When Dassault Systèmes debuted its first 3D software design product nearly 45 years ago, the company couldn’t have predicted just how much the engineering design game would change over the next four and a half decades. Today, we’re moving closer to enabling AI-powered virtual experiences, shifting away from siloed virtual twins of products and processes to the development of intelligent systems and universes that can learn, predict and generate new possibilities. The shift toward AI that occurred in 2025 brings with it exciting opportunities that can improve the world around us. Let’s take a look at the journey we’ve been on this year.
Protecting what matters most: Customer ideas and data
As AI becomes more powerful, companies are worrying about losing control of their most valuable asset: their knowledge and intellectual property. Embedding cybersecurity guardrails within AI offerings gives customers the peace of mind they need.
The 3DEXPERIENCE platform provides a secure digital environment where companies can safely use AI with their proprietary data. It’s an innovation ecosystem that allows customers to make use of cutting-edge technology without concern for models training on their IP or data. The platform brings the benefits of the most advanced AI solutions of our time with a high degree of cyber protection, creating a relationship between customer and provider that’s based on trust, not transaction. We’ve transitioned from being a software provider to an experience enabler and a reliable provider for companies seeking AI innovation without compromising security.
Boosted business operations: AI’s perfect fit
Companies across industries are tasked with applying new AI technologies to their workflows, but simply implementing an add-on isn’t enough in most cases to deliver the results they need to stay competitive. Noting this difficulty, Dassault Systèmes has moved to make AI an integrated component in our solutions, improving outcomes for customers.
SOLIDWORKS CPQ: AI meets sales
SOLIDWORKS, already the go-to software for engineers worldwide, is enhancing its product offerings to meet these new challenges.
In February, the brand announced the debut of its new CPQ feature, which uses generative AI to automatically configure, price and quote products based on customer needs. SOLIDWORKS CPQ connects engineers, sales teams and customers in this intelligent, AI-powered system to transform businesses. Instead of a weeks-long back-and-forth customization timeline, companies are empowered to make configurations in real-time, even within the context of a single sales conversation. This offering reflects the technological capabilities that SOLIDWORKS has developed to meet customer needs and empower companies to transform their operations.
Contentserv: An acquisition to improve optimization
In 2025, Dassault Systèmes continued expanding beyond traditional engineering software into business operations, positioning ourselves as the industrial backbone of the AI era.
Earlier this year, CENTRIC PLM acquired ContentServ, a German provider of Product Information Management and Product Experience Management solutions for CPG and other industrial partners. The acquisition marks more than an expansion of product offerings. Contentserv adds a layer of AI into product lifecycle management that enables customers to localize product content, glean insights from these changes and then refine and optimize that content in order to scale sales worldwide. Infusing AI into trusted software environments empowers impactful operational shifts that will transition businesses into the next phase of product development, manufacturing, positioning and sales.
Virtual patients, real results: AI in healthcare
Developing new medicines is a long and costly process, and promising therapies often fail in the clinical trial phase. Similarly, medical device design requires extensive testing that stretches the go-to-market timeline by years. For patients to receive adequate medical care, new approaches are necessary.
Medidata: Transforming clinical trials
The AI revolution is beginning to take shape in the drug development space. Its first stop: in silico clinical trials.
Traditional clinical trials face costly, logistical issues in attracting and maintaining representative patient populations. Timelines stretch for years and can cost millions or more to successfully bring medicines to market. Using artificial intelligence, though, it’s possible to accelerate the process by carrying out virtual clinical trials.
Medidata has started integrating AI into its solutions – trusted by 19 out of the 20 foremost pharmaceutical companies – to build synthetic patient data that can be transformed into virtual cohorts for clinical trials. Using a virtual patient population whose data is extrapolated from real, human data, pharmaceutical companies can build ideal trials with perfectly represented populations and speedy testing, optimization and retesting processes. The impact of this development means faster paths to drug approval, lower development costs and better patient outcomes.
Living Heart Project: The next generation
The Living Heart Project isn’t new to 2025, but after a decade of progress and development, it’s reached a new milestone. The project, which leverages Dassault Systèmes technology and medical acumen to virtually model patient hearts, is making real progress on the path to precision medicine for all.
This year, the company announced the achievement of producing a “whole-heart simulation” that provides medical device companies the opportunity to virtually test on synthetic, AI-generated patient hearts. Using a decade of collected data to extrapolate and build highly varied virtual twins of hearts, medical device companies can accelerate their testing process and bring life-saving products to market faster. This achievement comes on the heels of the ENRICHMENT Playbook publication in 2024, the culmination of 5 years of joint research between Dassault Systèmes and the US Food and Drug Administration to build out a guide for the medical device industry to use virtual twins in their product development.
The Generative Economy: A new business model for the AI age
What do all these AI-powered developments have in common? They represent a shift toward the generative economy, in which companies can create value by generating insights and innovations from their own assets rather than simply consuming new resources. Dassault Systèmes is ushering in an era in which the virtual and real worlds are blended together through AI, building the ideal environment for progress that can be seamlessly imagined and implemented.
Companies are transitioning from a software-selling model to one that provides continuous, AI-enhanced experiences that form the foundation of knowledge ecosystems. Using a company’s own trusted data to develop its own AI solutions is the pinnacle of innovation. Using the historical data found in these digital environments, sovereign AI training and advancement are possible. That means company data and intellectual property are more than just virtual assets to be protected: they’re the foundation for progress.
We’re doing more than just adding AI features to existing products. We’re reimagining the entire business model around AI-powered virtual experiences.
AI: Beyond software solutions to a harmonious future
Technology represents little without the context of human progress. Dassault Systèmes wasn’t founded simply as an enterprise to enable customers to revolutionize their approach to 3D design. We were founded on the premise that enabling progress begins with innovative approaches. In 2025, that ethos remains as we empower our customers to approach their challenges with the competitive advantage of AI-powered, trusted solutions.
At its core, the driving force behind these innovations and the business evolution of 2025 lies in the belief that AI isn’t merely a tool but a strategic enabler of transformation. By embedding AI into more of our solutions this year, we’ve empowered businesses to address complex challenges with precision, efficiency and foresight. This commitment to leveraging advanced technology underscores our mission to create solutions that extend far beyond immediate functionality, beyond the virtual to a world where product, nature and life exist in AI-powered harmony.
Shoshana is a Senior Communications Manager on the Corporate Publishing team here at Dassault Systèmes. With experience in journalism, marketing, and PR, her work has been published around the world and across the internet.