184: ‘Chaos Evolves’, with Stephan Sieber and Bill Allen

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Evan Troxel (00:07):
Welcome back to the TRXL Podcast.
I'm Evan Troxel, and in this episode Iwelcome Stephan Sieber and Bill Allen.
Stephan is the CEO of Chaos,and Bill is the newly minted
director of products at Chaos.
Previously he served as the CEO andPresident of EvolveLab, which was
acquired by Chaos in early 2025.

(00:29):
I could have recorded this episodesooner and gotten Stephan or Bill,
but I really wanted them both onthe show at the same time to discuss
the recent merger between Chaos andEvolveLab today we go inside the merger.
Stephan and Bill join me to talkabout the synergies, innovations, and
strategic rationale behind the union.
We'll find out how and why thesetwo companies are combining forces.

(00:52):
We'll talk about tools from AI renderingwith Veras to innovative tools like
Glyph and Envision, change in theindustry, and among the many fascinating
topics that we covered, I want tofocus a little bit more on complacency.
It affects us all a little bitdifferently, some more than others.
And my key takeaway fromthis episode is clear.
You have to stay current with rapidlyevolving technology and master its use.

(01:17):
The AEC industry will lookvastly different in five years.
That's just my hot take, so you need toeither get ahead of that change or at
least keep up the pace at a bare minimum.
What's exciting is that today'ssmall teams can achieve extraordinary
results as EvolveLab has quitespectacularly shown us with what
they've done in creating valuable tools.

(01:39):
But it also applies topractitioners of course.
So stay tuned until the end whereI'll provide a summary of my thoughts.
This was a great conversation with Stephanand Bill, and there's an extensive amount
of additional information in the shownotes as usual, so be sure to check
those out there in your podcast app.
If you're a paid member or ifyou're a free member, you can find

(02:00):
them on the website at trxl.Co.
And now without further ado, Ibring you my conversation with
Stephan Sieber and Bill Allen.
Bill, welcome back to the podcaston your part Bill and welcome

(02:21):
for the first time, Stephan,

Stephan Sieber (02:23):
Thank you.
Thanks for having us.

Bill Allen (02:24):
Thanks Evan.

it's,
it's always fun negotiating who's gonnatalk when there's multiple guests and
we're all in remote location, so I willdo my best to like actually point it
at one of you to, to make this happen.
Um, but Stephan, let's start withyou because you're the, you're the
new guest on the show, but also Ithink, you know, the news that we're
kind of sharing today and also theconversation that we're gonna have.

(02:46):
I'm sure has a lot to do with,with you as the CEO at Chaos.
And so maybe you can give us.
a bit of a background.
Uh, we met at Autodesk University at theend of last year in San Diego, and I had
gone into a small meeting booth with,with you and Christian, the former CEO of
Chaos, and Phil Miller, who has been onone of my other shows, uh, who is a 3D

(03:12):
studio, max Guru, works at Chaos now, um,has been in the industry for a long time.
And I was going in there thinking Iwas gonna ask you guys some questions,
but it was actually quite the opposite.
I, I was told later by Roderick Bates,who has also been on the show, that
you were given a dossier on me ahead oftime and you were asking me a bunch of

(03:33):
questions because of the work that I dohere on the podcast and the guests that
I interview and just kind of my senseof what was going on in the industry.
And so I'll just use that little story asa kickoff here, but it's great to have you
and, and if you want to jump in and tellus kind of your trajectory to becoming
the CEO of Chaos, I would love to hear it.

Stephan Sieber-1 (03:50):
Very happy to do that.
Um, uh, look, I came on board, um, uh,at Chaos on the very beginning of 2020.
Um, uh, four originallyas the exec chairman.
Uh, and then in summer, uh, last year, onthe 1st of August, I took over as the CEO.
Um, I came on board after a longcareer in traditional B2B Tech,

(04:11):
so mainly enterprise applications.
I've done a fair amount of ERP,enterprise resource planning.
I've been the CEO of adigital freight platform.
And when I got in touch with, um,our board about this opportunity
here at Chaos, I originally saidlike, this is probably not the right
opportunity for me because it'sa new application space for me.
Um, and that's why we sort of chosen thisway for me to get into the business as an

(04:34):
exec chair, have an opportunity to workalongside Christian, my, my predecessor.
Really get to know the space,get to know the business.
And I've realized, and I thinkwe've realized that there's a quite
a few things in common, right?
We serve professionals.
We, we serve architects, we servearchitecture firms, uh, many
smaller ones, but also quite anumber of large architecture firms.

(04:58):
And a lot of our go forward and,and, and go forward priority and
strategy is about verticalizingour software for the AEC industry.
And what I mean with verticalizingis really providing technology
that helps our customers tocreate value for their customers.
Um, so as I say, help them to do fasterdesign, smarter sales, better builds,

(05:20):
um, to cover more parts of the designworkflow beyond classic visualization.
And, and hopefully this, you know, givesus a good segue into many interesting
topics to touch on amongst others.
Um, the combination ofEvolveLab and Chaos.

All right, bill, it's your turn.
Welcome back to the show.
I'll put a link to.
your previous episode, which was avery early episode on the podcast
in the show notes, And then your.
I don't know how, how doyou describe what Ben does?
Ben?
Ben is like the Swiss Army knifeof EvolveLab and now Chaos.
Right.
And, and so he's been on the show,uh, he's been on the Confluence show

(05:56):
as well, talking about Veras andGlyph and all these different tools
that you guys have been building.
But give us kind of the, the quickupdate on your story since, I mean, it's
probably been three or four years sinceyou've been on the show at this point.
So tell, tell us what's happenedin the, in the meantime.

Bill Allen (06:13):
Yeah, I'd be happy to.
And it, it would be a goodsegue to, to Ben's intro too.
So I'll try to do him somejustice here, uh, as well.
So my background actually is notin software, not in consulting, uh,
backgrounds actually in architecture.
So I worked, uh, for a lot of years,uh, doing traditional architecture
practice, working on projects, et cetera.
Uh, naturally gravitated tothe design technology side.

(06:35):
Uh, saw a lot of gaps in the industryand opportunities to try to help
architects and engineers and contractors.
So, started at EvolveLab in2015 as a data-driven design
and BIM consulting company.
And then, uh, naturally saw anopportunity to start developing,
you know, solutions, apps forarchitects, engineers and contractors.
But I didn't know how to do that myself.

(06:55):
I was, was not a programmer.
I did some dynamo scripting,some grasshopper scripting,
but never, you know, I.
Legit CA, you know, add-insor anything like that.
And so I needed, uh, someone, you know,to kind of be a right wing person to help
me with that and, you know, compliment,uh, skills that I did not have.
And so, uh, that was when I brought onBen Gula, who, uh, was our, our CTO and,

(07:19):
and, EvolveLab to be a, a partner inuh, we started building out, you know,
apps that we would've wanted when wewere doing traditional architecture,
um, which I'm sure we'll get into, youknow, automating construction documents
and data-driven design and, and such.
So, um, anyways, we broughton Benji in, uh, 2019.
Uh, realized he was a spec, prettyspecial individual, I think as all

(07:42):
of us know, um, and crazy smart guy.
And so anyways, uh.
Since then, we started building outdifferent products, um, and some of
which I think were in the space, Evan,when I was on the show last time, but
maybe some other ones that, that weren'tin probably some more advancements.
And so, uh, we were trying to, youknow, touch different verticals

(08:02):
throughout the architectural designprocess, whether it was, you know,
schematic design, uh, all the waythrough, uh, construction documentation.
So, um, yeah, I'd be happy togo down any one of those trails
you want, but I'll let you

So there was no word of this, uh, coming together at au last year.
I'm sure you guys weretalking about it, though.
I'm sure this has been kindof in the making for a while.
Uh, and so, so nobody ledon that this was going on.
Um, and so I was surprised, butalso happy about it because,
and, and I guess Stephan, let's,let's jump back to you here.
A lot has happened with Chaos in theAEC space in the last couple of years.

(08:41):
Let's call it, uh, from my awareness andmy perception, um, you know, in the press,
but also just the show floor kind of.
Experience that you guys create.
You've released Envision, nowyou've acquired EvolveLab and
their Veras platform among theother offerings that they have.
you've done the, a big Enscapeacquisition as Chaos and before your time.

(09:04):
Right.
But this was a, a, another kind of bigplay into the AEC space more specifically.
And so maybe you can just give us kind ofan idea of why that's important to Chaos.

Well, it is, it is important.
So I, the way we look at the, uh,the acquisition of Enscape was
pro, probably more of a merger.
Um, putting, putting two companiestogether that had a lot of, you know,
complementary aspects to each other.
Um, and, and already original Chaos,meaning before the merger with Enscape
had a big, big chunk of its business beingdone in vis architecture, visualization.

(09:40):
And, and for me, that'sarchitecture as well.
Right.
I understand that some of the techniquesand some of the technology and some
of the, the methods used are alsoused in other parts of visualization
such as VFX or even consumer products.
But you know, when you think about thevalue chain, and again, it's, it's a lot
about for whom are we creating value?

(10:01):
Whose problem are we solving?
Well then, you know, solving theproblem of putting a physical
structure into reality is a differentproblem that you're solving.
That entertaining peopleor then designing a car.
Or launching a car.
Um, so, so there was already in, in,in, in, in Chaos before, uh, those
acquisitions and that merger, a, a, afair amount of AEC, and obviously with

(10:25):
Enscape, which is 100% AEC, and now mostrecently also with, you know, EvolveLab
in some of the other, um, um, organicinnovations such as envisions, et cetera.
We're making, we're making moreand more steps into the AEC space.
W why is this important?
Well, look, it's a large market.
It's a market that we feelis still underserved with

(10:49):
state-of-the-art technologycompared to some other industries.
It is a very fragmented market.
There's a lot of, you know, differenttechnologies around, it's a lot of
different players around, and it's amarket that goes through profound change,
uh, from multiple different angles, right?
Um, um, what we just look at what itmeans to build buildings today and,

(11:13):
and, and what the requirements are andthe cost that in that is involved, but
also sustainability aspects, the rolethat architects play, uh, the number of
specialized jobs and roles that need tocome together to realize such a project.
So we feel there is a tremendous amountfor better technology support, uh, more

(11:36):
modern technology support to help, uh,creative people, designers, architects
in this industry to do their job better.
And, and we feel that wecan play a role in this.

Yeah.
it's, it's interesting because Ithink, about from the firm side of
things, because I'm an architect, Icome from the practice side, like Bill
as well, and thinking about buildingtools versus buying tools is something
that even architects deal with.
And, and you're talking about it ata kind of a different scale, right?
And, um, filling gaps that you haveas, as Chaos over time with these

(12:09):
other technologies that other peoplehave brought well beyond, you know,
just kind of a MVP level, right?
Like these are proven.
Pieces of software there, lots ofarchitects are already using them.
Um, is, I mean, you're, you'reobviously doing a lot of
internal development as well.
You're doing somebuilding and some buying.

(12:29):
Can you kind of just talk aboutthe difference of why you would
pick one versus the other tofill these different holes?
Or what may, maybe it has to do withthe expertise that already exists at
Chaos and you really wanna acquirethe talent so that, so that you can
continue to build these things becauseI, I, I have to say it right, there's
a lot of people out there who are alsoconcerned every time they see something
like this happen, because many timesproducts get bought and then killed.

(12:53):
Right.
So maybe you could just talk aboutlike the, the choice to build versus
buy at, at your organization's

I think, I think you touched on one of the most important
points, it's skills and talent, right?
Be because if you think about a technologycompany and that, that, that doesn't
really matter what type of technologyyou, you, you talk about, it's, you
know, as I say, sometimes softwareis nothing but canned talent, right?
It's basically creativity and experience.

(13:20):
And, And, and, and, and, and, knowledgeof individuals that we somehow, you
know, in, in the good old times, weburned it on a cd and in the meantime
it's somewhere up in the cloud.
Right.
But, but it's basically likecorned beef, it's canned talent.
Right.
And, um, and there
is only, there's only so much you andyour, your, your team, your staff knows.

(13:41):
Right.
And let's also be clear, I mean,Chaos is a small company, right?
I, I, I, I know that, you know, we'vegrown and we're proud about our growth,
but we're still a company with, intotal roughly 750 employees compared
to some of the other, you know, largerplayers in the technology industry.
We're, we're a small company.

(14:01):
We're also a very focused company, right?
It's about, it's about eight.
It's more than 80% ofour business that is in.
Of our core business that is in AECthat is around architecture, right?
Um, so, so we're, we are quite focused.
Even though we play on a globalscale, we serve customers of many
different, you know, segments likefrom very small, even freelance

(14:22):
or up to fairly large enterprises.
But what, we're quite afocus focused business.
So, so I think that gives us anopportunity to be very specific on, you
know, where we have a chance to exceland accelerate with the, the knowledge,
the talent, the resources, the experiencewe have, the technology that we own and

(14:44):
that we understand and, and where itis easier and faster for us to partner.
And, and as I say, an acquisitionis nothing but a very, very deep.
And sort of never endingform of a partnership, right?
That's the way I look at this.
Um, so, so this this acquisition ofEvolveLab, and that's why I personally

(15:05):
rather talk about bringing the companiestogether or merging them because,
you know, bill and Ben and, and theirteam and EvolveLab, the technology
and the customers and the experienceand the talent that is in there.
This is not about us swallowing them.
This is about us coming together becausewe're ultimately convinced that we can
do something together that each of uscouldn't do or couldn't do as easy and

(15:28):
as fast as we can do, uh, together.

so Bill, you're, you're nodding vigorously.
I might add for those who can't seethis on who are listening so Bill,
I mean, when, when it comes to.
Merging, coming together with Chaos.
Tell the audience what that meansfor, I mean, let's, if, if, if
Stephan says Chaos is A smallcompany, let's talk about EvolveLab.

(15:54):
So you could talk about that.
Like just, just when this, when, whenthey approach you or you approach them.
I don't know how it happened, but,but like obviously there's, there was.
a lot of kind of feeling that out thatyou went through to kind of really feel
like if it was the right thing or not.
But to Stephan's point, right?
It's like adding fuel to, in resourceswise, to what EvolveLab could do.

(16:17):
I mean, that had to also be reallyenticing to, to see that you could make
maybe a larger impact in the industry.

Bill Allen (16:22):
A hundred percent.
Yeah, that's what it was.
So for a lot of people that are thinkingabout starting their own company, I'd
like to say it's, it's a very romanticizedidea that you have in your, your head.
And then, you know, when the, the bootsat the ground or the tire hits the road,
you know, there's, uh, a lot of just gruntwork that you have to start coordinating.
You know, there's payroll andproposals and HR and handbooks

(16:45):
and all of this kind of stuff.
And what I started to realize is, youknow, you kind of as a, as a business
owner or or founder, you get suckedinto a lot of those kinds of things and
supporting your team and making surethat they're, you know, taken care of.
And then your team kind of gets to workon the fun stuff, um, which is great.
And, but for us specifically, youknow, we didn't raise money, uh.

(17:06):
We're a hundred percentbootstrapped company.
Um, and so basically all of our r andd uh, came from our services revenue.
You know, we reinvested thatservices revenue into the
products that we developed.
And so we kind of saw thisopportunity with Chaos.
Uh, you know, twofold is one, it selfishlywas an opportunity for me to get back

(17:28):
to the craft and the things that I love.
And then we can, you know,there's people at Chaos that are.
Uh, ex it's their job to coordinate HR andpayroll and it's great they can do that.
But then, you know, for the end users andfor our customers and for everyone else,
the opportunity is that we get to nowreally amplify, you know, the technology.
Uh, we're working on some really funand what we think, you know, is very

(17:50):
innovative, uh, processes, but there's,uh, a cap to, you know, gasoline in the,
in the tank and the amount of resourcesthat we had prior to the acquisition.
Um, again, with us being ahundred percent bootstrapped.
So what we saw as an opportunity withChaos is really to start amplifying
that innovation and then also gettingthe technology into end user's hands,

(18:11):
more people, you know, would be ableto be aware of the technology, be
able to benefit from the technology.
Um, and so it's really, you know, that'show I kind of saw the opportunity,
both from a selfish standpoint,but also for the industry as well.
And so that's where we seesome really great synergy.
We.
Stephan and I talked a lot, youknow, prior to this and this idea

(18:31):
of, of one plus one equals three.
You know, it's not just, uh, you know,you take the two things, they're, they're,
they're more to, they're better together.
And so that's where we reallysee, uh, an opportunity to really
take things to the next level.
Now with, uh, both the kind ofwhat we're, uh, been building, but
also with the resources of Chaos.

Can you talk about kind of the.
What the right word is here,but the, the, the idea that,
I mean, you picked a partner
and I'm curious why you, you,maybe there were other options,
maybe there weren't on the table,but, but there, there's definitely
like the players in our industry.
I'm curious why you felt likethis was the right fit for you

(19:14):
guys and, and maybe even why now?

Bill Allen (19:16):
Yeah, I'd be happy.
So we were never, you know,really looking to sell.
Like we never went to some brokeragecompany and put ourselves on,
we always had, um, it was crazy.
We've always had people thathave approached us, but never
really seemed like the right fit.
And so, um, the, the mainthing that was really important
to us, uh, was two things.
Was one, the synergy, which I wasjust describing a, a, a second

(19:40):
ago, but then also the culture.
And so from the moment we met Stephan,um, and his team, uh, Yor and Roderick,
and the whole group, uh, Vlado, everyonehas just been amazing, uh, to work.
There's this very natural chemistry,you know, almost like when you're
dating your spouse and you're,you're trying to find a partner.
It's very much like thatbecause, you know, as Shahan Mess

(20:02):
mentioned, like it's a, it's a.
Long-term relationship, you know, you're,you're getting married to somebody and so
you wanna make sure it's, it's a good fit.
And from the moment we, wetalked to them, it was just this
natural chemistry that occurred.
And so the relationship was very importantto us in addition to, you know, the
synergy because you wanna make sure, uh,post, you know, acquisition and all of

(20:24):
that, that you're going to, you know,get along and everyone's gonna play.
And yes, you have friction with anyrelationship you have, we have with
our partners or friends or anything.
Um, but you know, the, the chemistrythere helps you get over that.
And so we, we saw a very naturalfit there and talking to them,
and we really like them a lot.
They're very likable, uh,people, the whole team.

(20:44):
And I can't tell you, like when we joined,like I got so many LinkedIn messages and
email, you know, welcome to the team.
We're so excited you're here.
So it just kind of ver furthervalidated that, um, after we
came on board, uh, as well.
So that, that was just importantto us, you know, uh, in
addition to the synergy piece.

Well, Stephan, let's go back to you and just talk about what
was really enticing about what EvolveLabwas doing, is doing, continues to
do, and, and what maybe where, whereyou see that going in the future.

I, I can echo many things that, that
Bill has just mentioned, right?
Equally for us as, as the acquirer, uh, oras the other partner in this, in this, in
this marriage, um, the culture andthe personal fit matters, right?
Because as I said before, you know,there is, there is a fair amount,
a fair percentage of this, of this,um, um, investment is really bringing

(21:37):
talent and bringing creativityand experience into our team.
The second strong pillar is really that,what I call the strategic rationale.
When you look at what EvolveLabdoes, uh, across the, I'd say
the four larger products, right?
Ve certainly being the most popularone, but then also Gly, Morpheus,

(21:57):
helix, um, and, and, and then yousort of put them into a logical value
chain, simplified value chain of how.
You know, architects and the AECindustry work, then, then, then I
think everybody can see that we're,we're very adjacent to each other.
But there's actually in that,that's a positive thing.
There is, there is little overlap, right?

(22:18):
We're, we're really expanding,extending each other's capabilities.
And that's why this strategic rationalewas like from, from the initial,
you know, view already quite, quiteattractive and sort of, you know, very,
very logically explained why one andone in this case can really be three.

(22:39):
Um, then we talked to a lot ofcustomers, um, um, we talked to a
lot of uh, uh, EvolveLab customers.
We talk to a lot of our customers.
We talk to industry experts and youknow that that visit in San Diego and
I think fair, it's fair to say Bill.
Yes, we were talking indeed.
Actually, I think even.
The hour before or rightafter our conversation in

(23:00):
the very same romantic booth.
I had a meeting with Bill and
Ben

I

where we,

wouldn't, call it

Bill Allen (23:06):
did you have
candles in your booth?
Evan?

that we didn't have

Bill Allen (23:09):
Oh, okay.

I had a
bottle of water.

So we had, we had a meeting and I think that was
the first time we met in person.
Right?
We did talk, we did talk on the phone, onthe phone and video conference before, but
we spent a lot of time really figuring outlike, how, how would we do this together?
Um, how would we do this in a way that,you know, this is not becoming one of
those stories where big swallows, smalland small, disappears and evaporates.

(23:37):
But this is
really something wherecustomers, customers, um, and,
and our existing users, right?
Let's be down to the individual, thepeople who use our technology every day.
Uh, day in, day out, in, in, in,in, in fulfilling their mission
where they see a value and wherethey can get excited about this.
Right?
And, and through these discussions,we, we just realized that there is a

(24:00):
lot of common beliefs and there lotof common convictions and a lot of
common frustrations with how thingsshould work and could work if, if,
if we would have more talent andmore resources and more capacity.
And, and then, and then we felt,look, this is still a challenge.
It's still a big opportunityand you don't get it for free.
There is a lot of work goinginto this and that will continue.

(24:22):
But we, we, we ultimately came tothe point where I think we all felt,
um, it, it's easier for us to do thistogether, uh, and it will still be fun.
Um, and that's why I think we then we thenwe then came to the point where we started
to talk about commercials and terms andconditions and everything, which is.
Obviously this is an importantproject for all of us and, and, and,

(24:43):
and it has, its, its, its its place.
But I am, I'm a firm believer thatif you have culture and a strong
strategic rationale, you have afair chance to overcome the legal
groundwork and the commercials.
If you only have legal groundwork incommercials, but the culture and the
strategic rationale are not strongenough, then it will, or it can

(25:04):
easily be one of those cases that,you know, people probably point out
in MBA case studies about m and aprojects that didn't work out right.

Can you define commercials?
I've never heard that term
in this context before.

price, right.
When you acquire a company,you need to pay money for it.
You don't get it for free,
unfortunately.
Right.

it's based on the word commerce.
I get it, I get it

Yeah.
Sorry

commercial in in the US is, I'm, I'm watching.
It's, it's, it's getting in the way ofmy television show that I'm watching or

And forgive, like, uh, that's probably my
non-native, my non-native, um,um, uh, abuse of your language.

No worries, no worries.
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And now let's get backto the conversation.
Okay.
So I wanna share a quick story herebecause I think this kind of speaks to

(26:47):
the culture, um, that I've experiencedwith both of your companies and, and
it has to do with even just at thelast and I'm in a, in a privileged
position to be able to, to tell thisstory that when I go to the Chaos booth.
Roderick and Dan Monaghan are there tokind of say, Hey, come, come back here.

(27:08):
I want to show you some stuff.
Right?
And, and the, the way that, that yourtwo companies do it is different, right?
I think with, with Chaos it's, it'smore of a here's, here's a, we've
already thought of this slide show.
Here's what we're going to show you.
And, and Dan usually isthe one leading that.
And, and Roderick is sitting thereand they're both asking questions.

(27:30):
What do you think about that?
What do you think about, is this useful?
What?
Whatever.
But I, but I like the whole like,come, come, I wanna show you something.
And then I go to theEvolveLab booth, right?
And, and you talked aboutBen Guler earlier, and Ben's
like, Hey, come over here.
I, I wanna show you this, I wantto get your, your thoughts on
this, or I wanna show you what'scoming, or whatever, whatever it is.
And so, like I said, it's a, it's a bit ofa privilege position to be in, but at the

(27:52):
same time, you're both doing it and you'reboth doing it because you want to get a
genuine reaction of somebody who's in theindustry because you're excited about the
tools you're building, you're wondering ifyou're going the right direction, right?
It's like, are is this right?
Is this what, what do you think?
What's your sense about this?

(28:13):
And that's valuable becausethere's a lot of companies out
there who never ask, right?
And they just throw something out there.
And we all know who the kinds ofcompanies we're that I'm talking
about right now, but it's like.
The big reveal, and it's like, well,I would've, as a, as a practitioner, I
would've maybe done that differently.
And, and so there's less involvement,I will say, with the industry of the

(28:37):
decision making process when tools arebeing developed before releasing them.
So I wanted to share that becauselike, it really does speak to
kind of this fit in culture.
You guys are both doing it and you'regonna continue to do it like that, I
assume, because that's how you operate.
And to me, as a partner in the industry,with the industry itself, I think that

(29:00):
there's some reassurance there forthe audience, but also, you know, your
customers, that that really is a fit.
Um, I'm curious now, bill andStephan moving forward, EvolveLab
developed tools that I don't think wewould've ever seen come from Chaos.
Right?
Like I am thinking of, of glyphand you know, like really deep

(29:21):
kind of automation type stuff thathappens inside larger platforms
that aren't your, you know, right.
These, these are, these are toolsbuilt to plug into, like, not,
not unlike the visualizationstuff, but not like it either.
So I'm just curious froma product standpoint.
Right.
Bill, what's your new title at Chaos?

Bill Allen (29:40):
Director of products, I think is my

yeah.
So, so I mean, you're, you're now inthe position of making decisions about
the kinds of products that Chaos putsout into the world, and you've already
made those decisions earlier withEvolveLab, with the types of tools
that you're putting out into the world.
I'm wondering if that changes, butI'm also wondering, like you, you,
you talked earlier, Stephan, aboutverticalization, but there's also kind

(30:05):
of a horizontalization going on within.
The AEC industry itself of offeringa wider range of tools now through
acquisition, but also through development.
And so I I'm gonna throwthis to both of you.
Somebody, you guys can arm wrestlevirtually about who's gonna go first,
but like, what's the thinking behindthis and, and this side of, of the story.

Bill Allen (30:27):
basically, you know, a lot of the tools that we build at EvolveLab
are tools that we would've wanted, um,
as mentioned.
So we have an assumption, uh, becausewe've been in practice and we see a lot
of the, you know, ditches and the veryfragmented process that Stephan, you know,
had mentioned earlier in the industry.
And so, uh, I think both of uskind of see the world the same way.

(30:49):
Some people look at a problemand they go, well, that sucks,
and they move on with their life.
Um, we kind of look at a problem and wego, man, it'd be cool if you know someone
created an interoperability tool for thisissue, or if there was some way to, you
know, automate construction documents.
And so we try.
to build out those tools, but,you know, it's also a very small
industry and you also want, youknow, feedback as you mentioned

(31:10):
in trying to get that validation.
Um, and so that's kind ofhow we look through the.
Through the lens, you know,through our worldview and
in, in the industry at large.
Uh, and then regarding, uh, you know,the integration that one plus one
equaling three with Chaos, uh, I, Iwould let Stephan, you know, comment
on this and, and validate this, butas we've gotten more acclimated with

(31:31):
the Chaos team, we understand thatthat's part of the bigger vision.
Uh, Chaos has been known, you know,for a very long time to be the experts,
the leaders in visualization, um, butalso realizes there's great opportunity
for all these different, um, youknow, lanes within the, the, the
project process and, and life cycle.
Not just visualization, butthere's other problems that also

(31:53):
we should be trying to solve.
And so I think that's where that, thatsynergy, both of us kind of saw that.
But Stephan, I'll letyou, you comment on that.

Yeah.
No.
So happy to b before I, before Ianswer that, I, I'd like to say thank
you, Evan, for, for that feedback.
Um, this is for me as the CEO ofthis company, and I think as I'm
speaking for many of us, or forall of us, that this is, I'd very
much like to hear this, right?
This is, this is great that, that'show a technology company should

(32:22):
work with its customers, right?
Be curious, be passionate, and, and benever, never, you know, never stopping
to ask questions and try to understandhow we can create more value for the
people
we serve, right?
And that's why, and, and the secondpart of my answer I want to give is
that vertical versus horizontal, right?
When I talk about verticalsoftware, I'm talking about

(32:43):
industry specific software that
supports the core people, the corefunctions in an architecture firm, AEC

Mm-hmm.

in our, case, right?
Um, as compared to horizontal software,that which is important technology,
like a payroll, an hr, human resourcessystem, which is, which is just not the
core process of an a
EC company right?
now.
If you play in that vertical space,um, then, then it comes with a few

(33:13):
opportunities, but it also comeswith a few obligations, right?
The opportunity is you work withpeople like you that actually
deliver products to customers,services and products to customers,
and that depending their success tothe support you provide to them, you
as a technology vendor provide to them,that's a great opportunity because

(33:35):
you can actually be contributingand be part of their success.
Obviously, it comes with an obligation.
If you don't do a good job, ifyou deliver something that they.
They can't use Well, you make themunsuccessful and ultimately you lose
them as a customer or you don't win
them as a customer.
Right?
so
so I think it, it, it setss up imperativefor for marketability, for usability,

(34:00):
for value creation that comes withvertical software that I personally enjoy.
Right.
And when I say we want to move moreto vertical, is it then we want to,
we want to be more helpful in helpingarchitects specifically to, to, to
deliver their results, to achieve theirgoals because, and yes, we started Chaos
originally started with visualization oreven more narrow with rendering, right?

(34:23):
But most, most of our customers don'trender for the sake of rendering they
render because it helps them to selltheir ideas, to express their ideas.
And it helps them to win more projectsto explain better why they are unique
to, to, to understand better what, whattheir customers are expecting to help.

(34:43):
People in engineering and constructionto understand better can this be
built and how can it be built?
And if you, and if you zoom out andsay visualization for the sake of
visualization or visualization forthe sake of, as I said, faster design,
smarter sales, better builds, wellthen, then, then you can automatically

(35:05):
see how the EvolveLab tools, eventhough they are not core and classic
visualization, in my opinion, fitvery well into what our mission and
mandate for the AEC industry is.
Because it's all about giving architectsbetter tools, better technology to
achieve their goals faster and bemore successful and take away as much

(35:28):
of the lower added value, mundane,repetitive tasks that I think all of
them spend still far too much time with.
Taking this away from them using moderntechnology to eliminate or to reduce that,
that the effort and time spent there andgiving them even more chances to spend

(35:49):
time and their energy and creativitywhere they really can make a difference.
Right.

I think one of the, the themes that I've seen.
Become really apparent in whatChaos is doing specifically,
and there's others as well.
But is this idea, and, and I'vetalked about it with Roderick on
the show, um, so this isn't a newthing maybe for the audience to
hear, but this idea of what used tobe, I mean, you said it well, right?

(36:15):
We don't do rendering forthe sake of doing renderings.
Like they're, they're a, usuallythere's a sales component.
There's a, there's a decision makingcomponent associated with those to help
move the project forward, back in the day.
Right.
So dating myself, it was alwayslike, can we get updated renderings?
Clients were always asking forupdated renderings, and it was
like, no, you can't, like they,they're so time consuming.

(36:37):
You only get them per the contract.
And now with tools like Enscapeand Veras, it's very much like.
You can have renderings whenever you want.
Like renderings are free basically.
Um, and, and that's a good thing forclients because it keeps them in the loop.
It keeps them happy and satisfied thatthings are progressing and that they can

(36:59):
see it in a language they can understand.
That speaks back to this kind of salesidea of, of rendering, but that you're
actually pulling these tools into theprocess earlier and more often so that
they can be used for decision making.
So that's the concept I mentioned aminute ago about is maybe not new to
the audience of this show, but that'sa super, super, super important aspect

(37:22):
of how tools can change over time.
And I think there's still a lot ofarchitects and probably small firms
out there, which is the majority offirms that we can't forget about that
don't, don't understand that yet, right.
They, they're like, no, I stilldo renderings at the end of a
process or the view and SketchUpis all my clients ever gonna get.

(37:42):
Right?
Just the shaded geometry view.
So I, I think that, you know, and, andthen you're able to expand on that, Right.
With your sustainabilitytools that you've been
showing off, right?
So it's like, okay, now we can use thisreally smart information in the model to
help drive the decision making processin a way that we can see it, right?

(38:06):
Like literally see it because there's avisualization component that's helping
us make these decisions as we go along.
But that helps us make betterdecisions earlier in a project, which
really drive project success, Insteadof waiting until the end of dd.
To get an energy model backfrom our MEP engineers.
Like, oh, we we're just, we'refrontloading that process and having a

(38:31):
better understanding of our decisionsearlier and the impacts that those have
on the project, which is the ultimatething that we're delivering to our client.
it also allows us to include them inthat process because we get that feedback
so much earlier that we can have theseconversations and include them, and
that actually is much better for thatrelationship that the architect is
building with their client over time too.

(38:51):
Right.
That inclusiveness in the process.
It's not so black box.
It's like, we're gonna go over herein the studio, we're gonna work.
No, you can't come in And look.
it's, too messy and you'll, you'lljust ask too many questions.
No.
Now it's,
way more back and forth, way more often.
The touch points in the iterativeprocess are way, there's so many
more of, you know, the potentialat least is there to do that.

(39:12):
so

And it's,

I'm just curious from your standpoint, how you see that
in, you know, manifesting in thetools that you're putting out there.

you know, I, I'll go first, bill this time,
and then you, you, you chime in.
But I think it's also importantfor us to remember it's not only
architect and client, right?
It's like
dozens, if not hundredsof people and specialized.
Tasks and profiles that collaborate.
I was, I was about two years, threeyears ago, I a bit, a bit longer,
four or five years ago, I was sittingon the opposite side of the table.

(39:42):
I was a customer.
I, in my previous company, webuilt a large new office building.
We were the biggest, the biggest,tenant in, in the building.
And we were part of theconstruction process.
And I, as a non-architect, I, Iwas confronted in many meetings
looking at 2D plans, very abstract
plans on sort

(40:03):
of a, a flight level of one meter 50,cut through the building, trying to
understand how, how should our people work
in this, in this building, how dowe, that was just in the middle
of the Corona pandemic, right?
Where we also needed to rethinkthe way we put the workspaces, the
way we organized ourselves, wherewe moved from very traditional,

(40:27):
you know, everybody has its own.
Desk to a more open space.
And, and it was so hard for us to,for me to, to understand like, is
this, is this gonna be a workspacethat our people will enjoy?
It will help us to driveproductivity and will help us to
bring teams together, et cetera.
You know, if I would have had somethinglike what we can provide to our customers,

(40:48):
um, even together with EvolveLab, whereyou put on an and, and a virtual reality
glasses, or even you look on your cellphone or on the, on the, on the computer
screen, and then you, you iterate, youdocument, you annotate, you collaborate
on, in one platform, on, on somethinglike photorealistic visuals, right?

(41:10):
They, they don't need to be absolutelyphotorealistic for some of the use cases.
For some they
need to be, but forsome others they don't.
But you have something that you asa, as a, as a non-expert understand
what it means and how it looks likeand how it will work in reality.
That's a, that's a huge benefit.
And, and that's sort of next to coveringmore steps in the workflow from, from

(41:32):
concept to construction, where I think wehave an opportunity to also, so somehow
become a collaboration platform formultiple different jobs and profiles and
players along that chain, you know, tocommunicate and to exchange data and,
and feedback and iterate because it'sall, it's on the one way street, right.

Bill Allen (41:52):
one of the things that's pretty interesting with some of the
tools and the technologies, uh, Evan,you mentioned like how long it used
to take, uh, to create a rendering.
I remember, uh, you probably rememberthis too, back in the day, we would
network all these computers together,together, and then you'd hit render, go
home for the evening and hope and praythat when you come in in the morning,
your rendering, you know, would work.

(42:13):
Uh, and then, you know, with theadvent of tools like Enscape, you
know, have this real time renderingengine, it's like, are you serious?
This is incredible.
Um, and then with ai, you know, itjust further accelerates, you know,
some of this, uh, instantaneous, uh,feedback that you start to get and
you're able to actually produce this,um, you know, very, very fast to be
able to get it in front of a client.

(42:34):
So it's really, you know, shortcutting the, the process quite a bit.
And, um, just helping things, you know,be more and more efficient for sure.

Bill, I'm curious from your point of view,
developing a tool like Veras.
I mean, something that I've observedin the industry is, you know, obviously
AI has taken over a lot of the.
The airwaves, let's just say.
Right?
It's thrown in our face every singleday as like, these, this, this
really incredible intelligence.
And I, there's, there's, I think there'sstill not a lot of intelligence there.

(43:04):
But back to the idea that I mentionedearlier about decision making.
architects have always done this kind of athing, but they didn't have control over,
they, they were on a search rather than,than, than prompting image making, right?
And so this idea of ideating earlythrough the rendering process, I mean,

(43:26):
it's kind of not even rendering, right?
It's like.
You type something in andyou get something back.
And so it's still kind of a search.
And I think maybe it's still, we could,we could link it to searching for
inspiration, searching for ideas tohelp drive the design process, Instead
of thinking of rendering as the outcomeor even the process with real time

(43:49):
rendering, which it became, now it's like.
Ideating and coming up withideas or looking for direction,
and that's a behavior shift.
Um, and that I've noticed happen, youknow, with other AI generating tools
as well as like, like mid journeyand, and, and stable diffusion, things
like that, that are maybe more blackbox and not as directly related

(44:11):
to architecture as, as Veras is.
But could you maybe just talkabout the shifts that you've seen?
And it doesn't just have to be with image
making and, and, andlooking for design ideas.
Right.
But that is, that, that to me isa, a big, like, we're not looking
through Dwell Magazine anymore, right?
We're, we're actually iteratingin a tool with maybe some really

(44:34):
rudimentary geometry and it's comingback with things that are like, whoa,
I, I never would've thought of that,that that's a shift in the industry
that's actually changing things.

Bill Allen (44:43):
Yeah, a hundred percent.
Um, I'm thinking through, youknow, our, our, our process.
What we used to do when we started togo through that, Evan, as you're talking
about, is, you know, we go to Pinterestand create mood boards and Google
images and we kind of put all these
on, you know, a board to, to kindof look at and get inspiration,
and then we'd bring it back to ourdesign model authoring program.
It really is a shift, like a verydisruptive, in a good way, found,

(45:07):
uh, shift in the way that weexecute and do our day-to-day work.
Uh, I'll be very honest,I didn't understand.
The application or the opportunitiesthat were around ai, the technology
was so foreign and weird to me.
Uh, when I first saw it, I rememberactually the first time Ben showed
me Veras and he's, he put a calendarinvite on my, on my calendar and,

(45:28):
and it was called The Future.
And I was like, okay, it is verykind of, you know, abstract subject.
And he goes, I wanna show you something.
I said, Okay.
And he started showing meVeras, uh, inside of Revit.
And it was the Revit,you know, sample model.
And then you had, uh, this screen ontop and it changed the model slightly.
And I was like, what are you showing me?

(45:49):
What is this?
And he goes, bill, it'sai, it's the future.
It, it's gonna change the way we work.
And I was like, I don't get it.
Like, how, like what is this doing?
And it, it took me a little while toconnect the dots, but then as an end
user, I started realizing the opportunity.
When you're talking about thisideation process, Evan, I.
You know, I remember Iwas a computational guy.
I would use tools like Grasshopper,uh, you know, to create, that was the

(46:12):
fastest way I knew I would build somethingdynamically, something parametric, so
I didn't have to just model it onceand scrap that and model it again.
I would model it dynamically so I coulditerate, you know, for, for that process
and try to do it as, as fast as possible.
With the advent of ai, I hadthis aha moment where I was like.
Wait a second, I don't have to modelthis entire storefront and all of

(46:36):
these mulian and this perforated panel.
I could prompt it and I could prompt it.
And you talked about Mid Journey andstable diffusion and some of these tools.
One of the cool things, um, justuh, to, to brag on Veras a bit is
that it's pretty cool that it usesyour, your project as a substrate.
So that's, the other differentiator.
And so it wasn't just,

(46:57):
you know, a mood board or someGoogle image to your point.
You could now actually use your actualproject with the context and the
backgrounds and the floor to floorheights, and then you could prompt
and get, you know, a different result.
And so that was kind of the bigaha moment for me, you know, as a
fundamental way in, in how we workand, and how advantageous it was.

(47:18):
So.
It was really, reallyspecial in a new process.
And, um, you mentioned kindof people being scared of ai.
I mean, I could understandthat, I respect that.
Um, but you know, one of the things thatI, as I've started, 'cause I'm an end
user, I told you I'm not a, a programmer,I'm an end user first and foremost.
And it's a really fun tool.
Like I actually, I, I was surprisedat how much I, I like it and enjoy it.

(47:39):
And there's this quote I usequite a bit when people talk
about AI and how scary it is.
And it, it says that, you know,AI is isn't gonna take your
job, but someone using AI might.
And so with that, you know, when wewent to as a parallel, uh, an anecdotal,
uh, example, when we go to to Revitand Revit came out and you drop in an

(48:00):
elevation marker and it elevates yourbuilding, architects aren't going,
wait a sec, Revit's taken my job.
Like I wanted to draw, you know, that
whole elevation?
Yeah,
Right.
exactly.
Um, and so AI is kind of the, you know,it's, it's a copilot, it's a way to
kind of, with you, and you're still inthe driver's seat a hundred percent.
Um, and it is very fun and there'sgradations of how you use it.

(48:23):
You know, we have, we have a littlegeometry override slider, so you
can, is if you want the AI tohave more creative freedom or you
want more, you know, freedom inthat you have that, that option.
And so that's kind of how I look, youknow, through the lens, but also a, a
very fundamental way in the, in the, inthe way we work It is changing very fast.
Um, but hopefully it gives us thatquality of, of, of life back, you

(48:43):
know, and, and be able to have,uh, fun in, in the day-to-day work.

I like that and being able to have fun.
I, I'm not looking forward to the daythough, bill, where I move that slider
over to say like, no, re respect mygeometry, and it moves it back to
giving itself creative

Bill Allen (48:58):
Right?
Exactly right.

that's, by the way, something that we're, we, we are actually
discussing quite a bit is like, to whatextent do we want to do, we want to give
and, and we think it is important, dowe, do we want to give human beings, our
users, our customers, an opportunity tocontrol and to, to, to, to understand

(49:23):
what the AI algorithm has done.
Uh, because we think thatcontrollability and that specificity
is absolutely critical, right?
And, and, and if you look at this, youknow, as a, as a non non-architect,
but I'm comparing this with, withmany other parts of our lives, right?
Uh, even, even the livesof my kids as students.

(49:43):
Are cha is changing, right?
Um, and I remember when thelms, the first LA large language
models came up, I was, my initialreaction was like, don't use them.
Right.
Don't, okay, you need to learn by heart.
You need to read those books andremember for the rest of your lives.
And at some point in time, luckilyquite fast, I have to say, I

(50:04):
realized like it's completely wrong.
It's just their role is changing.
Right?
Um, and, and, and I think architectsare more like probably curators and
editors of AI assisted iterations,whereas originally they were the,
the sole and the only creator.
Um, and, and, and, and that gives theman opportunity to strike that balance

(50:25):
between genuine creativity and uniquenessand control and specificity while getting
the support from modern technologyto deliver better, smarter results in
a, in a, in hopefully a more fun way.
Right.

Well, I'm curious, Stephan, how is this going to
manifest further in Chaos as products?
It can.
Is there anything you can talk aboutwith kind of the use of AI and,
and what, what you're pursuing?

Yeah, so, so at the moment the focus is a lot on
Veras, um, and bringing Enscapeand Veras, uh, closer together and,
and I, I'd say on both ends, right?
Use, use Veras very early in theideation conceptual schematic phase,
and then, and then use it sort of atthe back end of, or along the design

(51:10):
process to, to iterate and to get fasterresults and ideas and inspiration.
Um, but, but as I said before,right, equally Glyph, Morphis, Helix
are, are, um, are, are, are greatadditions to elements we do, right?
For example, in Enscape,I think it was four point.
I think it was 4.1.

(51:31):
Don't quote me on it.
Well, I did quote myselfalready, but I think it was 4.1
where we brought something likethe, the, um, um, the, the, the
Revit filter overlays, right?
Where we, where we basically can visualizeall the important information that
sits in a Revit model, and that is ofutmost importance in understanding how

(51:51):
a building works and, and for example,how flexible, how flexible it will be
for, for, for, for multiple differentuse cases in, in, in the future, right?
And those are elements that connectvery closely to elements that come with,
with Glyph around documentation, with,with, with Helix, um, um, and, and,
and some of the other capabilities thatthe EvolveLab team brings to us, right?

(52:15):
So we're step by step bringing thistogether into a suite for AEC products
that hopefully, as I said before, gofrom, from, from concept to construction.
Using the power of, you know, I try to,um, um, um, I use that term analytical
visualization that is not only aboutmaking things look nice, but also

(52:36):
helping people to understand how theywork and how difficult they are to
realize and how, efficient they are interms of sustainability and, and what
options you have to improve energyperfor building performance and energy
efficiency and, and things like that.
Right.

Let's take a short break from the conversation to invite you to
join the most influential technologyleaders in the AEC industry at Confluence.
Composed of in person events and a podcastco hosted by yours truly, Confluence is
designed to foster conversations betweenAEC firms and technology companies so
they can learn, share, and engage witheach other to support industry innovation.

(53:18):
Software company Avail, which createscontent management solutions for
the AEC industry, started hostingConfluence events in 2019 to understand
what firms are needing, wanting,and thinking around technology.
To learn more about Confluence,explore upcoming events, and listen
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(53:38):
com.
My thanks to Confluence for supportingthis episode of the TRXL podcast.
And now, let's get backto the conversation.
you know, there's, there's definitelylike this kind of image making
creative process that's going onwith a tool like Veras, and then for
the control enthusiasts in the room,uh, architects in general, right?

(53:59):
It's like we really want to control theexact geometry, the exact materials, the,
maybe not the lighting, maybe not themood, which is something that, that Veras
is really good at, because That stuff isis harder than it looks to achieve, right?
Is creating kind of this feelingthat an image can evoke or
that an animation can invoke.
I don't like to usethe word control freak.
I like to use the word control enthusiastaround here because, because when we're

(54:24):
building our buildings, our models of ourbuildings, and showing them to our client,
a lot of times they're gonna get stuck on.
because we're, we're atthe mercy of like, Okay.
if I don't know how to builda texture, I gotta go find it.
I gotta find it online.
And then it gotta make it tile andrepeat and make it look good, or else
the client's gonna see that and be like,they're gonna talk about the, the way that

(54:44):
material looks and it isn't quite right.
And it's like, well, that's notwhat we're even talking about here.
We're talking about the overallform of the building, or we're
trying to, and so it gives usthe ability to go in and say, I.
With the help of these incredible toolsto say, okay, make a material that
looks like what I have imagined in my
mind, what is really hard to findand to build myself manually.

(55:07):
That process is pretty painstaking, right?
And maybe Bill, you can talk aboutthis a little bit, like how far
Veras has come even in the last yearwith regional rendering and being
able to basically swap out materialswith a new prompt in certain images.
It is giving us more andmore control all the time.

Bill Allen (55:23):
Totally.
Yeah.
Uh, quick comment on just the, kind of theconcept and, you know, clients responding.
You know, we hear that a lot when wecreate renderings and you show a client
something and they're like, wait, Idon't, I didn't say I wanted red brick.
Well, don't pay attention to that.
You know,

You, you, they can't

Bill Allen (55:37):
they can't not.
Yeah.
And so one of the cool workflows I sawwith Veras, uh, actually, so a lot of
people do sketch to rendering, right?
You could take, uh, a pencil sketch,you could upload it to a web version
of, of various, you could do arender and look, make it photo
realistic, which is pretty cool.
But the inverse of that is kind of
interesting.
It's pretty

that is
that's pretty

Bill Allen (55:57):
It is
pretty cool.

to put a label on it.
Yeah.

Bill Allen (56:00):
But if you wanna do the inverse of this, imagine you have a
fully detailed BIM, you know, a model,you have all your Mullins model,
you have materials even applied, andyou, it looks like it's complete.
You could also take that exact samebuilding, a 3D BIM, and you could
upload it to Veras and you could promptwhite box, pencil, sketch, watercolor,

(56:24):
painting, and then it looks conceptual.
And so that's kind of interesting,you know, kind of a, an interesting
workflow to do the opposite.
And, you know, from, uh, a workflow toshow that to a, a client or a customer.
Um, regarding some of the otherthings we're working on, the,
the, the other question you had.
So one of the things we've added, uh,to Veras and we just released a 2.0

(56:45):
version, is now a 3D viewer.
And so that 3D viewer sets up for a lotof things, um, that we're working on,
including, you know, view persistencyand better geometry, retention.
Um, you know, some of the feedbackwe've heard from customers is like,
yeah, Veras is great for ideation,but what if I want, you know, I
don't want it to change my model.
The, the 3D viewer helps us withthat geometry retention piece.

(57:08):
Um, you mentioned like the selection.
We now have like a, a save selection,think very much like Photoshop where
you can select certain things and then.
Save that selection.
Um, we also, uh, built outa bunch of cool presets.
So one of the things we weretrying to do is get to this,
what we call the aha moment.
Ben calls it the aha moment.
You gotta get to that, uh, as soon aspossible where someone can just open your

(57:31):
tool and hit two clicks and get to it.
So we have all these presets, youknow, whether, you know, you wanna
do photorealistic or, uh, you know,pencil sketch, interior rendering,
and you hit render and you get that.
And so there's this term being thrownaround in our industry and other
industries called prompt engineering.
Now you have to be a promptengineer, you know, to use ai.

(57:52):
And so the presets kind of, uh, wealways talk, uh, at EvolveLab about.
Reducing the friction, you know, the,the friction that occurs in a process.
And so some of the presetsnow help you with that.
And you can create your ownpresets, you can save those.
So if there's prompts that you use alot, certain settings you use a lot for
your geometry override or your materialoverride, your negative prompts, all

(58:14):
that now can be saved as a preset.
Um, and then we're workingon sharing those presets.
So if you have like an officeand you wanna share those with
others, you can do that as well.
Those are some of thethings on the Veras side.
I can't remember the last time wetalked on, on the Glyph side, uh,
we added a AI component of thatGlyph Copilot we're calling it.
And so before you could, you know, uh,create task and bundles to automate

(58:38):
construction documents, view creation,dimensioning, tagging, sheet creation,
sheet packing, all that good stuff.
Um, but now you can use, uh, Glyph Copilotand you can prompt, uh, and use an LLM
like uh, Stephan was talking about.
And you could say, you know, hey, uh,Glyph dimension, all my, uh, interior
walls on levels one through 16.

(58:59):
And then the AI goes throughand, you know, dimensions,
all of those walls for you.
Uh, something I didn't expect is there'sa very practical use case for that.
We, we all talk about, you know, userexperience and uh, just let's just
use the Revit stair tool for example.
You know, there's all these liketables within tables within tables.

(59:20):
That just make for a baduser experience sometimes.
And we kind of have that on the Glip side,this challenge of all these settings.
Well, what if you could just like promptand then mitigate all these, you know,
uh, tabs and you know, settings and beable to just tell it what you want and
then it would be able to apply that.
Um, so that, it's interesting.
Some of these AI componentscan also help with, uh, like

(59:42):
ui ux as well, you know what I
mean?
Um, to help again, reducethe friction on that.
So that's some of the things we've been,uh, working on, uh, since the last time
we chatted, uh, on some of those features.

Stephan as far as Chaos goes, I, I, I mentioned earlier that you
guys released Envision, which is kindof what it, it expands the ability for
an architect, I think, to tell a story.
Right.
Which is, is is really cool.
Um, do you want to expand on thatand kind of talk about a little bit
what, what Chaos has done in thelast, you know, year to six months?

Stephan Sieber-1 (01:00:14):
Uh, yeah, so I mean, I think you, you mentioned
a few elements already, right?
Envision We launched,we launched Envision.
, it's still in beta right now.
Um, it, it will be fullyavailable in early May.
which is sort of thestorytelling tool, right?
Some people don't like when I saythat analogy, but since you, you
described it that way, and I thinkit describes very well what it does.

(01:00:36):
It gives, it gives architects, um, anopportunity to tell a design story,
to animate, to bring in differentangles, to assemble large scenes,
um, from multiple different systems.
I think that is one of the, oneof the, I'm not saying that we're
the only company, but definitelysomething we, we do believe in

(01:00:57):
that, you know, data needs to flow.
We need to have an opportunity toaggregate data from different sources
and to play it back necess if, ifneeded, into different sources.
So it, it cannot be a, a, aone-way, sort of dead end street.
Um, but you know, especially whenyou assemble larger scenes that you
bring together from different sources.

(01:01:18):
Uh, and it obviously has, um,for the Enscape users, it has a
higher, a higher quality, right?
It, it uses the vena renderingengine, which is a real time
path, tracer ray tracer.
Um, so really delivers, uh, in realtime, like probably the highest quality
that you can, you can, you can imagine.
Um, and, and that'spretty exciting, right?

(01:01:40):
I think it, it addresses, itaddresses, um, a lot of the customer
feedback we get from very advancedand, and very passionate landEnscape
users on things they want to doon top of what NCAP can offer.
Uh, but it also addresses thespecific own, uh, own need, right?
Um, the other thing you, you'vementioned already is Enscape impact,

(01:02:01):
which is sort of the buildingperformance energy efficiency tool.
I think Enscape Impact or Impact isgonna be, it's more of an overarching,
uh, term and title that we only, we,we will use for, for multiple modules.
So energy efficiency.
Um, is only the first module thereare, is a few more, uh, uh, coming

(01:02:22):
like, like, uh, natural light andartificial light analysis, et cetera.
So where we again, move towardsthat, making this a collaboration
platform for multiple specializedtasks that need to happen and that
happen, uh, along the design process.
Um, the third area I probably wannamention is, is the asset library, um,

(01:02:43):
at the Cosmos Library, uh, where we,where we on the one side continue to
build, uh, you know, standard assetsand, and, and, and just provide a lot
of, a lot more content to, um, creativepeople, um, that, you know, they can
use and they can put in their scenes.
Uh, but two things that I'm, I'm, I'mquite excited about is the, the crowd

(01:03:03):
simulation and the traffic simulation, um,that we have through also an acquisition.
Um, AXYZ, um, Anima, theAnima acquisition of AXYZ.
from about two and a half years ago, threeyears ago, probably, Chaos acquired the
company, which gives us not only humanbeings and animals, but also moving human

(01:03:26):
beings and animals, and in the meantimealso vehicles and traffic simulation.
So it, it's all going in that directionof making this a very comprehensive
hub for, you know, design people,creative people, helping them to
accelerate their design process.

Evan Troxel (01:03:42):
It's interesting that you've gotten a reaction in the negative
about using the term storytelling.
I'm curious, uh, what, what,what that means because that's
ex that is precisely how I,
think about it as a designerand a, which is basically a
communicator and a salesman.
And again, I think, I think, people alsoreact negatively to the idea of selling

(01:04:04):
design, but that convincing, call itwhatever you want, getting people on
the same page consensus moving forward,like that is selling And and they're
relying on your expertise as an architectto lead the way in doing that, and, I
really do, see it as storytelling andsales, um, through communication, right?

(01:04:26):
Like these tools are all made forus to be able to communicate what's
going on and what we've synthesized.
To another audience, whether that'sthe owner or the contractor or the
jurisdiction that has to approvethe plans, whatever it is, like,
it's, it's all communication.

yeah, while I wholeheartedly agree, I, I think
that's probably exactly the point.
Why, why there was some, um, um,um, uh, reactions to that be.
I, I think there's absolutely,there's absolutely a, uh,
straight to the point, right?
We want to help.
Architects to sell, explaintheir ideas better, to help them
articulate the continuity of their,of their creativity of, their ideas.

(01:05:04):
And, and I think that'sabsolutely the point.
Yeah.
So.

I think that's a great spot to call this.
Conversation right there.
Um, because I think you justpulled it all together in that
last statement about helpingarchitects accomplish, their goals.
And, uh, I appreciate youboth for coming on the show.
I'm gonna put links to.
Everything that we talked aboutin the show, in the show notes
for this, including some, um,links for the audience to connect

(01:05:30):
with the guests on LinkedIn, So.
they can see what's going on with yourcompanies and, and the latest news
it's great to be able to have thoseconnections with industry folks and, and
build that network and make it stronger.
And I, I appreciate you guys comingon the show today and sharing this new
partnership slash acquisition slashmerger, however you wanna, wanna frame it.
I think it, it does sound like itoverall a really great thing for the,

(01:05:53):
for our industry in AEC, I know, uh,Chaos is definitely in other industries
as well, but I really appreciate thefocus that I've seen and the, and the
momentum that I see in this industry.
And so Thanks for comingon the show today to share.

Thanks,
for having us.
It was a

Bill Allen (01:06:11):
really appreciate it.

All right, before you take off, in the introduction to
this episode, I said something thatI believe deserves repeating here.
The AEC industry will lookvastly different in five years.
And if you wanna remain relevant, whetheryou're a sole practitioner, part of a
large firm, or running your own startup.
You can't afford to be complacent.
Now, let's be honest, we'reall complacent in some way.

(01:06:34):
It just shows updifferently for each of us.
Maybe it's avoiding new toolsbecause they seem overwhelming.
Maybe it's sticking withinefficient workflows.
Maybe they don't seeminefficient, but maybe they are.
But the familiarity is there, right?
Or maybe it's assuming your currentskills will always be enough.
This episode is a powerful reminder thatstaying current and even better, getting

(01:06:57):
ahead isn't just a nice to have anymore.
It's essential.
And to drive that point home, I wannawalk through seven key insights from my
conversation with Stephan and Bill thatreally illustrate what's at stake and
what's possible when we lean into change.
Let's use these seven points as amirror and a motivation to reflect
on where we each might need totake a more proactive approach.

(01:07:20):
Number one, EvolveLab.
Bootstrapped innovation as a small team.
Bill shared how EvolveLab wasa 100% bootstrapped company and
still managed to develop impactfultools like Veras, Glyph, Helix, and
Morpheus without external funding.
He said, all of our R&D camefrom our services revenue.

(01:07:41):
We reinvested that and now weget to amplify that innovation.
This proves small teams can achieveoutsize impact when they embrace
emerging tools and stay nimble.
Number two, the danger of fallingbehind Stephan highlighted
that AEC is still underservedwith state-of-the-art technology
compared to some other industries.

(01:08:03):
Chaos is specifically investing in thisvertical because they recognize the
need and the opportunity to monetize.
Number three, you mustbuild or buy to keep up.
Stephan discussed Chaos' strategy ofboth developing tools internally and
acquiring innovation from companieslike EvolveLab to accelerate with
the knowledge, the talent, theresources, the experience that we have.

(01:08:27):
He frames software as cannedtalent, reinforcing that
success depends on capturing andapplying the best ideas quickly.
Four.
AI is shifting how we work rapidly.
Bill described, how his initialskepticism of AI turned into excitement
once he saw how Veras could ideatefrom models directly within Revit.

(01:08:49):
He said it's changing very fast,but hopefully it gives us that
quality of life back and allows usto have fun in the day-to-day work.
Number five, new tools enable a wholenew design process instead of just
rendering, architects can now ideatevisually and quickly with AI changing
their relationship with design tools.
This is a fundamental shift in how we doday-to-day work, and it's happening fast.

(01:09:12):
Are you shoehorning new toolsinto an existing design process or
are you re-imagining the process?
There's a big difference.
Number six, industryleadership demands involvement.
In this episode, I called out howboth Chaos and EvolveLab actively
seek feedback from practitionersduring tool development unlike many

(01:09:34):
companies that operate in a silo.
Finally, number seven, thestakes are higher than ever.
Stephan emphasized that architects needbetter tools to achieve their goals
faster, to spend more time and creativitywhere they can really make a difference.
If practitioners don't adopt newmethods, they risk being stuck doing
repetitive mundane tasks that AI andautomation can now help eliminate.

(01:09:57):
And we all know where continuingto do mundane tasks leads.
So those are my thoughts.
Tell me what you think by clicking thefeedback link in the show notes or leave
a comment on YouTube for this episode.
Thanks for listening, andI'll see you next time.

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