What's New | Generative Experiences & Virtual Companions

 

Today marks a milestone in how the industry works. Virtual Companions — Aura, Leo, and Marie — are now globally available on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform SaaS, in the Age of Industrial AI.

More than AI assistants, Virtual Companions are trusted experts who embody decades of industrial knowledge and know-how. They understand your intent, reason with Industry World Models grounded in the laws of physics and materials science, and orchestrate actions across the full lifecycle of your products — helping you see the invisible and achieve the impossible, before anything physically exists.

This is not about adding AI to your tools. It's a new kind of teamwork — humans and Virtual Companions co-creating, safely and at scale, on your most complex challenges.

The 3DEXPERIENCE platform integrates  AI-driven Virtual Companions and Generative Experiences—to boost efficiency and accelerate innovation.

But what are Virtual Companions and Generative Experiences?

Virtual Companions and Generative Experiences help you complete and automate activities reliably, from analyzing technical data to generating deliverables to solving complex engineering problems.

 

Virtual Companions

Virtual Companions are the AI-powered virtual workforce of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform SaaS.

They reason, plan, and act to address complex industrial problems and interact with you through natural conversations.

Each Virtual Companion has a specific mission, accomplished thru Competencies, and a distinct personality

Competencies are the ability to perform a particular job or purpose. A Competency covers an entire domain of expertise, relying on more granular skills. Virtual Companions embody Competences. For example, AURA project management or LEO Mechanical Engineering.

 

There are three distinct Virtual Companions: 

AURA - the Business Expert 

Empowers any user by leveraging Enterprise Knowledge & Know-How

LEO - The Engineer

Effectively solve technical challenges in all engineering disciplines

MARIE - The Scientist

Bring Deep Scientific Knowledge to Engineers or Researchers

Generative Experiences

Generative Experiences leverage Industry Knowledge & Know-How to robotize industrial processes. 

They create or enrich Virtual Twins, while ensuring quality and compliance with industry and enterprise standards

Generative Experiences handle complex and repetitive tasks efficiently, improving the overall operational efficiency of users, teams, and organizations.

By taking on lower-value tasks, they enable users, teams, and organizations to focus on creative, strategic, and high-value work, fostering innovation.

 

Move from slow, manual, and expert-dependent SOLIDWORKS workflows to faster, AI-assisted design by using AURA and LEO to turn natural language intent into CAD actions across parts, drawings, assemblies, equations, macros, materials, and documentation, with contextual help available directly inside SOLIDWORKS.

Instead of spending time searching commands, rebuilding models, fixing broken references, creating drawings manually, troubleshooting large assemblies, or repeating the same setup tasks, users can learn, create, diagnose, optimize, and document with AI guidance in the flow of work. The result is faster design creation, clearer manufacturing documentation, better model quality, improved manufacturability, stronger large assembly performance, and a more intuitive experience for both new and experienced users.


 

And because every discipline works differently, each Virtual Companion comes with Competencies designed for the way you work. 

Here's what this means for YOU:

 

Virtual Companions Competencies

Aura Moments

Knowledge that already exists finally gets used with AURA.

You stop answering the same question twice. People find existing answers before they even finish asking.

Catch up on what matters. Skip the rest.

You don't have to read everything to know everything. Come back from vacation and get up to speed in minutes, not days.


Ideas are easy. Managing them isn't. 3DSwym idea funnels bring structure

Your team's ideas don't get lost. Every idea is captured, sorted, and easy to review — and duplicates get caught automatically.

 

 

Leo Moments

Moment 1: Virtual Companions | Competences

 

Challenge: One of the parts in my assembly was imported from a STEP file, but I need to modify the geometry. What's the best way to do that?

Response: I can help you convert a solid body into a fully parametric model

Value: Move from manually rebuilding imported STEP or IGES geometry with no feature history, sketches, or parameters, to automatically converting BREP geometry into a fully parametric SOLIDWORKS model with native features and an editable feature tree. This makes imported parts easier to edit, refine, and reuse, especially for reverse engineering and workflows where existing CAD data needs to be modified, improved, or extended for future design work.

Moment 2: Virtual Companions | Competences

 

 

Challenge: Hey LEO, this assembly is getting sluggish. Can you analyze the whole model and recommend the highest-impact actions to improve performance?

Response: Absolutely. I’ll review the assembly structure, component complexity, rebuild behavior, graphics load, and hidden or overloaded components. Then I’ll recommend the actions that will make the biggest difference first.

Value: Move from manually hunting through sluggish assemblies to find what is slowing them down to having LEO analyze the full assembly and recommend the highest-impact performance improvements first. LEO reviews assembly structure, component complexity, rebuild behavior, graphics load, hidden or overloaded components, detailed fasteners, and SpeedPak opportunities, then helps simplify the right areas so the model opens, rebuilds, and reviews faster.

In this example, LEO reduced assembly open time from 52 seconds to 8 seconds, about 84% faster. For one engineer, that means a smoother design experience. Across a team, it means hours of design time returned every time the assembly is opened, rebuilt, or reviewed.

Moment 3: Virtual Companions | Competences

Challenge: Hey LEO, can you generate instructions for assembling each component in this assembly?"

Response: Sure! I can generate step-by-step assembly instructions with visual snapshots to help you assemble each component correctly, almost like a LEGO-style instruction manual.

Value: Move from manually creating assembly instructions, screenshots, and documentation for each component, to having LEO generate clear step-by-step assembly instructions with visual snapshots directly from the assembly. Users can review, edit, regenerate, and finalize the instructions before producing an easy-to-follow report that can be printed or shared as a PDF.

You get faster assembly documentation, fewer manual instruction-writing steps, clearer communication for manufacturing, service, training, and customers, and more consistent guidance so components can be assembled correctly the first time.

Moment 4: Virtual Companions | Competences

 

Challenge: I replaced the existing motor with a higher-power motor. Due to the increased load, I'm evaluating whether the main pivot pin should be increased. Can you help me understand the full design impact of this change?

Response: Sure! I can analyze the full assembly, uncover impacted parts, sub-assemblies, and other downstream dependencies

Value: Move from making a design change and manually tracing its impact across parts, subassemblies, and downstream dependencies, to having LEO analyze the full assembly before the change is made. When a performance requirement changes, such as replacing a motor with a higher-power option, LEO helps identify which components may be affected, including the main pivot pin, related parts, connected subassemblies, and dependent design decisions.

You get faster impact analysis, fewer missed dependencies, more confident design changes, and better control over downstream risk before committing to an update that could affect performance, reliability, manufacturability, or serviceability.

Moments: Virtual Companions | Competences

 

Challenge: I have to add multiple custom properties to every part in an assembly. Could you help me automate that?"

Response: I can help you automate repetitive tasks by generating custom SOLIDWORKS macros.

Value: Move from automation being limited to users who know how to write macros or understand programming, to making automation accessible to every SOLIDWORKS user through natural language. Users can simply describe the work they want to automate, and LEO can generate the macro logic, open it in the editor, and help refine it conversationally.


 Get Started with your Virtual Companions:

For help and guidance on getting started, check out the guide below.

https://r1132100503382-eu1-3dswym.3dexperience.3ds.com/community/swym:prd:R1132100503382:community:52?content=swym:prd:R1132100503382:wikitree:RDDBh2eTQguds9JP-Jcv4A