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Can you use AI renders in architecture competitions?

Usually yes. Of the 14 competition rules we read, 9 allow AI images if you declare them and one bans them. Read the brief, label AI images and keep the design yours.

By the Sketchfest team9 min read

A row of competition boards on a long white wall in a bright exhibition hall, with one visitor looking at a board

AI renders are now an everyday tool. In RIBA's 2026 survey, 74% of practices use AI on at least some projects, and early-stage design visualisation is the most common task. Competitions feel it too: RIBA Journal's Eye Line drawing competition received more AI entries than ever in 2026.

So we read the rules of 14 recent competitions and awards. This guide sets out what they allow, what juries worry about, the law, how to label an AI image and how to stay anonymous.

What real competition briefs say about AI

We read each organiser's own rules page or brief on 27 October 2026. Where a page says nothing about AI, we write that we found no statement. That is not a ban, and it is not a yes.

CompetitionWhat the rules say about AIOur reading
RIBA President's Medals 2026Where AI is used to "generate or modify any images, text, or other content, this must be clearly declared, stating both the tool used and its purpose."Allowed if declared
Eye Line 2026 (RIBA Journal)"AI entries are considered if they are declared as such."Allowed if declared
Architecture in Perspective 40 (ASAI)"AI-influenced images will be accepted, but MUST BE labeled as such."Allowed if declared
The Architecture Drawing Prize 2026Entries state the means of production, including "where relevant, how AI has been deployed."Allowed if declared
AIA COTE Top Ten for Students 2026 (ACSA)"Students choosing to use AI as a tool must attribute this use in their design essay (abstract)."Allowed if declared
2026 Steel Competition (ACSA and AISC)The same sentence as the COTE rules, word for word.Allowed if declared
Timber in the City 6 (ACSA)"Students using AI tools must acknowledge this in their design essay (abstract)."Allowed if declared
ASA Experimental Design Competition 2026Entries "must explicitly identify the role, scope, and level of influence of each tool employed."Allowed if declared
2026 CGconnect 3D Awards (Chaos)AI "is allowed", but any use "must be fully disclosed during the submission process."Allowed if declared
15th A+Awards (Architizer)Most categories "must be BUILT projects"; Unbuilt, Models and Rendering and Architecture +AI are the exceptions.Limited by category
Fentress Global Challenge 2026AI "cannot be used to develop any part of the submission, including concepts, images, written content, layouts, and more."Not allowed
WAF Awards 2026No statement found in the entry guide or FAQs.Silent
AR Future Projects 2027No statement found on the entry information page.Silent
Europan 18 (2025)No statement found in the rules.Silent

In short: 9 allow AI if you declare it, 1 limits it by category, 1 bans it and 3 say nothing. How you declare differs: a label on the image, a line in the design essay, or a form naming the tool and its purpose. Anonymity is just as common: 9 of the 14 ask for anonymous boards or images, and a tenth bars names in watermarks.

What juries worry about

  • Authorship. The ASA competition says: "The human contribution must be clearly evident and legible to the jury."
  • Originality. AI learns from existing images. In RIBA's survey, 76% agree that AI increases the risk of designs being imitated. ASAI "reserves the right to request proof of the originality of an entry." Your sketches and saved versions are that proof.
  • An image the design cannot deliver. A cantilever with no structure, or glass where the plan has a wall. ACSA expects students to be "reviewing the outputs of any AI tools and confirming content accuracy".
  • Anonymity. RIBA's guidance for entrants: "Entries are evaluated anonymously so that the decision is based on design merit rather than track record."

AI does not win by itself. At Eye Line 2026, the year of the most AI entries, "hand-drawn submissions have dominated the winning selection". A study of a 2024 AI ideas competition in Izmir found "that AI alone was insufficient to define design success". AI helps you show an idea. It does not supply one.

The law in plain words

This is general information, not legal advice. Rules differ by country.

Authorship. Many competitions ask you to warrant that you are the author. The US Copyright Office concluded in January 2025 that "prompts alone do not provide sufficient human control to make users of an AI system the authors of the output". Where your own work is "perceptible in the output", you are the author of at least that part. So a render made from your own drawing keeps your design, and your authorship, in the picture. A prompt-only image is weak ground for that promise.

Realistic images of real sites. In the EU, Article 50 of the AI Act applies from 2 August 2026. Professional users must disclose AI images that are "a deep fake": content "that resembles existing persons, objects, places, entities or events and would falsely appear to a person to be authentic or truthful". An imaginary building on an imaginary site is not that. A photoreal render of your scheme on a real, recognisable street could be. For creative work, disclosure "in an appropriate manner that does not hamper the display or enjoyment of the work" is enough. A short caption does it.

How to label AI images on a board

  • Next to the image. A caption under each AI image, not only a line in the entry form. The jury sees the boards first.
  • Yours and the AI's. Say which parts are your design and which the AI added, such as materials, light or people.
  • The tool, if asked. The President's Medals ask for "both the tool used and its purpose".
  • No names. In an anonymous competition, name the tool if asked, never your practice.

Keep a short log as you work: the tool, the date, the input file and what you changed. It fills any entry form quickly and answers a jury's question.

Anonymity and hidden file data

A file carries metadata: text stored inside it that never shows on the page. A PDF has an Author field, and a guide for entrants on Concorsi AWN warns the details "can be inherited from software or computer settings, meaning that it could be there without you knowing about it." Photos carry EXIF fields such as Artist, Copyright and GPS. AI images may also carry an AI marking, such as the IPTC source type "Created using Generative AI" or Content Credentials.

Keep the AI marking and remove the personal fields. A "remove all metadata" tool is the wrong fix, because the AI marking goes with everything else.

  1. Check the final export, not your working file. An export can write new metadata.
  2. Read the document properties in your PDF app: Author, Title, Subject and Keywords.
  3. Read the image fields in each image's info panel, or with a tool such as ExifTool.
  4. Open a copy in Content Credentials Verify and see whether any name appears.
  5. Clear names, accounts and locations only.
  6. Follow the brief on file names. ACSA says names must not appear "in the file name", while ASAI asks for "Lastname-Firstname-entry number".

How to read a brief: a checklist

  1. Search for AI words: "AI", "artificial", "generative", "digital" and "software".
  2. See what the rule covers. Images only, or text and design too?
  3. Find how to declare: a label, an essay line, a form, or all three.
  4. Read the authorship and anonymity clauses.
  5. Check what the images must show. Some awards take built work only.
  6. Note the questions deadline, and save a copy of the rules, since pages change.
A printed competition brief on a desk, with one paragraph highlighted in yellow and a highlighter pen beside it
Find the AI clause first, and note how the brief wants AI declared.

When the brief says nothing about AI

Silence is not permission, and it is not a ban. Ask in the questions period, which RIBA calls "a fair system for asking questions and receiving answers about the brief". Keep your name out of the question if the competition is anonymous.

If no answer comes before the deadline, label your AI images anyway and keep your drawings and log.

Rendering your own design for an entry

Competitions are won against the clock, and AI saves time. ChatGPT and Midjourney are useful for mood boards. But Midjourney's own guide says it uses image prompts "as inspiration to guide new creations, not to copy them exactly", and the images that carry an entry must show your design.

Sketchfest is built for architects. Upload a hand sketch, a CAD screenshot or a 3D view and get a photoreal render of your design in seconds. It follows your drawing, so the building in the image is the one you drew. There are no prompts to write and nothing to install: it works in the browser. Projects stay private, and drawings are not used to train AI.

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.

Check each render against your plans and sections before it goes on the board. To prepare a sketch, see how to turn a sketch into a realistic render. For board sizes, see what resolution an A1 architecture board should be.

Quick answers

Is using AI in a competition cheating?

No. Of the 11 rules we read that mention AI, all but one allow it in some form. What they ask for is openness.

Will an AI render count against me?

Not where AI is allowed and declared: ASAI judges entries "regardless of artistic medium: traditional, digital, AI, or other." But a render will not carry a weak idea.

Can I enter a design made entirely by AI?

A few awards have a place for AI work, such as the A+Awards' Architecture +AI category. But many competitions ask you to confirm that you are the author. Start from your own design. See Can AI act as an architect?

Sources

  1. RIBA, President's Medals 2026 entry nomination form (2026; sections 1.2, 1.2.2 and 3; checked 27 October 2026)
  2. RIBA Journal, Eye Line 2026: enter (deadline 11 May 2026; checked 27 October 2026)
  3. RIBA Journal, Eye Line 2026 judging (Jan-Carlos Kucharek, 23 June 2026)
  4. ASAI, Architecture in Perspective competition terms (revised 24 February 2026) and competition page (Architecture in Perspective 40, deadline 5 May 2026)
  5. World Architecture Festival, The Architecture Drawing Prize (2026 edition) and Make Architects, Entries open for the Architecture Drawing Prize 2026 (1 June 2026)
  6. ACSA, 2026 COTE competition: registration and rules (AIA COTE Top Ten for Students; checked 27 October 2026)
  7. ACSA, 2026 Steel Competition: registration and rules (sponsor AISC shown on the page; checked 27 October 2026)
  8. ACSA, 2026 Timber Competition: registration and rules (Timber in the City 6; checked 27 October 2026)
  9. Association of Siamese Architects under Royal Patronage, ASA Experimental Design Competition 2026 (organiser's site; also reported by art4d, February 2026)
  10. Chaos, 2026 CGconnect 3D Awards rules (run by a render software maker; checked 27 October 2026)
  11. Architizer, A+Awards eligibility and guidelines (15th A+Awards, entries open 5 October 2026)
  12. Fentress Architects, Fentress Global Challenge 2026 brief (PDF as posted by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology; the organiser's site says FGC 2026 is closed)
  13. World Architecture Festival, WAF 2026 awards entry guide and FAQs (checked 27 October 2026)
  14. The Architectural Review, AR Future Projects 2027: entry information (final deadline 4 December 2026)
  15. Europan, Europan 18 rules and full rules PDF (session 18, results November 2025)
  16. RIBA, AI Report 2026 (1,100+ respondents, March to April 2026; respondents self-selected)
  17. Mersin, Çiçek and Başarır, Insights from AI-Driven Architectural Design Competition (eCAADe 2025 preprint; one ideas competition run in 2024 by the Izmir branch of the Chamber of Architects of Turkey, 19 entries)
  18. RIBA Competitions, Guidance for competition entrants (November 2016)
  19. US Copyright Office, Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 2: Copyrightability (January 2025, pages 19 and 24 to 25)
  20. EU AI Act, Article 50: Transparency obligations (applies from 2 August 2026; paragraphs 2 and 4)
  21. EU AI Act, Article 3: Definitions (definitions 4, deployer, and 60, deep fake)
  22. Concorsi AWN, How to create anonymous PDF files (Windows) (guide for entrants, undated; checked 27 October 2026)
  23. ExifTool, EXIF tags (Artist, Copyright, Software and GPSInfo; checked 27 October 2026)
  24. IPTC, Digital Source Type vocabulary ("Created using Generative AI", entry modified 23 October 2024)
  25. C2PA, Explainer, version 2.2 (Content Credentials; checked 27 October 2026)
  26. Content Credentials Verify (checked 27 October 2026)
  27. Midjourney Docs, Image Prompts (checked 27 October 2026)

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