I'm building an AI CAD tool called Nora3D. I've been calling this little adventure “taking on the CAD giants.”
Then PTC announced it had found a $22.6 billion buyer.
I said I was coming for the industry. I didn't say anyone had to sell the company.
To be clear, that is a joke, not my explanation of the deal. My contribution to industrial disruption this week was a phone stand with a star cut into it.
One star. Four more and it's a five-star product.
Finally, a product rating I know how to improve.
The deal and the phone stand
On October 5, 2026, Schneider Electric and PTC announced an agreement valuing PTC's equity at approximately $22.6 billion. The acquisition is expected to close by the third quarter of 2027, subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals and other closing conditions. It is an announced deal, not a completed one.
Their stated rationale is to connect industrial software, engineering data, and AI across the product and asset lifecycle. It is not an emergency response to my phone stand.
Still, the contrast is hard to resist. At one end of CAD, the conversation is about a multibillion-dollar acquisition. At my end, I'm on a tablet, trying to make an everyday object a little more my own.
Here is what that looks like.
A sentence gets the model started
In the demo, I give Nora3D a simple instruction:
Create a desktop phone stand.
The AI builds the initial model. That gives me something concrete to work with: a base, an angled back, and a ledge for the phone.
Useful, but also a perfectly reasonable place for a demo to become boring. There is a phone stand on the screen. We have all seen a phone stand.
So I keep going.
On the tablet, I draw a star on the stand's face using the sketch interface, then use an extrude cut to make the star-shaped opening. I also change the part's color.
The star is not another object generated beside the stand. It becomes a change to the stand I already have.
The part I want to keep building
This is the part of AI CAD that interests me most: the handoff between asking for something and working on it yourself.
A sentence is a convenient way to ask for a phone stand. A sketch is a convenient way to show where I want a star. I don't want to turn that little drawing into a paragraph of instructions just because I started with AI.
I want to choose the interaction that fits the next decision. Ask when words are enough. Sketch when a shape is easier to show. Keep editing the same model as the idea becomes more specific.
In the previous tablet demo, that next decision was changing a groove's radius in a cable organizer. Here, it is adding a new cut to a phone stand. Different edits, but the same reason to care: generation leaves me with something I can continue designing.
That is what I'm trying to build with Nora3D. Not a moment where the AI finishes and the user can only admire the result, but a starting point the user can take over.
A small object is a fair place to start
A phone stand is not an aircraft assembly. This video does not demonstrate the engineering depth, validation, or data management that established CAD systems support. Nor does a model on a screen establish that a physical print will fit or perform as intended.
But small objects are not pointless objects. A stand for your desk, a cable organizer, or a bracket for an awkward space can be a perfectly good reason to open CAD.
As a founder, I can make a grand statement about challenging an industry. Then I have to go back to the tablet and make the next edit work. The second part is where I can actually earn someone's interest.
So, congratulations to PTC on finding a buyer.
I'll keep working on the phone stand.
It still needs four stars.
Try Nora3D and start with something you actually want to make.