Bentley unveils AI-powered design tools for infrastructure engineers

Bentley Systems unveiled new AI-powered capabilities across its design and construction management platforms at its Year in Infrastructure conference in Amsterdam, introducing enhanced versions of Synchro, OpenSite, and other core products. The upgrades position Bentley to capitalize on AI’s growing role in infrastructure development, with CEO Nicholas Cumins emphasizing that AI should “empower infrastructure engineers—not replace them.”

Key product launches: Bentley introduced several AI-enhanced applications powered by its new Bentley Copilot assistant.

• OpenSite+ brings AI-assisted workflows to civil site design, enabling users to query data, generate design scripts, and automate miles of roadway or pipeline development through an early-adoption program.
• OpenUtilities Substation+ delivers digital twin and AI capabilities for electrical substation design, allowing multiple users to collaborate simultaneously in 3D models.
• Synchro+ transforms the digital construction platform with data-centric workflows and AI-powered construction sequencing and scheduling insights, set for general availability in December.

How Bentley Copilot works: The context-aware AI assistant serves as the foundation for these new capabilities across Bentley’s infrastructure applications.

• It guides users through workflows, surfaces relevant documents, and can directly modify 3D models based on natural language queries.
• The system leverages Bentley Cloud Connect, a connected data layer that allows project data to be analyzed for insights spanning design to construction sequencing.

Visualization breakthrough: Bentley integrated Gaussian “splats” technology through its 2024 Cesium acquisition to enhance 3D visualization capabilities.

• The technology recreates photorealistic scenes from point clouds that can be directly integrated into Cesium’s high-fidelity, low-data-weight 3D viewing platform.
• Patrick Cozzi, Bentley’s chief platform officer, said the company is collaborating with Esri and the Khronos Group on open standards for Gaussian Splats.

In plain English: Point clouds are collections of data points that represent the 3D shape of real-world objects or environments, typically captured by laser scanners or cameras. Gaussian “splats” is a technique that transforms these point clouds into photorealistic 3D scenes by expanding and blurring the data points, then integrating them into viewing platforms for quick, realistic visualization.

Timeline for broader rollout: Additional AI features will launch across Bentley’s product suite throughout 2025 and early 2026.

• An AI agent for automated drawing annotation in OpenRoads Designer and OpenRail Designer becomes generally available in November 2025.
• Full Bentley Copilot integration for road and rail design products arrives in early 2026.
• AI-powered search capabilities for the ProjectWise construction management platform debut early next year.

Industry collaboration initiative: Bentley launched the Infrastructure AI Co-Innovation Initiative to work directly with engineering firms and asset owners on developing AI-enhanced workflows.

• The program aims to explore how Bentley’s APIs can better support AI use cases and examine new commercial models reflecting the balance between AI-driven and human-driven work.
• “Our users are not waiting, they are going all in on AI,” Cumins said. “We see our role as helping the most advanced engineering firms.”

What they’re saying: Bentley executives emphasized the practical applications of AI in infrastructure workflows.

• “AI is poised to transform infrastructure,” said CEO Nicholas Cumins. “At Bentley, our vision is for AI to empower infrastructure engineers—not replace them.”
• “We have been creating a new generation of infrastructure applications built on digital twins, powered by AI, and fully connected to Bentley Infrastructure Cloud,” explained Francois Valois, senior vice president of Bentley’s Open Applications group.