MecAgent Backlash: Free Tier CAD Scans, Training Rights

An AI assistant pitched as “Cursor for CAD” sounds like catnip for mechanical engineers. A free trial that reportedly sweeps local part files off disk is another story. According to reports, SolidWorks-focused MecAgent is facing sharp backlash over how its free tier handled CAD data.

The debate spread from SolidWorks community posts: a user investigating heavy network use said the client scanned drives for CAD files and uploaded them in the background. The legal layer is harsher still. MecAgent’s current terms and privacy policy still grant, for Free-Tier customer data submitted or captured in sessions, a worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, sublicensable license to train and improve models—and to provide that data to third parties, including for commercial purposes. Paid subscriptions, by contrast, state that customer data is not used for training. The pricing page still lists “Data collection” on Free, while marking the Free plan Temporarily unavailable.

According to reports, a MecAgent representative said paid plans do not collect such data; free-tier collection was for potential future training that had not started; and the company has paused free-plan data collection until it clarifies the terms. Pausing collection is not the same as unwinding licenses already described in the fine print, nor does it automatically answer what happens to files already uploaded. For teams that touch ITAR- or EAR-controlled technical data, one careless free install can cost far more than any seat fee saved.

This is not a review of whether MecAgent can sketch parts. It is a trust crisis about what a free agent is allowed to eat by default. CAD files carry feature trees, assemblies, and design intent—often worth more than a paid account. Trading free access for real engineering corpora is common in startups; MecAgent wrote the terms aggressively and then met engineers who read network traffic. Large companies are likely to ban tools like this until they sit inside CAD stacks those firms already trust.

Free trials can stay. Treating a customer’s disk as a training corpus should not hide in the footer.