When the RIBA AI summit surfaced old questions from 2016

(Originally shared on Linedin, Feb 2026)

This year's RIBA AI Summit transported my mind back to 10 years ago. Sound strange? Let me explain.

In 2016 I started a thesis, the Quantum Cave, trying to design a space to house the first meeting between humans and sentient AI. I spent weeks mulling over how to design the space to enhance communication with a new entity. Later I realised the focus was wrong. I could never control what AI is, what I could influence were the conditions of the meeting. The human side of the equation.

The summit had some fantastic talks, from Keir Regan-Alexander communicating agentic possibilities with his signature clarity, Tomas Millar boldly vibe-coding on stage and sharing the results in real-time, and Hamza Shaikh delivering his usual deep-cutting dive into the creative psyche to name a few. But what really touched me was the shift in the closing panel; the room seemed to quietly align, and the conversation stopped focussing on the technology. What I was seeing, I think, were many architects arriving somewhere similar to where I arrived in 2016. Not through initial intent, through the same process of elimination.

There are fewer voices questioning whether AI is here to stay. In the 10 years since my thesis, the conversation has moved from dismissal, to excitement, to fear. What I'm hearing now feels very different. People are no longer just resisting instinctively against the growing presence of AI — they're actively defining what they stand for. Not in a reactive way, something more deliberate.

Which brings me back to the Quantum Cave. The more important question was never what AI can do, but what you build around yourself in relation to it. Build from your values outward, not the technology inward.
That's the shift I'm hearing now. Not people reacting to AI, but people defining who they are in relation to it. I built vBrief from that same starting point.

Enjoy a few renders from the Quantum Cave above.

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