Architects and engineers: finished projects can mean license income.
An architecture or engineering firm can license records of its completed work to AI companies when its client contracts allow it. That covers the proposal, the issued sheets, the review comments and each phase invoice. Client names and site addresses are replaced first. You keep every original drawing and model, and you name the projects that go in.
What counts in a design firm's project files?
Most firms keep drawings in one set of software and the hours and invoices in another. Email ties the two together.
Each numbered sheet in an issued set, with the title block that carries the project and sheet details.
The clouds and notes reviewers drew on your sheets. A markup list keeps each one with its author and its status.
Questions from the contractor during construction and the product data sent to your team for review, each with the answer that went back.
The project broken into phases with a budget for each, and the hours your staff logged against every phase.
What you billed the client as each phase closed, built from the phase fee and the hours on file.
Threads with clients and consultants about scope changes and added services. Many offices file them by project number.
A clinic's design phase and the invoice that closed it.
A design project runs in phases, and a phase closes once the client signs off on its sheets. The proposal sets a fee for each phase, so the hours behind every invoice can be checked against it. AI companies license runs like this one to teach a model how a design team handles a reviewer's comment inside a fixed fee.
One design phase for a clinic addition
Example- Signed
The clinic signs a proposal that sets a separate fee for each of five design phases.
ProposalEmail - Issued
With schematic design approved, the team issues 14 sheets for the clinic's review.
Design development setDesign software - Reviewed
The clinic's facilities lead clouds exam room 3 on sheet A-201 and asks for a wider corridor.
Review commentsMarkup software - Revised
A-201 goes out again as revision 1. The corridor is wider, and the title block lists the change.
Revised sheetDesign software - Approved
The clinic approves the revised set by email, which closes design development.
Phase sign-offEmail - OutcomeBilled
The office bills the design development fee, with the hours logged on the phase listed beneath it.
Phase invoiceProject accounting software
Where a design firm's records gain value.
Sheets tied to reviews
A revised sheet kept beside the review comment or RFI that changed it shows why the design moved. Your markup and RFI logs hold those links.
Fees and hours by phase
Every phase with its fee and the hours logged against it shows how much effort each part of the design took.
Notes on scope changes
Emails and meeting minutes about an added service or a revised fee show the judgment calls behind each fee change.
A deep project archive
Closed projects going back many years in one accounting system let a model compare the same building type for different clients.
Before a project record leaves, we take off the client's name and the site address.
Each client keeps one tag across every sheet and invoice, so a whole project still reads in order once it leaves your office.
Comments from Contact 1, facilities lead at Client 1, Address 1: widen the corridor at exam room 3. Call Contact 1 at Phone 1 or email Email 1 before the set is reissued. Contact 1 signed off on schematic design in May.
The standard AIA owner-architect form leaves ownership of the drawings with the architect and its consultants, and gives the client a license to use them for that project only. Your contract on each project can say something else, so we ask to see it before the project goes in.
The NSPE Code of Ethics asks engineers to get consent before they disclose a client's confidential business or technical information. Where a project calls for that consent, it has to come in writing, or the project stays out.
Sheets drawn by your outside consultants belong to them under that same form. We leave them out unless the consultant signs off.
Defense projects stay out, because ITAR counts drawings that show how to build or repair a defense article as technical data. We hold back plans of prisons and power plants as well.
Who at your firm does what, step by step.
Check your fit
Four questions cover your firm. Staff size and years of finished projects carry the most weight.
First call
A principal or project manager talks your adviser through one finished project and how it was billed. You hear how licensing works on the same call.
A closer look
Your project accountant shows how phases and hours are set up, and a sample of client contracts gets read.
Sourcing the right deals
We match your design records to AI companies looking for project work, and vet them before any offer comes your way.
Terms and payment
Your adviser takes you through each offer before you reply. Once you sign, the projects in scope go out with client names and site addresses replaced, and payment arrives on the dates in the license.
A principal's first questions
Does my firm own the drawings, or does the client?
The standard AIA owner-architect form says the drawings belong to the architect and its consultants. The client gets a license to use them for that one project. The contract you signed on each project is what decides, and engineers should read their owner-engineer agreements the same way. Bring two or three signed contracts to the first call.
Our client agreement has a confidentiality clause. Does that keep the project out?
Until your lawyer has read the clause, yes. How far it reaches decides whether the project can go in once the client's name is gone. Projects whose agreements carry no such clause can move ahead on their own schedule.
Does our professional code stop us from sharing project files?
The NSPE Code of Ethics asks engineers for the client's consent before confidential information is shared. State boards write rules too: New Mexico's, for one, asks for the client's prior consent. So a written consent comes first on any project where that applies, and projects without one stay out.
Our structural and mechanical consultants drew part of the set. Can those sheets go in?
Only with the consultant's written agreement, since the standard AIA form treats each consultant as the owner of what it drew. Your own sheets and invoices from that project can go in without theirs.
Do public projects like schools or water plants have to stay out?
Defense work and secure sites like water plants stay out by default. A school or a library is read one contract at a time, the same as a private client's, and you can hold back any public project you'd rather keep to yourself.
Is a firm of 15 people too small for this?
A 15-person firm can fit when its issued sets and phase invoices go back years in the same software. Staff size is one fit check question and the age of your records is another, so a short archive will read as early.
Your past projects could earn the firm a license payment.
Staff size and the age of your oldest project come first.
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