Francesco Iorio

CEO & Co-Founder
Augmenta

Widely referred to as the godfather of generative design, Francesco “Frio” Iorio is the Co-Founder and CEO of Augmenta, a construction-tech company using AI to automate the design and coordination of building systems. Before founding Augmenta, he served as Director of Computational Science Research at Autodesk Research, where he led the team that pioneered generative design – teaching software to produce optimized design directly from engineering requirements rather than simply documenting existing ones.

Earlier in his career, Frio was a solution architect in IBM’s High Performance Computing Group in Dublin, focused on extracting maximum performance from complex computational systems. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Toronto, an MSc in Information Technology from the University of Liverpool, and is a co-inventor on multiple computational design patents.

That combination of deep AI expertise ultimately led Frio to construction. He understood both what AI was capable of, and why it kept falling short in the built environment. Existing tools weren’t designed around how the trades actually work. Critical elements like code requirements, constructability rules, and the accumulated field knowledge of experienced MEP teams were largely absent from the software itself. Frio founded Augmenta to close that gap.

At Augmenta, Frio is applying spatial AI directly to the construction trades, starting with electrical, which he describes as the most computationally complex design problem in any building. The platform automates 3D routing, detailing, and coordination within the BIM and VDC workflows teams already use, accelerating project timelines while allowing engineers to focus on higher-value, decision-driven work. The platform is expanding to mechanical, plumbing, and structural, with a longer view toward a future where every building is efficiently designed by default, and where the trades’ hard-earned expertise is scaled, not replaced.