Artificial intelligence (AI) is a buzzword in today's construction landscape. But to move beyond the talk, it will have to demonstrate clear value by addressing specific industry pain points if its immense potential is to be realized, said panelists at "Applications for AI in AEC" in September at the BuiltWorlds 2024 Toronto Summit.

Defining "business outcomes and objectives" is vital, said Phoebe Zhang, Director, DivcoWest. While it's not wise to deploy AI for its sake because it's the new shiny toy, she does see significant potential for AI, if leveraged correctly, to improve construction operations vastly.

"Define pain points and show how [AI] can help solve the problem," she said. "Maybe it's an AI solution or [in some cases] just workflow automation," she added, calling on vendors and others in the AI space to "double down on the value proposition" and make it clear how the technology can help.

"There is opportunity to develop vertical use cases in construction technology," she said, if companies leverage proprietary industry-specific data, then fine-tune the model so they could help with specific use cases in construction," she said. Noting sectors like property management and healthcare have used AI in similar ways to advance their operations, Zhang stressed she sees "a lot of opportunities for AI to improve productivity in construction."

A Call to Be Real

At the same time, AI vendors and others must be realistic, said Francesco Iorio, CEO at Augmenta. "Vendors need to clarify the limitations of AI," he said, citing its "great potential but only if meeting real problems." 
Iorio added that vendors must help construction companies clearly identify pain points and then demonstrate specifically how the technology works and can deliver results.

Iorio said the time is now to embrace AI, in part because of recent technological innovations that have "multiplied" opportunities. "Acquiring data has become much cheaper and more plentiful," Iorio said, giving construction companies a chance to learn from part operations to improve performance today and in the future.

Current Adoption, Future Value

Ezequiel Machabanski, VP of Insights and Analytics at EllisDon Corporation, said AI's most significant benefits may be years down the road. Noting that he sees future value for construction firms adopting AI today, he stressed the need to understand AI's upstream and downstream applications. "You might see the value in two years or five years if you adopt it now," he said. He urged attendees to "take a step back" and see how AI can help their organization and the construction industry.

Daniel Barbeau, Growth/Market Development Manager, Canam Group Inc., said AI also has the potential to shorten decision-making times. "If we want to deliver projects faster, we need to attack that part of the supply chain we are in," he said, advocating the use of AI to look at old problems in new ways. 
“It’s about circling back to old problems to see if AI and other new technologies can help to solve them today,” Barbeau said.