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Special Episode: Skema.ai’s Origin Story with Co-Founders Marty Rozmanith + Charlie Cichetti

Author

Charlie Cichetti
August 27, 2026

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Marty Rozmanith spent seven years writing the requirements for Revit — the tool that runs $1.2B a year in the AEC industry — and now he’s building what comes after it.

His pitch: pair AI with discrete engineering solvers so every design choice is explainable, not just fast, and use that to strip the padding owners quietly add to every project “just in case.”

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🌱BREAKING GROUND ON BETTER BUILDING

[Key Insight #1] Pairing AI with discrete solvers so every design decision has a documented reason

  • What's outdated: AI alone is a black box — ask it the same design question ten times and it can produce ten different answers, which is a non-starter when a licensed engineer has to sign off and explain a decision.

  • The innovation: Skema.ai combines traditional discrete-math solvers (which handle the hard engineering constraints — cooling, power, layout) with AI that learns to navigate hundreds of interdependent variables and explain why it made each trade-off.

  • Impact: Owners get repeatable, defensible design output — like a data center configuration that names the exact constraint behind every chiller count — without sacrificing the speed AI promises.

[Key Insight #2] “Morphing” — reusing what architects already built instead of starting from a blank page

  • What's outdated: Most cloud design tools ask architects to rebuild their entire library of assemblies and details from scratch, and early feasibility software forced designers to work only from a rigid pre-built “parts bucket,” which architects hated and refused to adopt.

  • The innovation: Skema.ai lets firms take an assembly from a past project and adapt it to a new site and shape, instead of redrawing it — giving designers flexibility while still capturing reusable data.

  • Impact: Faster time from concept to a permit-ready model, plus firms build a growing library of their own best practices instead of losing that knowledge project to project.

[Key Insight #3] Selling directly to owners to eliminate the hidden “CYA tax.”

  • What's outdated: Every stakeholder in a project — architect, engineer, contractor — tends to pad their estimate “just in case,” a habit Rozmanith and Cichetti call the CYA tax, which typically adds 10–25% to project cost.

  • The innovation: Skema.ai gives owners an in-house tool that non-technical team members can use to produce a highly technical, 75%+ complete design before the architect of record is even brought in — and gives every party access to the same live data at once, removing the excuse to pad.

  • Impact: For portfolio owners like quick-service restaurants and data center operators, even modest per-project savings compound fast — the team points to one retail customer where five extra store openings in a year could move $60M+ in revenue forward.

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📄 Read the transcript: HERE

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