AI-Powered CAD at IMTS 2026: Where Smarter Design Meets Connected Manufacturing

Every two years, the global manufacturing community converges on McCormick Place in Chicago for the International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) – the world’s largest gathering of manufacturing technology. At IMTS 2026, Siemens proved that the real value of industrial AI isn’t found in isolated tools, but in what it connects.

At the Siemens booth, visitors followed the design-to-manufacturing journey of a complex hydraulic pump, a jet engine scavenger component, through every stage of its lifecycle: from design and manufacturing planning, CNC programming, and production, to quality, optimization, and asset management.

In the design stage, we look at the intricate internal cavities, tight tolerances, and precise mating surfaces demonstrated why early engineering decisions matter all the way to final production. By moving from stage to stage, visitors experienced the power of a connected digital thread driven by industrial AI, starting right at the very first link in the chain: Stage 1: Design and AI-Powered CAD. In design, we showed how AI-powered CAD can help engineers explore more possibilities, optimize performance and validate designs earlier. Watch the video to hear from Siemens expert about how AI-powered CAD helps engineers automate workflows and guides users through complex design tasks.

Stage 1: Inside Designcenter X and AI-Powered CAD

As Siemens Designcenter expert Benedikt Altmann outlined during the live booth walkthrough, industrial AI is embedded directly into the engineer’s daily workflow, addressing the market’s biggest challenge: speeding up development while ensuring “first-time-right” manufacturing. Here is how Stage 1 sets the foundation:

• The built-in Designcenter AI Copilot serves as a personal assistant: Within Designcenter X, an intelligent copilot acts as a personal assistant, answering command questions and helping engineers explore the latest tools to continuously advance their skills.
• Driving “shift left” engineering through instant validation: Siemens is bringing validation forward into the earliest design phases. Through value-based licensing, engineers have immediate access to the Performance Predictor and CFD Designer right inside Designcenter X, turning simulation into an active, ongoing part of the design process rather than a delayed handoff.
• Generative design and prompt-driven AI agents: engineers can simply prompt their requirements directly to AI design agents, which execute setups autonomously to drastically shorten design and validation cycles.

At IMTS 2026, manufacturers wanted to know what they can deploy now. Where they can start. How AI fits into existing CAD/CAM workflows. How they can connect engineering and production. How they can capture expertise rather than lose it. And how quickly these technologies can create measurable value.

Stay tuned as we follow our jet engine scavenger pump out of Stage 1 (Design) and into the next phase of the digital thread: advanced planning, CAM programming, and shop-floor production.