What does the new RIBA President think about AI in architecture? We found out.

Jay Morton has been elected next RIBA President. The Bell Phillips Architects director becomes president-elect on 1 September 2026, following the announcement reported by Building Design on 2 July.

The AI question will sit at the centre of her presidency. Speaking on the Urban Forecast podcast episode "Could a RIBA President Actually Change Architecture?" (15 June 2026), Morton set out her position plainly: "There has to be a point when the human makes the decision." She wants to keep a human in the loop at every critical stage, and she draws a direct parallel with medicine. "AI can scour through all the test results," she said, "but when do you need the doctors to make the decision?... it should be the same for architecture."

Her view is not a rejection of the technology. "There's some really exciting opportunities that we could potentially do more really good work," she told the podcast. But she is clear about the limits of what a human can usefully absorb. "When you are using AI, there is actually only so much information you as a human can actually process if you still want to have an element of control. You could get AI to write as many emails as you like, but you would still want to look at them before you send them out, or create as many images as you like, but you'd still want to have the final edit."

On what the RIBA should do, she is specific. Morton wants an AI overlay built into the RIBA Plan of Work and says the institute "needs to lead on this" rather than developing policy in isolation. Collaboration with the wider industry is essential, she argues. "You'll end up doing it in a silo," is her warning to anyone who ignores that.

The training question is where she sounds the loudest alarm. Senior architects can now handle technical tasks with AI tools and may stop bringing in junior staff to do them. Morton sees a generational risk: "You'll end up in 20 years... who's there to replace us? Who's actually learned those skills?" She argues the profession needs to answer a harder question: "What call does the human make as a professional, which goes back to building safety and protection of function."

That phrase, protection of function, runs through her wider campaign platform. She believes the architect's role should be legally defined and protected, and that AI governance cannot be separated from that debate. She is pushing for city architects under every regional mayor, a shorter and cheaper education route that does not price out working-class talent, and an end to procurement systems that simply reward the cheapest bid.

On using the presidency as a platform, she is direct. "You need to be loud and you need to insist to be heard," she said. "Without our collective, we can't increase our voice and demonstrate our value." The RIBA has 38,000 members. Morton's argument is that it has not yet used that number as the lever it could be.