Domain Expertise Moat in AI-Native Product Design (Refinery CAD Focus)
Most CAD tools are built by people who’ve never designed a refinery.
You can tell the moment you open them.
A CAD system built by a graphics engineer solves “how do I render millions of points in real time?” That’s a hard problem. But it’s not the problem a refinery engineer wakes up facing.
Refinery engineers wake up thinking: “I have to size a fired heater under ASME PG, API 560, and current RAGAGEP. My metallurgist says carbon steel works to 650°F but hydrogen attack starts at 700°F on this particular duty. I need to know: does my tube-wall thickness and alloy choice survive? Can I defend it in the PHA?”
That CAD tool doesn’t come from a rendering pipeline. It comes from someone who’s done it.
Here’s why domain expertise matters in AI-native tools: AI commoditizes labor, but it doesn’t generate judgment. An LLM can tell you the API standard for heat exchanger design. It can’t tell you why your last hydrogen cooler failed or why one facility’s operating envelope is different from another’s.
Right now, the biggest advantage for a founder building in industrial domains is that you’ve lived the problem. You know what the software is actually for, not what the sales team claims it’s for.
Most competitors don’t.
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