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Can AI do architect plans?

Partly. Specialist AI tools can generate layout options fast, as long as you give them the rules: site, brief, codes and goals.

By the Sketchfest team6 min read

Architect comparing several generated floor plan options side by side on a large screen

Plans are the next thing people expect AI to take on. Researchers have already trained models on more than 80,000 floor plans paired with written instructions, and the big CAD and BIM makers are adding AI to their own programs.

"AI" covers very different tools here, though: a chatbot, a generative design study in Revit and a site feasibility tool all do something different with plans. None of them takes over the plan.

Five kinds of AI that touch plans

When people ask whether AI can do plans, they usually mean one of these:

TypeWhat it doesWhat you still do
Chatbots like ChatGPTRoom lists, written layouts and pictures that look like plans.Draw the real plan. More in Can ChatGPT draw architectural plans?
Generative design in BIMRevit can run a "study" that generates many design alternatives from inputs and goals, then brings the one you pick into the model.Define the logic, inputs and goals, and judge the results.
Site and feasibility toolsAutodesk Forma and similar tools test massing, sun, wind and noise. Feasibility tools for housing test unit mix, parking and zoning in real time.Decide what's worth building and design it properly.
Layout generatorsSpecialist tools fill a floor plate with unit layouts from a library of past plans, codes and rules, and export a BIM model.Set up the library and rules, check every unit, develop the design.
AI inside CADAutoCAD places blocks, applies markups from PDFs and paper, and offers an assistant for standards checks.Draw, coordinate and check the drawing.

Descriptions are based on tool makers' own pages and help files. We name the big platforms only.

The pattern is the same in every row. The AI produces options or speeds up steps. The architect decides what the rules are, which option is right, and whether the result is safe and buildable.

Generative design: many options, your rules

Generative design is the most "AI does the plan" approach. In Revit, a study type holds the logic for a design problem, often built in Dynamo by a design technologist. For each study you set the method (for example optimise or randomise), the inputs and the goals. Revit then produces a set of alternatives. You explore them, and if none is right, you change the criteria and run it again.

It's powerful for problems with clear rules: office layouts, housing units, parking. It's much weaker for the open questions that make a building good: character, how it feels, how it fits its street. Those questions don't have a formula.

It works best on problems with clear rules and a clear way to score the results:

  • Housing units on a repeated floor plate.
  • Office layouts, with desks and meeting rooms.
  • Parking and site coverage in early feasibility.
  • Massing options tested against sun and views.

What research can do today

Universities are pushing plan generation further. HouseDiffusion, presented at the CVPR computer vision conference in 2023, generates vector floor plans (rooms and doors as real polygons, not pixels) from a diagram of which rooms connect to which. Its authors report it beat earlier methods on every measure they tested.

But research models work on simplified homes, and they don't know your site, your client or your local building rules. That's still the architect's knowledge.

Small team in a meeting room looking at a site massing study on a large screen
Site and feasibility tools test options early, before the design is drawn.

Why most plans are still drawn by people

AI plan tools are still rare in everyday practice. In RIBA's 2026 AI report, only up to 10% of practices using AI applied it to BIM, performance simulation or environmental modelling, far behind early design visuals at about 56%. In a 2026 survey by Chaos and Architizer, 33% of AI users named poor compatibility with their current software as a key obstacle.

Responsibility hasn't moved either. Whatever generated the first layout, the plans that go to planning, building control and the contractor are the architect's drawings, checked and signed by a person.

Coordination is another reason. A plan has to agree with the sections, elevations, structure and services drawings, and every change ripples through all of them. CAD and BIM programs help with that, and people still lead it.

How to use AI plan tools well

  • Write the rules down first. Site limits, brief, room sizes and local codes. The tool can only respect what you give it.
  • Treat results as options, not answers. Pick the best two or three and develop them yourself.
  • Check every plan against the rules. Clearances, stairs, fire escape and access, even if the tool says it checked.
  • Keep the idea in your hands. Use AI for the repetitive parts, so you have more time for the design itself.

Where AI helps most: showing the plan

Plans are hard for clients to read. A render of the space is not. That's the step where AI is already fast and reliable, as long as it follows your design. General tools like Midjourney make beautiful images, but from a text prompt, so they invent their own building.

Sketchfest starts from your drawing. It's built for architects: you upload a hand sketch, a CAD screenshot or a view of your 3D model, and get a photoreal render of that design in seconds. It follows your drawing, so what the client sees matches the plan. No prompts to write and nothing to install.

RenderHand sketch
RenderHand sketch
A hand sketch of a curved pavilion on a grassy hill and its render, made with AI in Sketchfest. Drag the line to compare.

Quick answers

Is there an AI that designs floor plans?

Yes, several tools generate floor plan options, mostly for rule-heavy work like housing units, offices and parking. They need clear rules from you, and the results still need checking and developing.

Can AI make plans for planning permission?

Not on its own. Planning drawings need accurate scale, local rules and a responsible person. AI can help produce options, but someone qualified prepares the submission.

Will AI replace architectural drafting?

It's speeding up parts of it, as CAD did before. Read Is AI replacing architects? for what the job numbers say.

Does Revit have AI floor plan tools?

Revit includes generative design: a study creates many alternatives from the inputs and goals you set, and you bring the one you choose into the model. Someone usually has to build the study's logic in Dynamo first. Autodesk's help pages describe the whole workflow.

Sources

  1. Autodesk Revit Help, Workflow: Generative Design
  2. IMAGINiT, Transforming architectural conceptual design with Autodesk Forma
  3. Autodesk, Key features of AutoCAD (tool maker's page)
  4. Shabani, Hosseini and Furukawa, HouseDiffusion: Vector Floorplan Generation (CVPR 2023)
  5. RIBA, AI Report 2026 (1,100+ respondents, March to April 2026; respondents self-selected)
  6. Chaos and Architizer, The state of AI in architecture (2026)

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