Shannon McGarry
Learn how Fusion data management is evolving to better support larger, more distributed teams through enhanced data management, integrated PLM, and intelligent automation and insights.
Disclaimer: Safe harbor statement
Roadmaps are plans, not promises or guarantees. We’re as excited as you to see new functionality make it into the products, but the development, releases, and timing of any features or functionality remains at our sole discretion. These roadmap updates should not be used to make purchasing decisions.
Today, Fusion offers a wide range of built-in cloud data management capabilities, and we’re continually working to enhance it further to meet the needs of larger organizations and more distributed product development teams. Our current focus is on three main areas: data management, lifecycle management, and intelligent automation and insights. Let’s dive into what the future holds.
Modern data management
Product development teams need a flexible system that simplifies collaboration. While Fusion has always provided a powerful and easy-to-use experience for end users, larger teams now require more administrative control. To support this, we’re introducing new roles, group management, and access controls as part of Fusion data management. Teams will be able to store models in folders with specific permissions for different stakeholders, reuse models across projects, and move models between folders without breaking CAD assembly relationships.
We’re also expanding properties to represent products more fully. This will include manufacturing, costing, supply chain, and project management metadata by default. These properties will be editable in real-time, allowing team members to read and edit values concurrently from both desktop and web clients. The cloud-based data will create a continuous history of changes.
Fusion’s Bill of Materials (BOM) is also evolving. It will soon include additional project and physical properties, flat views, and restructuring options like handling phantom components and non-CAD items. BOM will enable live editing capabilities, allowing teams to work directly from it, reviewing content, and providing feedback in real-time.
Integrated PLM
Agile, distributed teams need flexible approval processes and methods for tracking quality issues and managing changes. We’re building PLM into Fusion in a more adaptable way than traditional PLM tools. The Fusion Manage Extension currently simplifies release and change management, requiring no initial setup and available directly within Fusion. We’ll be adding configurable release coordination and change management, allowing teams to automate and log work across their teams and optimize processes over time.
Imagine starting as a small product development company with a simple release process. As your company grows, the Fusion Manage Extension will allow you to add approvers, insert workflow steps, and track changes throughout the product lifecycle, from early design to delivery and servicing. This integrated experience will make it easy to begin taking advantage of cloud-native PLM from within Fusion, without the high cost and expense of traditional PLM systems.
Intelligent automation and insights
Autodesk AI analyzes project data to offer predictive insights, automate repetitive tasks, and augment creative problem-solving. The generative design capabilities in Fusion automatically explore a range of design alternatives considering performance and manufacturability constraints. Automated drawings and AI-driven sketch constraints reduce time spent on common tasks.
Fusion’s powerful API allows for further automation, with over 400 apps available in the Fusion app store. These open and extensible data APIs will enable more possibilities in the future. The graph-based structure of this API is ideal for AI experiences, enhancing search and task automation. We’re expanding the API with BOM and property data for integration with other IT/OT metadata, creating a comprehensive view across the value chain through digital twins and assets powered by Autodesk Tandem Connect. Our goal is to not only automate work within Fusion but also to provide actionable insights to help businesses improve their performance.
For decades, traditional tools have served companies well for many years. However, they’re not designed to accommodate the rapidly changing data management and collaboration challenges organizations face today. Fusion data management is evolving to better support larger, more distributed teams with improved product data management, integrated PLM, and intelligent automation and insights. These enhancements will simplify collaboration, optimize processes, and unlock new possibilities for product development.