Dr. Maor Farid, Co-Founder & CEO at Leo AI
Dec 9, 2025
Choosing the best AI copilot for SOLIDWORKS is a balancing act. No single tool checks every box for every team, so the decision comes down to weighing what matters most in your environment.
Integration and compatibility determine whether a copilot fits into your existing stack without friction. Use case fit matters because a tool designed for early-concept generation serves different needs than one built for answering technical questions. Data security and IP control are non-negotiable for teams handling proprietary designs.
And then there's the elephant in the room: most of the AI tools announced for SOLIDWORKS are either in beta, limited to specific platforms, or not yet shipping the features shown in demos.
Let me break down what's actually available, what works, and what you should realistically expect.
Comparison Table: AI Copilots for SOLIDWORKS Users
Platform | Primary Focus | Availability | Enterprise Adoption | Best For |
Leo AI | Engineering copilot for knowledge, calculations, part search, concept generation, and design inspection | Available now | HP, Scania, Intel, Mobileye (60K+ engineers) | Teams wanting production-ready AI that works with existing CAD/PLM |
Design Assistant | Automate selections, mates, and sketching predictions | Available in SOLIDWORKS Cloud | Limited (cloud users only) | Engineers already on SOLIDWORKS Cloud wanting faster modeling |
AURA | Conversational AI for help, documentation, and 3DSwym insights | Beta (3DEXPERIENCE only) | None yet (still in beta) | 3DEXPERIENCE users who want in-context help |
Onshape AI Advisor | Learning assistant for Onshape workflows and best practices | Available now | Growing (1.5M+ Onshape users have access) | New Onshape users and teams learning the platform |
1. Leo AI: The Production-Ready Option
Leo AI is an engineering copilot built specifically for mechanical engineers. Unlike the other tools on this list, Leo doesn't try to replace your CAD software or live inside a specific platform. It works alongside your existing tools.
What Leo Actually Does
Leo is built on a proprietary Large Mechanical Model (LMM) trained on mechanical parts, assemblies, and engineering logic. This means it understands context in ways that generic AI chatbots simply cannot.
Core capabilities:
Technical Q&A: Answers engineering questions grounded in 1M+ verified sources (engineering books, standards, datasheets), not random internet information
Part search: Finds parts from your PLM and 120M+ vendor parts using natural language ("find me a stainless steel bracket similar to what we used on the X project")
Engineering calculations: Runs formulas with full traceability to trusted sources, exportable to Excel
Concept generation: Creates 3D mesh concepts and 2D sketches from text descriptions, specs, or hand-drawn sketches
Documentation: Generates engineering documents including BOM, statement of work, manufacturing methods
Who's Actually Using It
This is where Leo stands apart. It's not a demo or a beta. It's in production at HP, Scania, Intel, Mobileye, and over 60,000 engineers globally. Distributed through value-added resellers in the US, UK, India, France, Germany, Poland, Benelux, and Israel.
Measurable results from deployments:
34% reduction in design errors
32% increase in part reuse
5-7 hours saved per engineer per week
The Security Piece
SOC 2 certified, GDPR compliant, with zero training on customer data. For enterprise teams handling proprietary designs, this matters.
Honest Limitations
Leo generates 3D mesh concepts, not native SOLIDWORKS files. The mesh needs to be exported and refined in your CAD tool. It's not trying to replace SOLIDWORKS. It's trying to make everything around the CAD work faster and more accurate.
Best for: Engineering teams who want AI that's actually in production, integrates with existing workflows, and delivers measurable results.
2. SOLIDWORKS Design Assistant: Native but Limited
Design Assistant is an AI and machine learning toolset built into browser-based SOLIDWORKS Cloud. It learns from your individual design habits and offers real-time suggestions for selections, mates, and sketching.
What It Actually Does
Selection Helper: Predicts which edges, faces, or bodies you'll want to select next based on design intent
Sketch Helper: Analyzes sketch entities and suggests additional instances with dimensions and relations
Mate Helper: When inserting components, suggests locations for replication
Smart Mate: Creates fully constrained mates automatically
These are genuinely useful features for speeding up everyday modeling tasks. The tool learns your patterns and gets better over time.
The Catch
Design Assistant only works in SOLIDWORKS Cloud (browser-based). If you're using desktop SOLIDWORKS, which is still the vast majority of the 7.5 million SOLIDWORKS users globally, you don't have access to these features.
The features that do exist in desktop SOLIDWORKS are more limited: Command Predictor, Fastener Recognition, and some Xpert tools (SketchXpert, FeatureXpert, etc.). These are helpful but not the full AI assistant experience shown in marketing materials.
Honest Assessment
Design Assistant delivers real value for the specific tasks it handles. But it's not a comprehensive engineering copilot. It's a modeling accelerator for users already committed to SOLIDWORKS Cloud.
Best for: Engineers already using SOLIDWORKS Cloud who want to speed up repetitive modeling tasks.
3. AURA: Still Finding Its Footing
AURA was the headline announcement at 3DEXPERIENCE World 2025 in Houston. It's positioned as a conversational AI companion that provides contextual help, automates tasks, and offers design suggestions.
What Dassault Promises
The demos showed AURA generating assembly structures from prompts, creating marketing renders from text descriptions, and answering complex design questions in context. It looked impressive on stage.
The Reality Check
AURA is still in beta. It launched in July 2025 for 3DEXPERIENCE commercial users, but early user feedback has been mixed. One user on the SOLIDWORKS forums noted: "Can't say I'm terribly impressed with the answer to my first question."
More importantly, AURA requires the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. That's a significant limitation because the majority of SOLIDWORKS users are still on desktop licenses, not connected to 3DEXPERIENCE.
What AURA can do today:
Answer questions about SOLIDWORKS features and workflows
Summarize 3DSwym posts and community discussions
Provide contextual help within the platform
What's still coming (or unclear):
The generative design features shown in demos
The "automatically generate assembly structures" capability
Deep integration with your actual design work
The Platform Lock-In Issue
Here's the uncomfortable truth: Dassault is clearly using AI features to push users toward 3DEXPERIENCE. AURA, Auto-Generate Drawings, and other AI tools require cloud connectivity. For desktop SOLIDWORKS users, that means either migrating to 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS (Connected) or missing out on these capabilities.
For teams with established desktop workflows, PDM systems, and no immediate plans to migrate to the cloud, AURA isn't really an option yet.
Honest Assessment
AURA has potential, but it's early days. The gap between the conference demos and actual shipped functionality is significant. If you're already invested in 3DEXPERIENCE, it's worth experimenting with. If you're on desktop SOLIDWORKS, this isn't solving your problems today.
Best for: Teams already committed to 3DEXPERIENCE who want to be early adopters of Dassault's AI roadmap.
4. Onshape AI Advisor: A Different Approach
The Onshape AI Advisor is not related to the SolidWorks product suite, but I consider it valuable due to its inspiring vision, which is deeply rooted in the DNA of its founders…
What It Actually Does
AI Advisor is a learning assistant built on Onshape's decade of educational content: help documents, tutorials, webinars, and technical tips. It uses Amazon Bedrock to answer questions about Onshape workflows and best practices.
Core capabilities:
Answer questions about Onshape features and workflows
Provide guidance on best practices (sheet metal, surfacing, assemblies)
Help users discover features they didn't know existed
Cite sources and provide links to official documentation
The Honest Assessment
It doesn't understand your designs, run calculations, or generate geometry. It's a sophisticated help system that makes learning Onshape faster.
And that's actually a smart approach. As Jon Hirschtick (Onshape founder and PTC chief evangelist) put it: "We're giving much better results than you get if you ask these same questions to ChatGPT, or Perplexity, or Copilot, or Claude, or DeepSeek."
The tool is available to all Onshape users, including free and educational plans. That's a significant accessibility advantage.
Where It Fits
Onshape AI Advisor lowers the barrier to entry for teams adopting Onshape. It helps new users get productive faster and helps experienced users discover advanced features. It's not trying to automate engineering decisions. It's trying to make Onshape easier to learn.
For teams evaluating cloud CAD options, this is worth considering alongside the CAD capabilities themselves.
Best for: Teams adopting Onshape who want to accelerate onboarding and reduce the learning curve.
The Uncomfortable Truth About CAD AI in 2025
Here's what the marketing materials don't tell you:
Most announced AI features aren't shipping yet. AURA's advanced capabilities are "coming soon." SOLIDWORKS' generative assembly features are "in development." The demos look great, but production availability is another story.
Platform lock-in is real. Dassault is clearly using AI as a carrot to move users toward 3DEXPERIENCE. If you're on desktop SOLIDWORKS with no plans to migrate, many AI features simply aren't available to you.
Generic AI doesn't understand engineering. ChatGPT and similar tools can write code or draft emails, but they can't interpret CAD assemblies, understand tolerances, or connect to your PLM. The mechanical engineering domain requires purpose-built intelligence.
The real bottleneck isn't geometry creation. Engineers don't spend their days struggling to draw circles. They spend hours searching for information, hunting for similar past designs, answering the same questions, and redoing work because tribal knowledge walked out the door. That's where AI can actually help.
Which One Should You Pick?
If you want AI that works today, with proven enterprise adoption: Leo AI is the only option on this list with 60,000+ engineers in production at companies like HP, Intel, and Scania. It integrates with existing CAD/PLM workflows and delivers measurable results.
If you're already on SOLIDWORKS Cloud: Design Assistant provides genuine value for speeding up modeling tasks. Use it.
If you're committed to 3DEXPERIENCE and want to experiment: AURA is worth trying, but set realistic expectations. It's a beta product that will improve over time.
If you're adopting Onshape and want faster onboarding: AI Advisor is a genuinely helpful learning tool that makes the transition easier.
The Bottom Line
The AI landscape for CAD users is messier than the marketing suggests. Many features are in beta, locked to specific platforms, or not yet delivering on their demo promises.
Leo AI stands out because it's actually shipping, actually in production at major enterprises, and actually delivering measurable results. It's not trying to replace SOLIDWORKS. It's addressing the real productivity bottlenecks that CAD software doesn't solve: tribal knowledge, part search, technical questions, and documentation.
The rest of the market is catching up. AURA has potential. Design Assistant is useful within its scope. Onshape AI Advisor is doing something smart for a different audience.
Choose based on what you need today, not what a conference demo promised for next year.
Want to see AI that actually works for mechanical engineers? Book a demo with Leo and see why 60,000+ engineers are already using it.
Sources
GoEngineer - "AI in SOLIDWORKS: What It Is (and What It Isn't)" https://www.goengineer.com/blog/ai-in-solidworks
Hawk Ridge Systems - "What's Here Today: The AI Buzz in SOLIDWORKS CAD & 3DEXPERIENCE" (August 2025) https://hawkridgesys.com/blog/what-is-here-today-ai-in-solidworks-cad-3dexperience
Digital Engineering 24/7 - "3DEXPERIENCE World 2025: AI and Automated Features Redefine SOLIDWORKS" (May 2025) https://www.digitalengineering247.com/article/3dexperience-world-2025-ai-and-automated-features-redefine-the-30-year-old-solidworks
SOLIDWORKS Forums - "Anyone else tried AURA?" (July 2025) https://forum.solidworks.com/forum-solidworks/rYoOSLGhTAuHMOIKkKxpoA/anyone-else-tried-aura
Onshape Blog - "Introducing AI Advisor" (April 2025) https://www.onshape.com/en/blog/ai-advisor-guide-cad-pdm
Engineering.com - "Onshape AI Advisor is coming soon - here's everything we know" (February 2025) https://www.engineering.com/onshape-ai-advisor-is-coming-soon-heres-everything-we-know/
Pulse 2.0 - "Leo AI: $9.7 Million Raised For Transforming Mechanical Engineering" (September 2025) https://pulse2.com/leo-ai-9-7-million-raised-for-transforming-mechanical-engineering/
Capterra - Leo AI Product Profile and Enterprise Adoption Data https://www.capterra.com/p/10032244/Leo-AI/
CAD Dimensions - "What Is AURA? The New AI Assistant in SOLIDWORKS Connected" (October 2025) https://resources.cadimensions.com/cadimensions-resources/aura-your-new-personal-design-assistant-in-solidworks-0
Engineering.com - "Battling ghosts at 3DExperience World 2025" (February 2025) https://www.engineering.com/battling-ghosts-at-3dexperience-world-2025/
