AI tools are often promoted as assistants for everyday admin tasks – but their real value extends far beyond that.
In this session, I’ll share how I moved from relying solely on software applications to using Python and AI to directly manipulate and extract data from IFC models. While exploring how IFC files are structured, I realised that because they’re text-based, they can be reshaped and interrogated with code – often more flexibly and efficiently than traditional software allows.
Coming from a non-developer background, coding once felt daunting. But AI changed that. By using AI not just to draft emails or summarise documents, but to help me understand, write, and refine Python scripts, I found an accessible path into data-driven automation. I began with simple, testable scripts: restructuring IFC data to match internal standards, extracting model information, and exporting it into Excel. These were tasks I used to perform through multiple software tools – now automated, repeatable, and tailored to my workflow.
This session will explore that journey and show how AI can empower anyone, regardless of coding experience, to build custom data-manipulation processes. Attendees will learn how combining AI assistance with Python automation can unlock new levels of efficiency, accuracy, and control in model-based workflows.
