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This is 2026.9 documentation. Coverage here is incremental: a page exists only where 2026.9 differs or is newly documented. For any other topic, switch to Current (2026.8 and earlier) in the version selector.
The dedicated diff view is gone in 2026.9 — see Compare Versions. In its place, Speckle Intelligence can detect what changed between two versions, explain it in plain language, and — because Chat can also drive the viewer — colour the model by how significant each change is. This page walks through one real conversation end to end, from the first question to a scene coloured by change severity, so you know what to expect and can reuse the pattern on your own models.
Speckle Intelligence Chat is available when your workspace plan includes it. On a self-hosted server, it is available only on Speckle Enterprise Server. For deployment setup, see Enterprise license — Intelligence.

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What this workflow does

  • Detect — find the two versions to compare and diff them, without you opening a versions panel or clicking a diff button.
  • Report — explain what changed in plain language: scale first, then the categories that carried the change.
  • Assess impact — score changed elements by how significant the change is, not just changed-or-not.
  • Visualise — colour the model by that score so the impact is visible, not just written down.

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Walkthrough

1

Ask what changed

In Chat or the viewer sparkle, ask a plain question — no version pickers, no diff button:
What is the most significant change between the last two versions of the model?
Intelligence lists the model’s version history, attaches the previous version alongside the one you have open, and runs a diff between them. You do not see those as separate steps; they happen as part of answering the question.
2

Read the report

The reply is a written summary, not a raw diff dump — scale first, then the categories that carried the change, in order of significance. On one structural model, the answer read:
The most significant change is a structural steel re-specification that swept through the model. Scale: 6,598 elements modified, 119 added, 105 removed across 66 levels — only ~60% of the model was left untouched. Structural Framing (3,873 modifications) shows beam families replaced en masse, with cross-sections cleared and rebuilt and the material grade upgraded (Steel 43-275 → Steel 345 MPa). Structural Columns (135) and Structural Connections (376 modified, 61 added, 22 removed) shifted to match. Walls (1,753 modified) look like a secondary effect of the structural resizing rather than an independent edit.
Intelligence reads this from the live model — the same connected, queryable data Chat uses for any other question — not from a static export or a change log someone maintained by hand.
3

Ask the follow-up in the same plain language

Keep going the way you would with a colleague:
Filter to just those elements and colour them by how significant.
You do not have to define “significant” or set a threshold. Intelligence scores each changed element by how many of its properties moved, buckets that into tiers, and applies a filter and colour-by in the viewer you are already looking at — the same Filters panel documented for manual use.
4

Read the result and keep drilling in

The reply names the tiers it chose and what landed in each one:
🔴 Major (9+ params changed) — 1,757 elements, the deepest re-specs. 🟠 Moderate (5–8 params) — 2,587 elements. 🟡 Minor (1–4 params) — 2,254 elements. 🟢 Added — 119 new elements.
The scene is now filtered to only the changed elements, coloured by tier, so the heaviest re-specification is visually obvious without you building that filter by hand. From here you can ask to isolate one tier, break it down by level, or start a new question — the filter stays until you clear it or ask for something that replaces it.

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Turn this into a skill

If your team asks this shape of question often — after every structural issue, before every coordination meeting — save the pattern instead of retyping it. Save the chat as a skill once the conversation behaves the way you want, or write the significance tiers and vocabulary into a skill by hand so every comparison uses the same thresholds and the same added/omitted/revised language. See Reuse organisation playbooks with Intelligence skills. You can also save the conversation as a Report if you want a shareable artefact rather than a one-off chat — bind the two versions as source aliases and the comparison becomes something you or a teammate can reopen without re-asking Intelligence.

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FAQ

No. Ask about “the last two versions”, or name one if you want an older baseline — for example “compare this to the version from before the coordination meeting.” Intelligence finds and attaches the versions it needs.
Not fixed. In this example Intelligence scored elements by how many properties changed and split them into rough tiers. Ask it to explain its thresholds, or tell it to weight geometry changes over parameter-only changes, if you want a different definition of significant for your project.
Yes. Like every other Intelligence query, comparing versions needs both versions in the new data format. Versions still in the old format cannot be queried. See Speckle’s data model is changing.
Yes — the questions on this page are plain language, not a script. Ask them in Chat or the viewer sparkle on any project with at least two versions in the new data format.

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See also

Last modified on September 21, 2026