(This column originally appeared in Forbes)
According to some reports AI in the construction market is expected to grow from about $4 billion today to almost $12 billion in just the next few years. There’s a lot of new technology coming. But if you’re running a small or midsized construction firm, what AI tech could you be leveraging this year to increase productivity and products? Here are a few real life products and companies that you should be considering.
Drones
Drones have come significantly down in price and are being used by a number of firms to track quantities of materials, progress, employee movements, security on job sites and safety issues. Firms in this industry say that when deployed the right way drones can decrease surveying and inspection time by as much as 90 percent. The big players in this arena include DroneDeploy, Pix4D and Propeller Aero.
Robotics and Building Automation
While we’re still a ways off from humanoid robots replacing workers there are other types of robots that are already performing functions on a job site alongside their human counterparts.
For example, robots made by Canvas can perform drywall finishing and create a “digital twin” of all work performed for quality assurance. Products from Dusty Robotics will map out project areas and print full-scale floorplans directly onto slabs, eliminating layout errors and reducing rework. Boston Dynamics sells a robot dog called Spot which can reach places deemed hazardous or unsafe for inspections, safety checks and observation.
Using robotic stations and data capture, a company called Trimble delivers hardware, software and services used in construction, infrastructure, geospatial sciences, transportation and logistics that uses AI for “precision positioning, data modelling, analytics and connected workflows.”
Built Robotics offers AI-driven pile drivers that automatically navigates to a pile’s precise location based on a digital project plan where it then drives the pile to the specified depth with minimal operator input, allowing a single operator to perform the task typically required by a two or three-person crew. RIC Technology offers 3-D printing robots that can autonomously build both commercial buildings and residential housing. Versatile attaches sensors to its cranes to track load paths, cycle times and idle equipment, which helps to identify productivity bottlenecks, unsafe operations and reduce overall equipment costs.
Once a building is up and running, AI is being used to improve the conditions inside. Driven by proprietary technology and model predictive control algorithms, Siemens Comfort AI continuously optimizes indoor comfort and energy performance, running autonomously across building portfolios without manual intervention.
Project Management
Procore is a major software player in the construction industry and what they’re doing to advance AI should be watched closely. The company has recently rolled out its Procore Assist which serves as a conversational AI assistant that provides contextually relevant answers on-demand and helps their users to find information needed from specs, RFIs, submittals, and building codes in seconds. New features include multi-lingual and mobile support as well as a photo intelligence option which can also allow users to summarize project progress and provide safety insights from analyzing jobsite photos.
Procore also recently announced that its Agent Builder product has entered “open beta” and once fully tested will allow their users to automate workflows by building custom AI agents to meet the unique needs of their business including the generation of RFI content, searches project documents for answers as well as automating jobsite reporting/
Autodesk’s Construction Cloud is leveraging AI to better predict project risks from thousands of prior jobsite datasets, identify subcontractor performance issues before they impact schedules and helps to detect quality and safety issues.
If you’re interested in building your own app, you may want to look at what construction firm Skanska is doing with their AI chatbot called Sidekick, which is designed to help the company explore catalogs of data from its numerous projects without introducing secret or proprietary information to the public domain. Built using the same tech as ChatGPT, users can ask Sidekick questions and it responds with answers based on a collection of internal data that will remain within Skanska’s proprietary cloud. The product is for internal use only and will not be sold commercially, but it provides a good example of how larger companies are licensing large language models to develop their own solutions.
Estimating
If you’re an estimator, you’re looking for applications that can help knock out your estimates as quickly and as accurately as possible. iBeam claims it’s the only AI-assisted fully automated construction takeoff (which is the process of identifying and measuring all the materials and labor needed to complete a project, based on drawings or specifications) software that delivers estimate-ready outputs. Other companies providing similar functionality include Togal.AI which reads blueprints and performs takeoffs automatically, reducing estimating time and mistakes.
Augmented Reality
Thanks to products like Meta’s Orion, augmented reality devices are looking much less bizarre than they did just a few years ago. And while Meta is a big player, the number of these devices are proliferating, thanks to Apple’s Vision Pro, Microsoft Hololens as well as a number of smaller competitors. These glasses are not only growing in use but are now benefitting from a number of new applications that are turning them into an important tool to have on the construction site.
For example, a company called OpenSpace has Vision AI which can perform 360-degree camera walks and then uses its AI technology to compare jobsite progress to BIM (Business Information Modelling) models and schedules. The company says its device can “instantly show what’s behind walls” and flag delays, missing materials and safety hazards.
Buildots offers hardhat-mounted cameras and AI software that automatically detects deviations from design, tracks quantities installed vs. planned for billing accuracy and may be helpful in reducing disputes between various parties working on a job. An engineering-grade helmet made by XYZ Reality says it can do “super-accurate model-to-field overlays” that will prevent re-work, speed up QA/AC inspections and perform real time deviation detection.
If you’re fan of Hololens, Orion or Vision Pro you’ll find custom solutions from Unity, Trimple and Fologram that can overlay BIM models on jobsites, visualize “clashes” before building, provide guidance on layout and installation, enable remote collaboration and real-time project design mark-ups as well as offer on-site visuals, real time simulations and immersive walkthroughs of projects.
These are all technologies driven by AI that exist now. They’re still in an early stage but becoming more accurate, reliable and consistent enough that a growing number of construction firms are leaning into them to help increase productivity, improve quality and grow profits.
