RIBA AI Report 2026

How do we ensure AI strengthens rather than erodes professional development?

Last week RIBA released the 2026 AI Report spotlighting the insights and concerns of AI adoption across practices within the built environment and raising significant questions: How do we ensure AI strengthens rather than erodes professional development? Who benefits from these tools, and who gets left out? And as we build with AI, how do we protect the values that define architecture, care, creativity, and long-term stewardship?

Design Manager and AI Lead, Olivia Stobs-Stobart, contributed to the report to illustrate the impacts when we rush to adopt AI tools without understanding the problem we are trying to solve, and what foundational questions we need to ask to make AI a success.

The practices and relationships that define good architecture don’t change because AI exists. If anything, they become more critical. At Plan A we’re not here to be early adopters of every emerging capability. We’re here to do what we’ve always done: understand the problem, work with the people around us, and build with intention.