Can You Sell CAD Files to AI Companies?
The slides and full script for this video
Can a design or engineering firm sell its CAD files to AI companies? Often yes, and get paid for them. Most deals are licenses, so you keep your files and the rights. What sets the price is what is inside the files. AI labs want CAD to teach AI how a design gets made, step by step: a sketch, an extrude, a fillet, then the holes. The finished shape alone teaches far less. WORTH MORE + Native SolidWorks, Revit or AutoCAD files that keep their feature tree (the list of steps behind the part) + The design history: revisions, review markups, change orders, and RFIs (requests for information from...
What the video covers
- 0:00 20 years of project folders: can you sell CAD files?
- 0:23 Yes, license CAD files and get paid: 3 things matter
- 0:55 Why AI labs want CAD: the steps, not the shape
- 1:34 Native CAD files vs STEP, mesh and PDF exports
- 2:16 Design history: revisions, markups, change orders, RFIs
- 3:05 Who owns the files? UK CDPA 1988, section 11
- 3:40 What lowers the price of CAD files
- 4:12 Firms that fit: design, architecture, engineering, devices
- 4:40 Takeaway and tonight: count your native files
- 5:12 Who I am and where I come in
- 6:04 Native files, history, clear ownership
