Firm of the Future
The ACEC Research Institute’s Firm of the Future initiative is a forward-thinking effort designed to explore and prepare for the evolving landscape of engineering and design firms by 2035. Through strategic scenario planning, the Institute has collaborated with over 70 industry leaders and external advisors to develop 44 potential future scenarios. This comprehensive exploration has resulted in a dynamic roadmap highlighting the key competencies firms will need to thrive, along with a focused research agenda aimed at empowering businesses to excel in 2035 and beyond.
Latest Research: Redefining the Firm
Watch Institute futurist Mike Walsh break down the core elements of the new report - Redefining the Firm: Talent, Technology, and Transformation.
The Introduction: The engineering industry isn't facing a single disruption — it's facing a fundamental redefinition. Futurist Mike Walsh, CEO of Tomorrow and author on AI transformation, explains why the model that has governed engineering firms for decades is now under pressure from every direction. This introduction frames the six ideas at the heart of the ACEC Research Institute's Redefining the Firm: Talent, Technology and Transformation research.
Reconfiguring Work: AI is entering the engineering profession not as a threat to engineers, but as a powerful new form of digital labor that expands what they can accomplish. Mike Walsh explains how the role of the engineer is shifting from solving problems step by step to designing the systems that solve them — a transition from execution to orchestration. The firms that understand this shift earliest will have a significant advantage in attracting talent and delivering complex work.
Reinventing the Firm: Every engineering firm is sitting on decades of project data, designs, decisions, and outcomes that remains largely untapped as a strategic asset. Mike Walsh explores how the Firm of the Future will transform that institutional knowledge into competitive advantage, and why the hybrid human-AI firm will define the next era of the profession. This is the shift from a firm built on individual expertise to one organized around collective intelligence.
Redefining the Industry: The built environment is no longer static — sensors, digital twins, and connected systems are turning infrastructure into continuous streams of data, fundamentally changing how engineering firms create and deliver value. Mike Walsh examines how this shift moves the industry from episodic project delivery to long-term engagement with living systems. He also introduces the emerging threat and opportunity of AI-native firms: organizations designed from the ground up around digital systems, not retrofitted with them.
The Synthesis: Taken together, the six ideas in the Redefining the Firm: Talent, Technology and Transformation report describe something far larger than technology adoption — they describe a reinvention of the engineering firm itself. Mike Walsh closes with the defining insight of the research: in the future of engineering, value will not be measured by how much work a firm does, but by how intelligently it does it. Watch this final segment for the framework that ties all six transformations together.
Read the Firm of the Future Research
Get Involved with Firm of the Future
Daphne Bryant
Executive Director
ACEC Research Institute
Dbryant@acec.org
Watch the latest videos on Firm of the Future Research
Introducing the ACEC Research Institute's Firm of the Future initiative.
Watch Institute researcher Joe Bates discuss the results of the AI study.
Watch the Firm of the Future presentation at the 2026 ACEC Spring Convention
Watch the podcast interview on the Institute's 2025 study on the role of AI in the Engineering Industry.
The ACEC Research Institute extends its gratitude to this esteemed group of industry leaders for generously contributing their time and expertise to help shape the vision for the Firm of the Future.
