From Revit Rookie to Digital Leader: BIM, Consultancy and AI with Jon Arnott

A CPD lesson with Jon Arnott, founder of Adeptus Digital, on the journey from traditional architecture into BIM, digital leadership, consultancy and AI. Approx. 53 minutes. Listen to the audio below.

Who this is for

Architects, architectural assistants, technologists, BIM coordinators and managers, and practice leaders who want to understand how digital tools and roles have evolved in architecture, and anyone weighing a move from traditional practice into BIM, consultancy or running their own business.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this lesson you will be able to:

1. Describe how architectural production shifted from drawing boards and 2D CAD to BIM, and what that change demanded of early adopters.
2. Explain the strategic and people-side challenges of implementing new technology in a practice, and how to win over reluctant colleagues.
3. Judge where your own value sits, whether on the tools day to day or at a strategic level, as your career develops.
4. Distinguish the roles of BIM coordinator, BIM manager and digital lead, and how they emerged.
5. Assess what a consultancy actually does and whether an entrepreneurial path suits you.
6. Form a balanced view of how AI could augment architectural work rather than replace it.

1. From architect to technologist

Jon trained as an architect, graduating around 2006, and fully expected to design buildings. A lifelong fascination with technology pulled him toward the digital side of the profession instead. He frames this not as leaving architecture behind but as merging design thinking with technology, a combination that has shaped his whole career.

2. Implementing BIM before it had a name

At a six-person practice in Scotland, Jon led what he believes was one of the earliest BIM implementations in the country, around 2006 to 2007. The trigger was an NHS request to deliver two nuclear-medicine departments, in Perth and Dundee, in Revit. With little online guidance available, he installed the software, taught himself the basics, and worked through the harder problems alongside the reseller. It was, in his words, a matter of trial and error against live project deadlines.

3. The strategy behind change

Implementing new technology, Jon argues, is far more than installing software. The hardest part is people. He plans every rollout with fallbacks ready, because deadlines do not pause while teams learn unfamiliar tools. Drawing on the technology adoption curve, he notes that you only need a critical mass, often cited at around twelve per cent, before momentum builds and the rest of the team follows.

4. Winning over the reluctant

One recurring surprise across his career is that the colleague most resistant to change often becomes its strongest advocate once they see the benefit. His advice is to find allies at different levels, board, technical and junior, and let early converts carry the message rather than trying to convince everyone at once.

5. Knowing where your value sits

As BIM tools evolved, Jon accepted that he could not stay current with every feature. He distinguishes between keeping a hand in the software and recognising that his real value now lies at a strategic level, understanding what tools can do and how to embed them in a business, while more technical specialists handle day-to-day modelling. Becoming comfortable with that shift, he suggests, is part of growing in a career.

6. From practice into consultancy

After roughly seven years in early BIM and stints at larger studios, Jon moved into a computational-design consultancy and then a connected-technology startup. Working across many organisations exposed him to tools and possibilities a single practice could not, and pushed him well outside his comfort zone, which he sees as exactly where growth happens.

7. The entrepreneurial mindset

Jon and host Stephen Drew explore why not everyone is suited to founding a business, and why that is healthy. He pushes back on the idea that everyone should simply start a company, but observes that architects, used to long hours, tight deadlines, problem-solving and robust crits, are often better prepared for entrepreneurship than they realise.

8. What consultancy really means

Consultancy, Jon explains, can carry a poor reputation when it produces reports of little practical use. His own approach is to solve real-world problems with workable solutions: closing gaps after a failed certification, or replacing a manual process that takes a team weeks with a bespoke automation that takes one person minutes. Architecture itself, he notes, is a form of consultancy.

9. Founding Adeptus Digital

Missing the direct, problem-by-problem engagement of consulting, Jon founded Adeptus Digital. The practice picks up current themes around automation and AI while keeping sight of the foundations beneath them, from digital business strategy down to core BIM. His stated value is a holistic view of the whole project life cycle.

10. AI and the future of architecture

Jon is positive about AI, seeing it as a way to augment rather than replace people. He stresses that good outcomes depend on good data, that practices hold large amounts of it, and that AI can help sort the useful from the poor. He points to practical near-term uses such as checking issued drawings against keywords and regulations, flagging items like fire ratings for human review, and freeing designers from repetitive scheduling so they can focus on design.

11. Advice for aspiring architects

His closing advice is to stay inquisitive, follow what excites you even as a hobby, build a small network you can ask questions of, and never treat a question as too basic. The digital community in particular, he notes, has become more open about sharing knowledge.

Key terms

• BIM: Building Information Modelling, a model-based way of designing and documenting buildings, distinct from 2D CAD.
• BIM coordinator and BIM manager: roles responsible for coordinating models between disciplines and managing BIM standards and delivery in a practice.
• Computational design: using scripting and tools such as Dynamo to automate and generate design and documentation tasks.
• Generative design: software that produces and tests design options quickly, often at early stages.
• Consultancy: advising and delivering practical solutions to a client's specific problems, rather than producing theory alone.

Reflective prompts for your CPD record

• Where in your own workflow is repetitive work consuming time that could be automated or delegated to a specialist?
• If your practice introduced a new tool tomorrow, who would your early advocates be, and how would you bring the rest of the team with them?
• As your career develops, is your greatest value on the tools or at a strategic level, and what would you need to make that shift?

About the guest

Jon Arnott is an architect by background and the founder of Adeptus Digital, a consultancy helping AEC teams improve workflows through BIM, automation and AI. He led early BIM implementation in Scotland and held BIM coordination and management roles before moving into computational-design consultancy and founding his own practice. Episode recorded 2025. Explore the Adeptus Digital practice page and Jon's profile on the Architecture Social directory.