Design education is an integral part of the architectural student’s journey. Traditionally, in the undergraduate course, emphasis is placed on the skills development of conceptual sketching, model making, storytelling, and various communications of the concept and design processes. However, these skills are often seen as separate parts and taught as such without always utilising the opportunities to integrate these various aspects and parts into a holistic process. Architectural artisanship is a vital part of design acumen and must be seen as a skill that facilitates the design process rather than a separate entity.

The purpose of this paper is to publish research findings on the use of automation and artificial intelligence as a sub-set of knowledge management domains in architectural organisations in South Africa. Automation and artificial intelligence are two aspects that the fourth industrial revolution deals with, and automation may drastically change the way humans work.

For this paper, research data was collected by means of a qualitative research study. Consisting of 14 semi-structured interviews. The paper presents a discussion and research on the use of automation and artificial intelligence in the service architectural organisations provide.