As we discussed in the previous entry (here), the construction industry’s resistance to change has acted as a sort of isolator when it comes to retaining ownership of what’s produced. PDF and DWG might not be fancy file formats, but they make it nearly impossible to lock anyone out of the information they contain.

For some years now, IFC has attempted to address this challenge, but it’s hard to trust the tech industry. Why? It’s trapped itself in a subscription model that delivers little to no real progress. Instead, the same solutions are endlessly repackaged and sold back to us.

This might explain why AI has made such a splash recently—companies are finally delivering something that feels new to their clients. They’re creating models tied to help files, adding a sense of relevance. But once the hype over these glorified chatbots settles, it’s likely we’ll return to business as usual.

Spend any amount of time with professionals passionate about information exchange, and you’ll quickly learn that the original intent behind IFC4 was to create a truly editable format usable across software platforms. Unsurprisingly, this initiative died on arrival.

It’s not hard to see why. With only two major companies dominating the field, opening interoperability between them would intensify their competition and potentially invite new players into the market. Meanwhile, clients and designers are left grappling with how to create documentation that can withstand the test of time.

It’s not that digital twins aren’t desirable—they absolutely are. The problem is that revisiting a model years later often requires the same company, the same file format, and (if really unlucky) even the exact same software version as when the model was last updated. 

Over the course of 10 years, everything can change—teams die up, companies go under, technologies evolve, and even the integrity of the files themselves is compromised. What you thought was an investment turns to dust, and often faster than if it had been preserved on paper.

Of course, there are attempts at solutions. Online platforms offering repositories for file storage make it easier to safeguard, visualize, and extract information from models without too much trouble. But they still come with a glaring problem: “Now try and change the provider.”

Tech as an industry feels loosely built on a collective case of Stockholm Syndrome. Sure, everyone needs to make a profit, but the focus should be on how much value you can provide to your customers, not on how much you can squeeze out of them. Unfortunately, that’s just an idealized scenario.

Maybe the solution is already here. Maybe we don’t need to overthink it. After all, ink, paper, DWGs, and PDFs have stood the test of time.