Arkyv
An AI workspace built for architecture teams, where a single agent reads and edits live Revit, Rhino and Archicad models, answers regulatory questions with page-level citations, and turns repetitive production work into reviewable workflows.
What is Arkyv?
Arkyv is an AI workspace aimed squarely at architecture and building engineering teams. It brings one conversational agent into the three authoring tools those teams already run, Autodesk Revit, Rhino with Grasshopper, and Graphisoft Archicad, and connects that agent to the regulations, project files and deliverables surrounding the model. The stated ambition is to move from a question to reviewed work without switching tools.
What separates it from a chat window bolted onto a plugin is that the agent reads and writes the live document. Each host is reached through its own integration surface: the Revit .NET API, RhinoCommon, and Archicad's official JSON interface, with the open-source Tapir extension available for supported workflows. Answers therefore come from the document currently open, not from a training snapshot. In Revit the agent can query any parameter, bulk-edit hundreds of elements, build schedules and view templates, export sheets to PDF and schedules to CSV, and run arbitrary checks against a firm's own rules. When no built-in tool covers a task, it writes Revit API code on the fly. In Rhino it inspects document settings, filters objects, edits attributes and geometry, and triggers Grasshopper definitions. In Archicad it reads and modifies element and GDL parameters in bulk and applies naming conventions across a project.
Safety rests on review rather than restraint: every write action is shown before it runs, executes as a single host transaction, and undoes like any other edit, while all reads and writes are logged.
Around the model sit features available in every conversation, including regulatory search, project search across files, emails, client requirements and meeting notes, web search, a planning mode that breaks a request into smaller tasks, spreadsheet and document editing, and Swedish legal precedent search. Regulatory answers carry page and section references that open the original PDF with the passage highlighted, and firms can load their own codes and guidelines. Compliance work is tracked through assigned checks and review-ready reports. The company was founded by three engineers who previously ran an applied AI consultancy, and it lists nine Swedish architecture practices as customers.
What it does
- Query a live BIM model in plain language: rooms, doors, walls, windows, zones, layers and any custom parameter
- Edit hundreds of elements at once in a single reviewed, undoable transaction
- Answer regulatory questions with page-level and section-level citations that open the source PDF at the highlighted passage
- Generate schedules, section views and view templates, then export sheets to PDF and schedules to CSV
- Run QA/QC before issue against missing data, naming conventions, firm standards and code rules
- Track compliance with assigned checks, visible status and review-ready PDF reports
- Search project files, emails, client requirements and meeting notes, and edit xlsx and docx documents
When to use Arkyv / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if Arkyv is the right fit.
When to use Arkyv
- Architects and architectural designers who lose hours a week to model housekeeping, renaming and documentation they would rather spend on design
- BIM managers and coordinators who need bulk parameter edits, naming-convention enforcement and QA checks run against a live model rather than an export
- MEP and building services engineers querying equipment, systems, ducts, pipes and spaces inside Revit, who have a dedicated page on the vendor's site
- Small practices and solo practitioners, since the entry plan is priced per member, published openly and opens with a seven-day trial instead of a sales call
- Larger firms that need compliance tracking with assigned checks, visible status and review-ready PDF reports across several projects
When not to use Arkyv
- Teams working in AutoCAD, SketchUp, Vectorworks or any host other than Revit 2024 and later, Rhino and Archicad, none of which are supported
- Practices outside Sweden that expect the Legal Search feature to work, since legal precedent search is explicitly limited to Sweden for now
- Developers wanting to call the tool programmatically: no public API and no developer documentation exist, only integrations into the host applications
- Anyone needing a mobile app, as neither an iOS nor an Android application is offered
- Procurement and legal teams with strict vendor due diligence, given that the site publishes no postal address, no full legal entity, no DPA, no subprocessor list and no security certification
How to use Arkyv
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Create an account from the site's sign-up link, which opens the vendor's web application
- Choose a plan: Pro starts with a seven-day free trial, while Enterprise goes through a booked demo
- Download the signed installer from your account and run it; the plugins for Revit, Rhino and Archicad are included on every plan
- Open the host application, where Arkyv appears as a panel inside Revit 2024 or later, Rhino or Archicad
- In a larger practice, roll the plugin out through your existing plugin deployment process instead of installing machine by machine
- Upload the codes, guidelines and project PDFs that matter to the job so answers draw on your sources rather than generic overviews
- Describe the task in plain language: what to find, what to change, or what to produce
- Read the plan the agent proposes and check exactly which elements it intends to change and how
- Approve the write action, let it run as a single transaction, and undo it from the host if the result is wrong
- Save a process that worked as a reusable workflow, then share it across projects and teammates
Pros & Cons
Pros
- The agent acts inside the model instead of talking about it, performing real reads and writes through each host's own API
- Every write is presented for review before it executes, runs as one host transaction, and undoes like any native edit
- Regulatory answers carry page and section references that open the original PDF at the highlighted passage, so claims are checkable rather than merely asserted
- A single agent covers three authoring tools, and the plugins for all three are included on every plan
- The functional ceiling is unusually high: when no built-in tool fits, the agent writes host API code on the fly for the user to review
- The entry price is published as a figure rather than hidden behind a sales call, which is uncommon in this corner of B2B software
- A seven-day free trial lets a practice evaluate the product on its own projects without speaking to anyone
Cons
- Corporate transparency is thin: no postal address, no full legal entity name and no legal notice page appear anywhere on the site
- The privacy policy covers only the marketing site, so nothing is published about how project files, uploaded PDFs, BIM models or conversations are retained
- The site never says whether customer data is used to train models, in either direction, and documents no way to opt out
- No data processing agreement is published or offered, no subprocessor list exists, and no security certification such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001 is displayed
- Host coverage is narrow: only Revit 2024 and later, Rhino and Archicad, with no AutoCAD, SketchUp or Vectorworks, and no mobile application
- Legal Search works for Sweden only, and no list of countries is published for regulatory search coverage
- The terms of service are very short, dated November 2024, and name neither a governing law nor a competent jurisdiction
Pricing & Plans
Pricing is published openly. The Pro plan costs 59.00 USD per member per month when billed monthly, or 601.80 USD per member when billed annually, and opens with a seven-day free trial. The Enterprise plan is quoted individually and carries no public figure. Every plan includes the Revit, Rhino and Archicad plugins. Whether a permanent free plan still exists is unclear: the pricing table lists only Pro and Enterprise and advises starting with Pro, while one product page still refers to a Free plan. Amounts are shown in US dollars, with no currency selector.
- seven-day free trial
- 500 credits per member each month for chat and rendering
- unlimited projects with up to 200 files
- teammate invitations in one shared workspace
- Chat
- Projects
- Regulations
- Canvas and Workflows
- everything in Pro
- unlimited usage
- Issues and Checklists
- tailored onboarding and support
- and custom invoicing
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how Arkyv handles your data.
GDPR overview
Concrete mentions exist but stay shallow. The privacy policy, last updated in August 2026, lists rights of access, correction, marketing unsubscribe, deletion and export, all exercised at hello@arkyv.ai with a stated 30-day response time, and a three-way consent banner gates non-essential cookies. The product FAQ states that data is encrypted in transit and at rest and stored on GDPR-compliant infrastructure in the EU. Beyond that, the record is thin: no Article 27 representative and no data protection officer are designated, no data processing agreement is published or offered, no subprocessor list exists, and hosting, CDN and security providers are named only by category. The policy also covers the marketing site alone, saying nothing about project files or BIM models.
Who owns the data?
The terms of service state that all content, design and code are owned by Arkyv, which covers the service itself rather than anything a customer uploads. Nowhere does the site assign ownership of BIM models, project files or conversations, so that question is simply left open. The privacy policy is clearer on personal data: it promises that personal information is not sold, and grants rights of access, correction, deletion and export, all exercised through a single address. Sharing is limited to third-party providers for hosting, email and analytics, to legal authorities on request, and to professional advisers under confidentiality. On the product side, full model files are not uploaded by default.
Reuse rights
Nothing in the terms restricts what a customer may do with the output produced inside their own model: edits are written through the host application and behave as ordinary transactions, so the drawings, schedules and exports that come out belong to the project like any other deliverable, and no permission step is described. What the terms do restrict is the other direction, since users may not copy, distribute or modify Arkyv's own content without permission. On the vendor's side, the published policy covers only the marketing site: it lists responding to enquiries, following up an unfinished demo request, sending product updates, improving the site, analysing traffic and meeting legal obligations. Consent-gated analytics and advertising tools are named. Crucially, the site never says whether customer data feeds model training, neither to confirm nor to deny it, and no exclusion mechanism is documented anywhere.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
The vendor's product FAQ states that data is encrypted in transit and at rest and stored on GDPR-compliant infrastructure in the EU. That is the whole of the jurisdictional claim: no hosting country is named, and no infrastructure provider is identified. The privacy policy lists security measures, namely TLS/SSL encrypted transmission, secure storage, limited personnel access and regular security assessments, and refers to providers only by category, covering website hosting, content delivery networks, security services, and analytics and advertising partners. On the product side, full model files are not uploaded by default, while conversation context is processed in the cloud. Two caveats are worth noting. The privacy policy addresses the marketing site rather than the product, so it does not describe where project data actually lives. And the marketing site itself resolves to an Amazon-hosted address in California, which concerns a different perimeter from the EU claim but is not reconciled anywhere on the site.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting Arkyv.
- The agent writes and executes host API code on the fly, and human review before each write is the only barrier described; a rushed approval on a large model is the realistic failure mode, and undo is a remedy rather than a safeguard
- Nothing is published about how project files, uploaded PDFs, BIM models or conversations are retained, because the privacy policy covers only the marketing site; sensitive client material would go into a space the documentation does not describe
- The site never states whether customer data trains models and offers no opt-out, so a practice cannot give clients a clear answer about what happens to their drawings
- Corporate identity is unusually thin for a vendor handling project data: no postal address, no full legal entity, no legal notice page, and terms dated November 2024 with no governing law or jurisdiction
- Confidence is easy to misplace when answers arrive with citations attached; the reference proves a passage exists, not that it was the right clause or that it was applied correctly to the project
- Handing routine model checking and code lookup to an agent erodes the habit of reading the regulation, and a junior architect who never learns to find the clause loses the ability to notice when the answer is wrong
- The marketing site resolves to a United States IP address while the product claims EU hosting; the two cover different perimeters and the site does not explain the distinction
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Low, provided the host software is already in place. You sign up online, download a signed installer from your account and run it; Arkyv then appears as a panel inside Revit 2024 or later, Rhino or Archicad. No add-in configuration, scripting or macros are described, and larger practices can deploy it through their existing plugin rollout process. The plugins are included on every plan and no extra Autodesk licence is required. The real prerequisite is organisational rather than technical: someone must review each proposed write before it runs.
Deployment
Integrations
Behind Arkyv
Fundraising
Social
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Frequently asked questions
Which design tools does Arkyv work with?
Can the agent really modify my model, and what happens if it gets something wrong?
Does my model data leave my machine?
How does the regulatory citation check work?
What does Arkyv cost, and is there a trial?
Where is my data hosted and what does the vendor say about GDPR?
Is there an API I can build against?
Is Arkyv suitable for a small practice?
Is there a mobile app?
Does Arkyv train its models on my project data?
Should you pick Arkyv?
Arkyv is a narrow tool that does something genuinely difficult. Rather than wrapping a chatbot around a plugin, it reaches into Revit, Rhino and Archicad through each platform's own integration surface and edits the document that is actually open. The safety model is honest about where the risk sits: nothing is prevented, everything is shown before it runs, executed as one host transaction and undoable like any other edit, with reads and writes logged. Where no built-in tool fits, the agent writes host API code for the user to approve, which raises the ceiling considerably and puts the burden of judgement squarely on the person reviewing it.
The second claim, verifiable regulatory answers, is the one most worth testing. Page-level and section-level citations that open the source PDF at the highlighted passage are a meaningful step beyond a confident paragraph, and the ability to load a practice's own codes matters more than any generic corpus.
What should give a buyer pause is not the product but the paperwork around it. The site publishes no postal address, no full legal entity, no legal notice, no processing agreement, no subprocessor list and no security certification. The privacy policy covers the marketing site alone, so how project files and BIM models are retained is simply not addressed, and the question of model training is never answered either way. Terms of service dated November 2024 name neither governing law nor jurisdiction.
For a practice, that combination argues for a specific approach: use the seven-day trial and the published per-member price to evaluate the product on real work, which costs nothing but time, and settle the data questions in writing before client material goes anywhere near it. The engineering looks ahead of the governance.
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