In this exclusive DailyCADCAM interview, Mr. David Katzman, Executive Vice President & General Manager, Onshape and Arena, PTC, shares his perspectives on the evolution of cloud-native CAD, the practical role of AI in engineering, integrated PDM, collaboration across distributed teams, and the future of connected product development.
Mr. David also discusses the growing adoption of Onshape across industries, the challenges of modernizing legacy CAD environments, the importance of engineering education, and the technologies that will shape product development over the next five years.
1. Your Journey
David, could you briefly share your professional journey and what inspired you to lead Onshape and Arena? How has your role evolved since Onshape became part of PTC?
I’ve spent most of my career helping technology companies grow, operate effectively, and create meaningful value for customers. I started in consulting and later joined Onshape, where I had the opportunity to work across customer success, sales, partnerships, and business development. That range of experiences gave me a great view of both what customers needed and what it took to build the business around them.
What drew me to Onshape was the chance to bring a genuinely different approach to product development to market. This wasn’t a desktop CAD system that had simply been moved to the cloud. Onshape was designed from day one as a cloud-native platform, bringing CAD and PDM together in one connected environment.
Since PTC acquired Onshape in 2019, my role has continued to grow. Today, I lead Onshape, Arena, and PTC’s Education team. A big part of my focus is helping engineering and manufacturing organizations modernize how they bring products to life, from the earliest design stages through production. At the same time, I’m focused on making sure our teams keep moving with speed, discipline, and a real commitment to our customers.
2. Evolution of Onshape
Onshape pioneered cloud-native CAD long before cloud engineering became mainstream. How has the platform evolved over the years, and what are the key innovations driving its growth today?
Onshape started with a simple idea: product development tools should work the way modern teams actually work. From the beginning, we combined professional CAD and built-in PDM in one cloud-native platform. That removed many of the file-management and collaboration headaches engineers had simply learned to live with.
Since then, Onshape has grown substantially. We’ve expanded into simulation, rendering, CAM, model-based definition, and deeper connections with manufacturing and quality systems, including Arena. We’ve also built offerings for specialized markets, such as Onshape Government, where security and compliance requirements are especially important.
Now, AI is opening the door to the next major chapter. Because Onshape is cloud-native, it has access to rich context, including design history, versions, permissions, and activity. That gives AI a much better foundation for being useful, traceable, and relevant inside real engineering workflows.
Through Onshape Labs, customers can get hands-on with emerging capabilities such as AI Quick Render, AI Advisor, NVIDIA SimReady Publisher, AI agents, and the FeatureScript MCP Server. What excites me is the practical potential: helping engineers automate repetitive work, capture their best practices, and turn those practices into tools that can be reused across an organization.
3. Cloud-Native CAD vs. Traditional CAD
Many engineering companies still rely on file-based CAD systems. What are the biggest advantages of cloud-native CAD, and why are more organizations transitioning to platforms like Onshape?
The biggest difference is that teams can stop spending so much time managing files and start spending more time designing products.
Traditional CAD environments create a lot of friction. Teams have to manage versions, send files back and forth, coordinate access, and keep software installed and updated. It’s easy to lose time just trying to determine who has the latest version.
With cloud-native CAD, everyone works from the same source of truth. People can collaborate in real time without creating duplicate copies or wondering whether they’re working with current information. Because the platform is always up to date, IT teams also avoid much of the installation and upgrade burden.
That simplicity really matters. Engineers should be focused on engineering, not on managing the technology around it.
4. AI in Product Development
Artificial Intelligence is reshaping engineering software. How is Onshape leveraging AI to improve design productivity, engineering collaboration, and decision-making, and what practical benefits are customers experiencing today?
We view AI as a practical tool that can help engineers do their best work. It’s there to support engineering judgment, not replace it.
A lot of the early conversation about AI in CAD has centered on text-to-CAD. We think an even more meaningful opportunity is text-to-code-to-CAD. An engineer should be able to describe what they need in everyday language, then use AI to help create custom functionality, automation, or workflows that the broader team can use again and again.
That is the idea behind the FeatureScript MCP Server, which is available through Onshape Labs. By bringing together Onshape’s FeatureScript language and AI agents, engineers can use conversational prompts to build editable, intent-driven CAD features and workflows. Rather than producing a one-time result, they can capture a proven design practice and turn it into a reusable tool.
We are also applying AI across other parts of the design process. AI Quick Render helps teams create high-quality renderings from prompts, while AI Advisor and contextual assistance can provide guidance directly within the user’s work.
For me, the important point is that AI becomes part of product development, not a separate experiment off to the side. It can reduce repetitive work, make guidance easier to access, and give engineers more time to focus on the problems that truly require their expertise.
5. Built-in PDM
One of Onshape’s biggest differentiators is its integrated Product Data Management (PDM). How does built-in PDM simplify engineering workflows compared to traditional standalone PDM systems?
In traditional environments, CAD and PDM are often treated as separate tools that require additional administration, setup, and user discipline.
Onshape takes that burden away. Version control, release management, branching and merging, permissions, and traceability are built into the same environment engineers use to design every day.
As a result, data management feels like a natural part of the workflow rather than an extra task. Engineers don’t have to ask, “Is this the latest file?” or “Where was that model saved?” or “Who changed this?” Onshape automatically maintains the complete design history.
That gives teams the freedom to collaborate while still maintaining control and accountability. In practical terms, it means fewer handoffs, less manual file management, and a much clearer path from design to release.
6. Collaboration Without Boundaries
Engineering teams today are distributed across multiple locations and time zones. How does Onshape enable real-time collaboration while maintaining version control, security, and engineering traceability?
Onshape was built around the idea that engineering teams should be able to collaborate effectively from anywhere.
Multiple people can work in the same design at the same time, and every change is tracked automatically. There’s no need to create endless copies or piece together what happened after the fact. The complete history is already there.
Security and access control are built in as well. Teams can manage permissions at a granular level, share information with the appropriate people, and see who did what and when.
So, teams don’t have to choose between moving quickly and maintaining control. They get real-time collaboration, full traceability, and strong governance of their engineering data, regardless of where their colleagues or partners are located.
7. Onshape and Arena
Onshape and Arena together offer a connected cloud-native CAD, PDM, PLM, and QMS platform. How does this integration help manufacturers accelerate product development from concept through production?
The Onshape—Arena connection allows engineering, manufacturing, quality, and supply chain teams to work from shared product information throughout the product lifecycle.
In a disconnected environment, data has to be transferred between systems and teams, which creates delays and opportunities for error. With Onshape and Arena, organizations can maintain continuity from the initial design through release, production, and ongoing product improvement.
This means people have better visibility, teams collaborate more effectively across functions, and decisions can be made faster with the right information in front of them.
8. Adoption Across Industries
Which industries are leading the adoption of Onshape today? Are you seeing increased interest from sectors such as robotics, aerospace, medical devices, consumer products, and industrial equipment?
We are seeing strong adoption across a wide range of industries, including robotics, aerospace and defence, medical devices, consumer products, industrial equipment, and education.
Those industries may build very different products, but they often face the same fundamental challenges. Their teams are distributed, their products are increasingly complex, and they’re under constant pressure to move faster. Cloud-native product development helps address all three by improving collaboration and making product data easier to manage.
We also see significant momentum with startups. Early-stage companies need to get from concept to prototype quickly, but they also need to stay organized as their products and teams grow. Through the Onshape Startup Program, qualifying startups can access Onshape Professional or Onshape Government at no cost. That gives them professional-grade CAD and PDM without the traditional burden of IT infrastructure and license management
9. Modernizing Legacy Engineering
Many companies still use legacy desktop CAD systems. What advice would you give organizations evaluating a transition to cloud-native engineering platforms, and what challenges should they expect during migration?
Focus on the business outcome, not simply the software replacement.
Organizations should ask whether their current tools are helping teams move faster, collaborate effectively, manage data efficiently, and prepare for technologies such as AI.
Interestingly, the technology transition is often easier than organizations expect. The harder part is changing established processes and habits. The companies that get the most value from the move don’t simply recreate their old way of working on a new platform. They use the transition as an opportunity to rethink and improve the workflow. That’s where modernization becomes much more than an IT project.
10. Engineering Education
Onshape has gained strong adoption among universities, startups, and makers. How important is the education segment for Onshape, and how are you helping prepare the next generation of engineers?
Education is incredibly important to us because today’s students will shape the future of engineering. Onshape gives universities a straightforward way to teach modern workflows using browser-based access, real-time collaboration, and built-in data management.
We’re seeing adoption at institutions around the world, including UC Berkeley, NYU, UConn, Duke University, King’s College London, KU Leuven, and Politecnico di Milano.
Our goal isn’t simply to teach students how to use CAD. It’s to prepare them for the way modern engineering teams actually work together and develop products.
11. Future of Cloud Engineering
Looking ahead, how do you see cloud-native CAD evolving over the next five years? Which technologies, AI, generative design, simulation, digital twins, cloud computing, or real-time collaboration, will have the greatest impact on engineering?
Over the next five years, I think we’ll see AI and cloud-native platforms become much more closely connected.
AI needs more than raw data to be truly useful. It needs context, permissions, version history, and an understanding of how work has evolved. Cloud-native systems provide that foundation in a way that traditional file-based systems simply can’t.
The greatest impact will come from intelligent tools that assist engineers throughout the design process, combined with real-time collaboration and connected product data across the lifecycle.
12. Product Roadmap
Can you share any upcoming innovations or strategic priorities for Onshape that customers and partners can look forward to over the next 12–24 months?
Our priorities are focused on helping customers build more connected, intelligent product development processes.
AI is a major area of investment for us. Through Onshape Labs, customers can get early access to emerging capabilities, try them in practice, and help shape how they develop.
We’re also strengthening connections across the PTC portfolio, including deeper integration between Onshape, Arena, and Windchill, to create a more connected product data foundation across the lifecycle.
13. Customer Success Story
Could you share a customer success story that demonstrates how Onshape has helped accelerate product development, improve collaboration, or reduce engineering costs?
A great example is Fauna Robotics, a company developing Sprout, a humanoid robot platform designed for experimentation, research, and real-world applications.
Their team needed to move quickly across design, simulation, and manufacturing. With Onshape, they were able to collaborate in real time, experiment rapidly with the support of built-in PDM, and connect CAD data to downstream systems through open APIs.
What I like about this story is that it shows the value of cloud-native product development in a particularly demanding environment. Robotics teams have to iterate quickly while coordinating highly complex work, and the platform helps them do both without losing control of their data.
To read the full story, visit How Fauna Robotics Is Leading Humanoid Robot Development with Cloud-Native CAD & PDM.
14. Advice for Engineering Professionals
What technical and digital skills should today’s mechanical design engineers and product developers develop to remain competitive in the era of cloud-native engineering and AI-assisted product development?
The most valuable skill is adaptability.
Engineers should continue building strong fundamentals in design, manufacturing, materials, and problem solving, while becoming comfortable with cloud-based systems, automation, simulation, and AI-assisted workflows.
The engineers who thrive will be the ones who combine genuine technical expertise with a willingness to keep learning and make effective use of new tools. Technology will continue to change. Curiosity and adaptability will make that an advantage.
15. Message to DailyCADCAM Readers
Finally, what message would you like to share with the readers of DailyCADCAM, especially mechanical design engineers, product designers, engineering managers, startups, educators, and manufacturing professionals who are embracing digital engineering and cloud-based product development?
This is an incredibly exciting time to be in engineering.
Cloud-native platforms and AI are changing how products are designed, developed, and delivered. But I think it’s important to remember that the technology itself isn’t the end goal. The goal is to help people work more effectively and bring better products to market.
The organizations that succeed will be the ones that preserve strong engineering fundamentals while embracing tools that help their teams move faster, collaborate more easily, and make better-informed decisions.
For engineers, designers, manufacturers, educators, and entrepreneurs, there has probably never been a better time to rethink what’s possible.
DailyCADCAM thanks Mr. David Katzman and PTC for sharing these perspectives on the changing landscape of product development.
Follow Mr. David on LinkedIn for the latest updates: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidskatzman/
Mr. David Katzman’s insights highlight a broader shift taking place across engineering and manufacturing: product development is moving from file-based, disconnected workflows toward connected, cloud-native environments where design data, collaboration, automation, and AI can work together.
As engineering organizations look to improve productivity and accelerate innovation, the combination of cloud-native CAD, integrated product data management, AI-assisted workflows, and real-time collaboration is likely to play an increasingly important role.
For engineers and product development teams, the message is clear: strong engineering fundamentals remain essential, but adaptability and the ability to effectively use emerging digital technologies will increasingly define the future of engineering.
