Following Addnode’s 100 million-dollar purchase of Canadian SolidCAD a few weeks ago, with a planned placement in SYMETRI, the latter is the focus of development on the partner side within the Autodesk sphere. And the man behind the work is Addnode CEO Johan Andersson, who, together with SYMETRI’s CEO, Jens Kollserud, and the approximately 1,400 employees, has made this programmatically Autodesk-influenced company the world’s leading VAR in the sphere. Notable in this context is that SYMETRI is the major supporting subsidiary within Addnode’s Design Management leg.
Under Johan Andersson’s leadership from 2017, this part of Addnode has developed a strong core business and is well positioned for the explosive development expected in terms of technology development in the product development area; a position that, given the strong skills development that has always characterized Addnode Group’s PLM and Design divisions, will require a lot of consulting efforts and related software. AI, electrification, and electronics are some examples of these factors. The business showed results in the second quarter of 2025 that exceeded market expectations.
For SYMETRI and the Design Management division, revenues in 2024 landed just over 4.6 billion kronor, equivalent to around $440 million, with a profit level of around $55 million.
North America is SYMETRI’s Largest Market
This says a lot about SYMETRI’s size and ability to establish the resources needed to develop the AI solutions that are now starting to see the light of day around the world, which is the main topic of today’s interview with CEO Johan Andersson.
He describes the company and its operations in general as follows:
”SYMETRI is a leading global Platinum partner of Autodesk. The proprietary software and associated services, combined with a competent and experienced organization with global reach, provide important competitive advantages,” he says.
The company is also no small player.
”After the latest acquisitions in 2025, we will have around 1,400 employees, 30,000 customers, and 400,000 daily users, with a strong market presence primarily in North and Latin America, the Nordic region, the UK, and Ireland,” states Johan Andersson.
Geographically, the US is the dominant market in terms of percentage share of the company’s revenue, which in 2024 accounted for 44 percent of the total, while the Nordic region accounted for 29 percent and the UK 23 percent. The recent acquisitions of FF Solutions in Brazil and SolidCAD in Canada mean that Symetri’s global reach has become even greater.
Competitively, Symetri’s toughest opponents global software companies such as Dassault Systèmes, Nemetscheck and Siemens, but also other partners of Autodesk, such as GRAITEC, NTI and Rand Worldwide.
AI is a Key to
Future Competitiveness
Generally, regarding the AI pieces, the Addnode CEO believes that artificial intelligence can be seen as an extended development line of Addnode’s basic strategy to increase efficiency for its customers.
”AI is just as Andrew Anagnost (Autodesk CEO) states, a key component, which also provides a potential for an exponential boost for the ongoing digitalization trend. In this, AI creates absolutely good business opportunities for SYMETRI, although it should be clear that everything will not come at once. But we are actively investing in AI and product development to drive future growth, and we are already implementing AI to solve specific customer cases.”
Well Positioned for the Future
What is the general situation regarding demand for related services among SYMETRI’s customers? Are the AI pieces something that has been investigated, piloted, and actively implemented?
“Yes, this is discussed in most customer dialogues these days. We have both established service offerings, adjusted existing ones, and added capabilities to our products to enable our customers to start taking steps towards realizing the business benefit of AI.”
How do you see the company’s role as AI gains a major impact among customers? How is it changing?
“There is, of course, a lot to say about this, but in short, it is about balancing varied factors, not least based on what you have at the moment and how a realistic AI goal should be designed related to that. This should be linked to system architecture and technical expertise in areas such as ‘configurators’, PDM/PLM, IoT, BIM, GIS, and insights that can define what the difficulties are, versus the value of connecting data strategies and solutions that realize effectively functioning AI. Within our sector, we see that with a powerful base of market-leading knowledge and expertise in our customers’ unique areas of operation, we are well positioned for the future.
What are the most important challenges once you have decided on an AI investment?
“One of the most important is to move from a pure technology and opportunity focus to which specific business problems or opportunities you want to realize a change/improvement around, and what effect you want to achieve with this, and what consequences different decisions will have.”
Strongly Increased Demand for the Cloud and SaaS
Autodesk was an early adopter of the cloud and the SaaS model. The company has driven a significant shift to the cloud, but the impact varies depending on customer needs and industry. Cloud platforms, including Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC), Autodesk Forma, and possibly Fusion, have on their own merits revolutionized the possibilities for more productive collaboration, efficiency, and project management, but the transition has also posed challenges for some users.
What are the toughest challenges? What is the impact on SYMETRI’s customers with the cloud and SaaS versus on-premise and local installations?
“We have seen a strong increase in demand for cloud solutions for various types of collaboration tools and platforms precisely because they are built to make it easier for people from different locations to share information, data, and models among each other. These solutions create real business benefits for our customers, and we have experienced strong demand growth in recent years. Initially, security issues and where information is stored are important, but today, when there are more data centers, this issue is less real for most types of customers we have.”
What does it look like in general when it comes to integration with other systems?
“This is everyday life for us, and one of our most important tasks is to deliver functioning systems and methods based on various ‘technical products’, knowledge, and methods for effective data management and system integrations are some of our strongest competitive advantages today. Furthermore, many of our products are based on ready-made integration options.”
SYMETRI to Realize High-Flying Ambitions
That said, the overall conditions for SYMETRI’s more than 1,400 employees mean they have an exceptionally good potential to accelerate AI and cloud investments in their gigantic customer base. AI is coming quickly to all the markets in which the company operates, and as the economy slowly turns, companies, large and small, that want to be part of the markets of the future will need both the tools on offer and the consulting efforts required.
In the latter case, the issue at the customers’ end is, among other things, the extensive efforts that will be required to achieve the structures and data qualities required for AI agents and copilots to be able to provide relevant conclusions and design support. Not least important for SYMETRI will be how to successfully establish AI in the traditionally and IT-wise sprawling AEC (Architecture, Engineering, and Construction) market. The construction industry often lacks standardized data formats and often has inconsistent documentation. This creates the significant challenge of cleaning and preparing data before it can be used for AI. But at the same time, these conditions are excellent as a basis for ’lift off’ for a consultant who can successfully navigate within these frameworks.
”A winner on the other side AI”
Autodesk and its boss, Andrew Anagnost, believe the future is already here. He is right, and now it is up to PLM and BIM/AEC providers like SYMETRI to realize the vision.
”With AI and automation at its core, Autodesk is laying the foundation for a new era of design and construction that is faster, smarter, and more resilient – and unlocks unlimited capacity,” Anagnost said during AU 2025 in Nashville.
A lot of the practical work in this lies with SYMETRI. No one said that this is anything but a tough journey. But the company’s employees often have close and long-term relationships with their customers and therefore know their businesses well. At the same time, they know Autodesk products in depth. This means that the company has the potential to emerge as a winner “on the other side of AI”. But the big winners will be customers and users if everything goes as Johan Andersson, Jens Kollserud, and their staff plan.
