For global engineering, procurement, and construction leaders, the pressure is on. Projects are growing more complex; margins are tight, and expectations for speed and precision keep rising. At MAIRE, those pressures were not abstract—they were daily realities across thousands of engineers working on highly regulated, high-stakes projects around the world.
“Staying competitive means more than adding new tools, so we set out to design a digital landscape that could evolve with the business,” says Michele Mariella, CIO of MAIRE. “One that would help our engineers navigate complexity, collaborate across disciplines, and prepare the company for the next decade of innovation.”
MAIRE’s journey accelerated with a foundation that was already in place. As longtime Microsoft cloud users, the company had standardized documentation and processes in the cloud, creating readiness for AI at scale. The real challenge was extending that intelligence into the core of engineering work—where the most value, risk, and time reside.
That breakthrough came by connecting Microsoft technologies with Autodesk solutions. By integrating Microsoft Copilot Studio and Microsoft Foundry with Autodesk Forma and Autodesk Revit, MAIRE is helping its engineers interact with complex project data using natural language—directly inside familiar tools like Microsoft Teams.
Marco Pecoraro, Engineering Process Digitalization Head, MAIRE
“In engineering and construction, we operate in a high-complexity, low-margin environment,” says Marco Pecoraro, Head of Engineering Processes Digitalization at MAIRE. “By connecting Microsoft technology and Autodesk solutions, we’ve made our engineering and project data usable through natural language, so teams get immediate answers and can act faster, with less rework and less risk.”
This integration allows engineers to query thousands of models, issues, and documents without navigating multiple systems. “What makes this powerful is not AI on its own, but how it’s embedded into engineering workflows,” says Stefano Toparini, Principal Enterprise Account Technical Lead at Autodesk.
From Autodesk’s perspective, the collaboration with Microsoft and MAIRE shows what’s possible when engineering platforms and cloud AI are designed to work as one.
Stefano Toparini, Principal Enterprise Account Lead, Autodesk
“What started as a workflow is now an operating model,” says Pecoraro. “With the same workforce, our objective is to channel our engineers’ expertise toward high-value, complex engineering scopes—while AI supports them by accelerating routine, repetitive, and data-heavy tasks.” Pecoraro continues, “This evolution of our operating model enhances the efficiency of engineering workflows, shortens schedule durations, and generates tangible cost improvements across the project lifecycle.
Engineers now have 24/7 access to organizational knowledge through AI-readable documentation, accelerating onboarding, and reducing errors across global teams. AI-based quality checks and generative modelling are shrinking cycle times and improving consistency at scale.
Michele Mariella, CIO, MAIRE
Today, across MAIRE, more than 200 engineers are moving more than 100 agentic solutions toward enterprise deployment—from simulating new plant technologies to exploring physical AI and robotics for construction and safety. Says Pecoraro, “Our journey began nearly a decade ago with Microsoft Azure. It has continued through our partnership with Autodesk and now with the adoption of Microsoft 365 Copilot and the development of our NEXTBRAINS platform—bringing AI into engineering, procurement, and R&D.”
Perhaps the most telling outcome is engagement. “Before, people waited for technology,” Mariella says. “Now they come to us and say, ‘Give me the tool—I want to improve myself and the people around me.’”
“The real business outcome isn’t a number. It’s people getting involved in designing our future through this technology,” concludes Mariella. “I put the best people in a room, give them the pen, and say, ‘Please, draw our future.’”
