Lowering the Barriers: Simplicity is Real Progress

Reflections from 2025, Signals for 2026

2025 was the year AI became practical. Powerful tools became widely available, barriers to entry fell, and access to knowledge stopped being the main constraint. As we look toward 2026, the challenge is no longer access to technology, but turning it into real progress.

1. AI Is Making Technology Truly Accessible

AI is no longer abstract. The abstraction has existed for decades. What has changed is the availability of computing power.

From DeepSeek, where cost is no longer the primary constraint on performance, to tools like Nano Banana, which makes image editing accessible without specialized knowledge, to Claude Code, which brings coding closer to production readiness, AI is lowering barriers at every level. Improvements in this space are happening weekly.

Knowledge is no longer gated by access, credentials, or who you know. The difference now is not who can learn, but who can turn knowledge into real impact.

2. Complexity Is the Real Barrier to Innovation in AEC

AEC suffers from excessive complexity. Over time, standards, formats, and entrenched workflows have accumulated to the point where innovation becomes expensive by default.

In physics, a small number of axioms can model the universe. In AEC, progress is often treated as something that requires adding more rules rather than clarifying fundamentals.

At its core, AEC data is simple. It is numbers, text, and images. Everything else can be defined later as workflows and standards. But without agreement on fundamentals, innovation fragments and slows.

Progress requires simplification before optimization.

3. Being Data Driven Means Respecting Facts, Not Defending Decisions

Being data driven is not about dashboards. Too often, data is used to justify decisions that have already been made. That is not insight. It is validation.

Facts are frequently distorted by how resources are allocated and how success is defined. True data driven work begins with curiosity. It requires asking uncomfortable questions and allowing reality to challenge assumptions.

Even with increasingly sophisticated tools, human decision making remains largely the same. Looking ahead to 2026, progress will favor those who simplify, stay curious, and let facts challenge their assumptions. The tools are ready. What matters now is how intentionally we use them.