The object technology of distributed intelligent CAE is offered as a workbench for collaborative development of complex technical systems. The execution capabilities of intelligent environment, reducing the requirements for the user ability to perform simple professional functions, but increasing the influence of decision-making on the final result, are shown, which highlights the user's competence in subject and subject-related domains, the user's ability to operate new knowledge and to coordinate the important decisions to be made with co-executors. The prospects of introducing the tutorial server based on the CAE intelligent core into the educational technologies to implement the competence approach to engineering education are discussed.