The Framing Problem
When industry analysts discuss "AI CAD," they are frequently conflating two fundamentally different computational paradigms: generative mesh synthesis and parametric feature modeling. This conflation has produced a decade of inflated expectations, underwhelming demos, and a persistent belief that real AI CAD is still "coming."
It is not coming. For a specific and technically meaningful definition of AI CAD, it has arrived.
Mesh Generation vs. Parametric Modeling: Why the Distinction Is Everything
Contemporary generative 3D tools including neural radiance field reconstructions, diffusion-based mesh generators, and implicit surface networks produce geometry as an unstructured point cloud or polygon mesh. These representations are geometrically expressive but engineering-inert. They carry no feature history, no constraint graph, no dimensional intent. A mesh cannot be toleranced. A mesh cannot propagate a design change. A mesh cannot be submitted to a manufacturer without full reconstruction from scratch.
