Institutional Knowledge AI
AI that captures and makes accessible the collective expertise of a firm.
Definition
Institutional Knowledge AI transforms the collective expertise embedded in a firm's projects, documents, and past decisions into a searchable, accessible resource. Rather than letting knowledge walk out the door when employees leave or remain siloed in individual heads, AI captures this expertise from project documentation and makes it available to all team members. New staff can access decades of firm experience from day one.
In Depth
Every AEC firm's most valuable asset is not its software or its office space — it is the accumulated knowledge of how the firm solves problems. Which wall assembly works best for a natatorium. How the firm details a curtain wall transition at a roof parapet. What went wrong on that hospital project in 2018 and how they fixed it. Most of this knowledge lives in the heads of senior staff and in old project files that nobody can find.
Institutional Knowledge AI captures and makes accessible this firm-wide expertise. By indexing every past project — drawings, specs, RFIs, meeting minutes, field reports — the AI creates a searchable knowledge base that any team member can query. A junior designer working on their first parking garage can instantly find how the firm has detailed parking structures on previous projects, complete with the drawings and specs that show exactly what was built.
The retention problem makes this urgent. When a 30-year veteran retires, their knowledge typically walks out the door. With Institutional Knowledge AI, their work product is already indexed and accessible. A firm that has done 500 projects over 25 years has an enormous competitive advantage — but only if their teams can actually access that experience. This is one area where AI delivers compounding value: the more projects a firm completes, the more knowledge the system has, and the faster every future project moves.
Examples
Finding how similar design challenges were solved in past projects
Accessing past project experience for proposal writing
Learning firm conventions and preferences from historical documentation
Nomic Use Cases
See how Nomic applies this in production AEC workflows:
Compatible Platforms
Nomic integrates with these platforms so you can use institutional knowledge ai across your existing project data:
Frequently Asked Questions
Institutional Knowledge AI transforms the collective expertise embedded in a firm's projects, documents, and past decisions into a searchable, accessible resource. Rather than letting knowledge walk out the door when employees leave or remain siloed in individual heads, AI captures this expertise from project documentation and makes it available to all team members. New staff can access decades of firm experience from day one.
Finding how similar design challenges were solved in past projects. Accessing past project experience for proposal writing. Learning firm conventions and preferences from historical documentation.
Firm-Wide Detail Search: Give designers instant access to every detail your firm has ever drawn. Project Research: Accelerate proposal writing with AI-assisted content retrieval.