Can AI Help You Build Better Projects? 5 Ways to Use AI in Construction

Using AI in Construction

This week I got a call from the CFO of a construction company. He said that he really wanted to learn more about what was happening with Artificial Intelligence (AI) because he didn’t really understand how to use AI in construction and didn’t want to get left behind.

But let’s start with my recollection of one evening in 1993 when my electrical engineer husband asked me to come upstairs to see something brand new. It was the World Wide Web. We sat there in awe of how we could be directly connected to different universities through our computer. Watching this I felt like I was experiencing something that would change the world.

On March 14, 2024 I had the exact same feeling. This is the day Chat GPT4 was released. ChatGPT4 was amazing and we played around with it giving it prompts to write different things. On September 12, 2024, Open AI, the parent company of Chat GPT, released Open AI o1. Chat GPT is a Large Language Model (LLM) and was good for writing but not very good with math and science. Open AI o1 is for math and science and has much more reasoning abilities. It is forecasted that this o1 will make it possible for anyone to be able to code and develop their own software, not to mention being able to tackle large math and science problems.

Since March 2024, many popular construction applications now include AI as a native part of their applications. This includes applications such as Procore, Bluebeam, Autodesk (REVIT), and even Zoom. Sometimes the user knows it is there and sometimes it is in the background. No, you don’t need to learn how to code or build your own AI assistant, it is happening for you within your applications.

Back to the CFO’s question, as of today here are a few ways I see AI helping us to build better projects. And this is just the start. It will only be limited by our own imagination, and that of those who create construction applications.

1. Get Smarter: An LLM can hold thousands of documents in its “brain” all at once. Then you can query it for answers, patterns, forecasts, etc. For example, it can hold the entirety of your project’s contract, plans, specifications all at once so you can query about anything. Think of how much you can hold in your brain at once. My newest book is around 40,000 words that took me a year to write, and I still must look to remember what I wrote. This capability means you can find exactly where something is, or look for patterns, summarize a part or the whole of your project, outline the entire thing, or translate the document into a different language. As AI’s capabilities grow, it will be able to hold all your projects at once in its mind so you can query to compare, contrast, find patterns and lessons learned from every project you’ve ever done– really the possibilities are endless. I predict that most of this will be “built in” to the applications that you already use.
2. Reduce Routine tasks: You are likely to see many new apps emerging in construction that use the new AI capabilities that automatically complete the routine tasks you do daily – like filling out forms or even dispatching trucks and people. Since AI assistants learn as they do tasks, they get smarter as you use them. Just remember, they are like the smartest and dumbest person you’ve ever met. So, you must make sure to double-check that what you are getting is correct.
3. Communicate better/faster: The new AI models can generate communications you need for your business or team. You can ask it to be friendly, funny, serious, legalistic in its tone as it writes your emails, ads, and correspondence for you. The new models are starting to reason and give you thoughtful responses.
4. Use your data to steer: If you’ve wondered what to do with all the data you’ve been collecting, well your AI assistant and other types of AI models will eat it up and spit it out in whatever manner you need. If you aren’t collecting data from your project and business, then you better get started because it will become the “cost of admission.”
5. Use your voice: The LLMs are changing how we interface with the internet and applications. Voice commands to use apps are emerging. So, to do a schedule might be less about learning to run an app and more about how to interpret the results. For the internet today we use browsers to find what we want but soon you will use your voice commanded AI. And AI will replace Search Engine Optimization (SEO) because the way the internet works today will not be how it runs tomorrow.
6. Get smarter faster: AI is emerging into construction equipment from smart safety tools to AI driven excavators. It will be used in calculating quantities, testing results, and certified payrolls. AI will be a part of helping us to do our work smarter, better, and faster.
7. Have an aide: For many constructions workers, AI will become a smart aide they can use to help them answer questions and do their jobs better. Everyone will have an AI assistant and it will be tied to all the other assistants on your job. You will have answers to your technical questions almost instantly. So, data, information, and communication will flow freely across even large complex projects.

As AI takes on many of our routine and hard tasks, I believe that human interactions will become even more significant and that Partnering on our projects will be more important. So many things will be happening without human interactions that we will need the Partnering process to help keep alignment amongst the team members, so the project doesn’t steer off course. With AI there is a great opportunity for unintended consequences to occur and undermine what it takes to create a successful project.

For decades people have been predicting Web 3.0 (also known as the Metaverse) and predicting the “Singularity” (the point when AI is smarter than humans). It appears that those predictions are coming true. These new technologies will disrupt many things, OrgMetrics will try to help you keep on top of them as it evolves. Most of the changes to come can’t even be imagined today.

~ Sue

Sue Dyer, MBA, MIPI is a Master Partnering Facilitator & Founder for OrgMetrics LLC, WSJ bestselling author on Trusted Leadership for construction leaders, Founder of the International Partnering Institute, and President of sudyco® LLC. You can contact Sue at suedyer@orgmet.com or 510 504-5877.