINE LEARNING

AI DOESN’T HAVE TO COST

“It frees up more time for engineering,” said Pagliarini. “I think one of the biggest A FORTUNE
advantages that I see today with AI is that it streamlines the repetitive nature of CAD and
makes the daily lives of designers easier.”
TRIED AND TESTED—THE
That means you have more time to work out problems, experiment, and test things out. AHA! MOMENTS

“Saving minutes or even seconds with AI could really make the difference between
making a deadline or getting a part out on time,” said Pagliarini.

Adding to this, McGinn, who works firsthand on designing the AI Design Assistant in 3D
Creator, said designers and design companies are always looking for new ways to improve
their efficiency and have a faster time to market. “That’s one of their chief concerns and
something that we're mindful of and we try to provide the best possible solutions.”

“Saving minutes or even seconds with AI could really make the difference between
making a deadline or getting a part out on time.”
— Chris Pagliarini
4
The Wild Imagination of Artificial Intelligence
 WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE?
THERE’S NO ONE-SIZE-FITS-
ALL DEFINITION

ASPIRE AND INSPIRE WITH DATA-DRIVEN DESIGN

HOW DOES AI FIT INTO
Sometimes it’s best to swap roles and let the computers handle the heavy lifting, and let the USER EXPERIENCE?
data drive the design instead of the traditional approach of the designer driving the design.

The way McGinn explained it, machine learning can be used as a method for making data- ASPIRE AND INSPIRE WITH
driven decisions and making predictions by identifying patterns and high-dimensional data DATA-DRIVEN DESIGN
that's often too complex for humans to visualize.

Pagliarini, an avid golfer, shared an example of this where Callaway Golf used machine
WILL AI AND MACHINE
learning and AI to create a golf club face, called the “Flash Face.” They let the data take the LEARNING REPLACE HUMANS?
driver’s seat using a supercomputer, which came up with design iterations—thousands of
them. The end result was the Epic Flash driver, a design they never even dreamed of that
couldn’t be conceived by a human through traditional design methods. But it wasn’t cheap. CAN MACHINE LEARNING
"Today’s Golfer" reported that Callaway used a $5 million supercomputer. AND AI BE TRUSTED?

A Callaway white paper stated that their engineers wrote the software to get the AI process
started. The computer manufacturer helped them configure the computer to work with
WHAT’S NEXT? THE FUTURE
the software, but it primarily took the engineer out of the equation. The supercomputer OF AI AND MACHINE LEARNING
worked continuously for three weeks before arriving at a design it couldn’t improve on, in
terms of ball-speed generation. It came up with more than 15,000 virtual prototypes. To
put things in perspective, it would take a conventional desktop computer 34 years to run
AI DOESN’T HAVE TO COST
this same analysis. A FORTUNE

Alan Hocknell, senior vice president of research and development, Callaway, told "Golf Digest,"
“We needed a completely different design process, essentially one that took us, the human
TRIED AND TESTED—THE
engineers, out of the loop a little bit and replaced us with a computer that could analyze
AHA! MOMENTS
the contributions of different parameters of the face at maybe a deeper level than human
engineers had been capable of. In order to do that though, we had to create the circumstance
where we could teach the computer to learn how to design a driver face by itself.”

Hocknell told "Today’s Golfer" that their motivation to explore AI came from wanting to
push the limits of how they used computer tools. They wanted to move away from their
typical approach of going with what engineering expertise would normally tell you to do.
“The challenge we set ourselves was how to break out of this design cycle and test our
human-led product development approaches that are, to some extent, getting in the way
of future thinking,” he said.

5
The Wild Imagination of Artificial Intelligence
 WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE?
THERE’S NO ONE-SIZE-FITS-
ALL DEFINITION

WILL AI AND MACHINE LEARNING REPLACE HUMANS? HOW DOES AI FIT INTO
USER EXPERIENCE?
Negative. “The designer is still the key decision-maker, even though they're entrusting
some decision-making to the AI during stages in the design process,” said McGinn.

Pagliarini added, “As far as I see it, AI and automation can replace a lot of things, but it ASPIRE AND INSPIRE WITH
cannot replace a human entirely. We see it with warehouses using robots for positions DATA-DRIVEN DESIGN
that used to be occupied by people on the factory line.”

Despite the Callaway story, “One thing that can never be replaced is the creativity of a WILL AI AND MACHINE
human,” said Pagliarini. “I got some advice back in the day that, ‘a job that will never go LEARNING REPLACE HUMANS?
away is a job that requires creativity.’ I do not see AI replacing us, but I do see it having
a significant impact on how we work.”
CAN MACHINE LEARNING
“One thing that can never be replaced is the creativity of a human.” — Chris Pagliarini AND AI BE TRUSTED?

Kumar responded to the same question above, asking the counterquestion, “What are
the areas where AI cannot help you? AI cannot help you in places where you need to WHAT’S NEXT? THE FUTURE
interact with people. AI is not going to help you be creative … And if it is an extremely OF AI AND MACHINE LEARNING
unpredictable environment, AI is not going to help you.”

Kumar agreed that AI is great for things that are extremely repetitive and mundane. It
AI DOESN’T HAVE TO COST
can augment users’ capabilities by reducing the pain of unnecessary clicks and rotations. A FORTUNE

CAN MACHINE LEARNING AND AI BE TRUSTED?

TRIED AND TESTED—THE
Ultimately, the designer has the final say. In the case of the Callaway story, sure, it can AHA! MOMENTS
open your eyes to new things and provide alternative solutions, but the results must
be tested for validation. Callaway’s findings showed that the supercomputer predicted
how the club face would deliver in terms of performance. They machined a physical
prototype based on the results and tested it, finding the computer’s prediction was
accurate within .1 percent.

However, some industry experts are skeptical and caution against relying fully on the
current AI-enabled CAD optimization tools. In their view, AI is not a simulation replacement
and results need to be verified.

The SOLIDWORKS industry experts interviewed agree. The popular consensus here is that
it’s still up to the user to verify results. When it comes down to it, nothing is ever going to
be more accurate than actual physical real-life testing.

To summarize, AI tools are designed to assist, not replace, designers and engineers. They
are tools users should take advantage of to free up more time for them to imagine, explore,
problem-solve, and be creative. 6
The Wild Imagination of Artificial Intelligence
 WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE?
THERE’S NO ONE-SIZE-FITS-
ALL DEFINITION

WHAT’S NEXT? THE FUTURE OF AI AND MACHINE HOW DOES AI FIT INTO
LEARNING USER EXPERIENCE?

Self-driving cars? Not on the mainstream market yet, but one industry rapidly adopting AI
software is the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. ASPIRE AND INSPIRE WITH
DATA-DRIVEN DESIGN
AEC professionals are using AI rapidly in their projects. Rethinking The Future reported 10
firms using AI-generated solutions based on data and computing power to facilitate better
results for processes like climate analysis and structure analysis.
WILL AI AND MACHINE
LEARNING REPLACE HUMANS?
SOLIDWORKS aims to deliver AI solutions that fit industry-specific needs. Dr. Savant said
customization by industry and functionality more tailored to a user’s workflow are key
areas of focus for the company. “The more we know about our customers' way of working,
CAN MACHINE LEARNING
the more we can help them, so it is definitely moving in the direction of customizing AI for AND AI BE TRUSTED?
a particular use or workflow,” he said.

Another key focus is to enable customers to use machine learning by applying more
WHAT’S NEXT? THE FUTURE
simulation-based results up front to explore data-driven design alternatives. OF AI AND MACHINE LEARNING

AI DOESN’T HAVE TO COST A FORTUNE

AI DOESN’T HAVE TO COST
Despite the $5 million supercomputer Callaway used, AI doesn’t have to break the bank. A FORTUNE
Sometimes you’ve got to take the leap and invest in cutting-edge technology to be
innovative and stay competitive. The investment in the supercomputer seems to be paying
off for Callaway, as their Flash Face golf club face goes for about $530. The company TRIED AND TESTED—THE
reported $3 billion in yearly earnings in 2021. AHA! MOMENTS

Dassault Systèmes doesn’t believe in a one-size-fits-all approach or a single-solution

approach in product design. That’s why they offer a variety of desktop, browser-based, and
hybrid solutions to fit a company’s needs for design, simulation, life cycle, and marketing,
based on role and industry.

AI and machine learning technology isn’t new at Dassault Systèmes. “Feature and character
recognition, which have been part of AI for many years, are part of the SOLIDWORKS
system. In fact, they’re so standard that many users may not recognize the AI component
of those features—until, for instance, they begin to type a misspelled word they use
frequently and see that word corrected automatically,” said Bassi.

7
The Wild Imagination of Artificial Intelligence
 WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE?
THERE’S NO ONE-SIZE-FITS-
ALL DEFINITION

It’s also part of SOLIDWORKS CAM, which has the capability to automatically generate a
part’s manufacturing toolpath after design. The CAM software uses the CAD models to HOW DOES AI FIT INTO
generate the toolpaths that drive computer numerically controlled (CNC) manufacturing USER EXPERIENCE?
machines. These features help engineers evaluate designs earlier in the design process
to ensure that they can be manufactured. “The toolpath captures design strategies and

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recognizes features and types of materials, so you can have a CAM solution that’s almost ASPIRE AND INSPIRE WITH

©2023 Dassault Systèmes. All rights reserved. 3DEXPERIENCE, the Compass icon, the 3DS logo, CATIA, BIOVIA, GEOVIA, SOLIDWORKS, 3DVIA, ENOVIA, EXALEAD, NETVIBES, MEDIDATA, CENTRIC PLM, 3DEXCITE,
completely automated,” said Bassi. “AI drives the way the toolpath is automatically DATA-DRIVEN DESIGN
created. You can create a toolpath in a couple of clicks. You don’t need a lot of details for
intelligent manufacturing.”

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WILL AI AND MACHINE
And as mentioned at the beginning, AI and machine learning is also available in the LEARNING REPLACE HUMANS?
3DEXPERIENCE Works design and engineering browser-based roles like 3D Creator, in
addition to some of the SIMULIA® simulation roles. They’ve even got a solution that
can be used in procurement that uses AI for product parts sourcing to make intelligent CAN MACHINE LEARNING
make-or-buy decisions and optimize supply chains. AND AI BE TRUSTED?

TRIED AND TESTED—THE AHA! MOMENTS WHAT’S NEXT? THE FUTURE

OF AI AND MACHINE LEARNING
As Dassault Systèmes is in the market of making software, they are also in the market
of testing it, heavily. Kumar shared one of those aha! moments that he and Dr. Savant Design Assistant
discovered when testing their Design Guidance functionality. “We said, 'Let’s put our
Design Guidance to work and see what kind of shape it comes back with,'” said Kumar. AI DOESN’T HAVE TO COST
Are you ready to see the Design Assistant in action? Go here to learn more. A FORTUNE

They created a scenario that involved crossing a river and needed to design a bridge, so
they used the Design Guidance technology to produce the shape of the bridge. They
entered the bridge parameters, and the Design Guidance came back with the optimal TRIED AND TESTED—THE
AHA! MOMENTS
shape on the first go-around. “We were blown away by the result because the shape it
came up with was spot-on.”

Our 3DEXPERIENCE® platform powers our brand applications, serving 11 industries, and provides a rich portfolio of industry solution experiences.
Dassault Systèmes, the 3DEXPERIENCE Company, is a catalyst for human progress. We provide business and people with collaborative virtual environments to imagine sustainable innovations. By creating ‘virtual experience
twins’ of the real world with our 3DEXPERIENCE platform and applications, our customers push the boundaries of innovation, learning and production.

Dassault Systèmes’ 20,000 employees are bringing value to more than 270,000 customers of all sizes, in all industries, in more than 140 countries. For more information, visit www.3ds.com.

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