2025.7.2 Realizing the Generative Future: 2025 Dassault Systèmes Analyst Day (Commentary)
Key Takeaways
- Dassault Systèmes recently formally announced their seventh generation offering, termed 3D UNIV+RSES, in which generative AI is a key enabling technology, among others.
- The company has invested heavily in realizing their new vision, including in generative AI and sense computing. Intellectual property is the currency in the “Generative Economy” and the company is well positioned to support these “transactions.”
- Their initial work on agentic AI is impressive and bodes well for their customers in all of their focused industries.
- Dassault Systèmes continues to bring their over 40 years’ of experience in discrete manufacturing to other industries, with strong results to date.
CIMdata recently had the pleasure of attending Dassault Systèmes Analyst Days 2025 in Velizy, France on 10th and 11th June 2025.[1]Dassault Systèmes is a long-time leader in the global product lifecycle management (PLM) market, with over 370,000 customers, adding 20,000 in 2024.[2]
In his remarks, Mr. Pascal Daloz, Dassault Systèmes’ Chief Executive Officer (CEO), called 2025 a “turning point” for the company. Management focus was on two critical elements: their new value equation (3D UNIV+RSES) and artificial intelligence (AI) for industry. On February 4, 2025, Dassault Systèmes announced its seventh-generation offering, 3D UNIV+RSES, which combines scientific modeling and simulation (MOD-SIM), multiple AI and generative AI (genAI) technologies, and virtual twin-based experiences with real-world data, scientific models, and business intelligence. Dassault Systèmes believes these new capabilities will reveal and augment industry knowledge and know-how, while protecting intellectual property (IP).
The “twin” visions of most Dassault Systèmes competitors are focused mainly on the product, spanning requirements, design, engineering, manufacturing, use, and service. However, Dassault Systèmes’ vision is broader and deeper; broader in that virtual twins of the enterprise drive their Enterprise-as-a-Service (EaaS) offerings and deeper since humans merit twins at the cellular level.[3]
Industrial AI is a core foundation of Dassault Systèmes’ vision. Figure 1 highlights the synthesis of many of Dassault Systèmes’ long-time strengths, as well as emerging technologies, like genAI and sense computing, in the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. Sense computing was exemplified by a recent partnership with Apple on the Apple Vision Pro (AVP).[4]CIMdata tried out the AVP during a live demo and it was impressive. The level of reality was better than demos in past years using other hardware, and gesture support made it easier to interact with the virtual world.
Figure 1—Foundations of 3D UNIV+RSES
(Courtesy of Dassault Systèmes)
According to Mr. Daloz, IP is the currency of this new “Generative Economy,” which he described as a V+R economy, with twins of the product, plant, organization, value chain, and business model. AI is at the heart of it, AI that is “trustable, secure, sovereign, and anchored in science.” Basing twins on science will limit hallucinations, suggested Mr. Daloz, an all too often occurrence in these early days of genAI applications.
During the presentations, CIMdata got to see AURA, Dassault Systèmes’ branding for their agents, in action. Dassault Systèmes demonstrated what many term “agentic AI,” with specialized agents playing their role in an AI-human team. Different agents message with their human counterparts, offering guidance and generative support as part of the interaction. One thing that was not evident was AURA’s explanatory capabilities, a key attribute of genAI applications that builds credibility with users. But the demos were lab demos, with plans to start releasing agents later this year. During the Q&A, CIMdata asked about how the agents would be monetized, and the company is still finalizing their plans. Mr. Patrick Johnson, Executive Vice President for Corporate Research and Sciences, claimed the company is developing a “massive amount” of agents. Mr. Johnson added that their 2020 acquisition of Proxem gave Dassault Systèmes expertise in transformers, a key type of deep learning model used in genAI, which can help generate new content, including text and images. He also stated that Dassault Systèmes has been investing for the long run in genAI, leveraging the best AI technology, as well as developing foundation models for their customers. In 2024, Dassault Systèmes announced a partnership with Mistral AI that leverages their OUTSCALE sovereign infrastructure.[5] Today, over 50 genAI technologies are being evaluated. In this work, the company plans to leverage their 40+ years of industry knowledge and know-how from supporting leading edge customers to develop some of the world’s most complex products. Mr. Johnson closed by stating that V+R twins will “eat the industrial world.” Digital twins are indeed important and are enhancing products and processes broadly in industry. Whether they will consume the world is open to conjecture.
On day two, Mr. Philippe Laufer, EVP for 3DS Global Brands elaborated on Dassault Systèmes’ belief that the industrial world is rapidly moving to software-defined products and production.[6] Their 3DEXPERIENCE Innovation Labs have nurtured over 25,000 start-ups, helping the company stay on top of leading industry trends. Mr. Laufer continued about a new partnership with Volkswagen, who turned to Dassault Systèmes to help implement a new platform strategy. In the past, VW heavily customized their product lifecycle IT environment. This time VW plans to rely on out-of-the-box (OOTB) capabilities on the cloud. VW’s solution definition and implementations plans will involve all VW brands. According to Mr. Thomas Kamla, VW SVP and CTO for ID.1, MQB Classic und Touareg, and in charge of Cooperation projects and Digitalization, “we are going to shape the future together.” This is precisely the type of customer Dassault Systèmes seeks: a company on the leading (innovative) edge of the bell curve that wants to co-develop their environment, becoming partners on the journey. Mr. Laufer also cited Renault using the 3DEXPERIENCE platform for multiple car programs in a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) environment. With regards to the adoption of Dassault Systèmes SaaS solution for Industrial Operations, Mr. Laufer also mentioned Airbus’ use of Dassault Systèmes SaaS solution for industrial operations. By using a virtual twin of their production system, the company achieved substantial productivity gains on final assembly lines. CIMdata has known about the benefits of digital manufacturing solutions since they emerged in the 1990s and is pleased to see another satisfied customer.
It should be noted that Dassault Systèmes is also interested in the general-purpose robotics market. Mr. Gian-Paolo Bassi, a company SVP, claimed Dassault Systèmes is working with 80% of the leading humanoid robotic firms, and four out of five quadruped robots are built using Dassault Systèmes’ technology. Why humanoid robots? The world was built by humans for humans. Humanoid robots’ form factor can integrate with our infrastructure. Historically, robots required dedicated programming. Advancements in physical AI support training by gesture vs. programming. Transferring knowledge is improved if the teacher and student have a similar form factor. Humanoid robots are being designed to work alongside the human workforce, often doing repetitive or difficult jobs in many industries. (Some believe they will replace what is left of the manufacturing workforce, since many such jobs go unfilled by humans.) This is an interesting take on addressing manufacturing staffing challenges, one also addressed by others in the market, such as Hexagon with their AEON robotics offering.
Ms. Clair Biot, Dassault Systèmes Life Sciences and Healthcare Industry VP, led a session on precision therapies. Her industry segment is one of two that Dassault Systèmes targeted as providing higher growth potential than manufacturing, which currently contributes the bulk of company revenues. Many drug companies have demonstrated amazing results by tailoring interventions based on the individual patient. Drug development still relies too much on Microsoft Excel and paper documents. Ms. Biot described their work with Sanofi, to develop a unified platform to accelerate launch, as well as enhancing agility and efficiency. The Sanofi Launch Engine Platform uses Dassault Systèmes’ platform as a collaboration hub. As in most companies, development, quality, and manufacturing operate differently and at different speeds. The early returns for Sanofi are impressive, with a 10 to 25% improvement in schedule adherence and up to 10% improvement in asset utilization. Dassault Systèmes invested early (with their 2014 acquisition of Accelrys) and often to build their science-based capabilities in life sciences and health care, and the results from companies like Sanofi illustrate what is possible in that market.
Another key market targeted by Dassault Systèmes is Infrastructure and Smart Cities. A team of Dassault Systèmes executives conducted a session on “Resilient and Industrialized Infrastructure.” Compared with other industries, the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) space trails in IT investment. What tools exist are mainly point solutions, and Dassault Systèmes has long used a “platform” strategy to support this industry, first with ENOVIA and then the 3DEXPERIENCE platform bringing together and managing disparate information sources. Four years ago, the company launched an initiative on modular construction, and claimed significant market gains leveraging their SOLIDWORKS brand. CIMdata has seen model-based systems engineering (MBSE) applied in industries outside its roots in aerospace and defense, and Dassault Systèmes is bringing MBSE to the conceptual phase in this industry. In fact, they cited an interesting paper in Nature on integrating Building Information Modeling (BIM) and PLM methodologies.[7] They also plan a CATIA Construction Virtual Companion to help designers assess the compliance of their evolving designs. The company has some first-of-a-kind (FOAK) engagements to develop these new agents, which is an exciting prospect for yet another field that lacks enough trained professionals.
This commentary covers just a taste of the content packed into the 1.5-day event. The sessions were well organized and focused, leaving plenty of time for the analysts in attendance to ask follow up questions. The event closed with an Executive panel, always a highlight and a last opportunity to get questions answered. Dassault Systèmes teased a lot of new content and offerings across their portfolio and industries, and CIMdata looks forward to learning more as new capabilities are released and are adopted by their customers.
[1] Research for this commentary was partially supported by Dassault Systèmes.
[2] Figures from Capital Markets presentation and Mr. Daloz’ and Mr. Laufer’s remarks.
[3] Enterprise as a Service (EaaS) is a comprehensive approach where organizations outsource various IT and business functions to external providers, allowing them to access services and solutions on a subscription basis. Based on the sources for the above definition, Dassault Systèmes is using this term more to describe applying their platform to business issues outside of their normal focus on the product lifecycle.
[4] https://www.3ds.com/newsroom/press-releases/dassault-systemes-reveals-next-dimension-product-design-and-manufacturing-apple-vision-pro
[5] https://www.3ds.com/newsroom/press-releases/dassault-systemes-and-mistral-ai-partner-offer-trusted-ai-powered-industry-grade-solutions-accelerate-generative-economy
[6] While service was not explicitly mentioned in Mr. Laufer’s remarks, the examples used show this was only an oversight.
[7] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-75940-x