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AI is leading the charge as technology use grows in the construction sector.

But as a recent panel discussion at the Buildings Show in Toronto highlighted, other systems such as smart building tech, data analytics and BIM also continue to rise in importance – especially when converging into integrated ecosystems.

The session was billed as Adopting Technology across the Building Life Cycle. Panel moderator Jennifer Johnson, chief product officer at ConstructConnect, spoke to Eveart Foster, technologies expert at Autodesk; Josh Lewis, chief technical engineer at Nerva Energy; Brandon Miller, chief innovation officer at EllisDon; and Victoria Ikede, artificial intelligence lead at Architecture49.

AI supporting architects

From the designer’s point of view, Ikede said, AI is key to supporting reports, reading through documents and providing answers that accelerate proposal writing.

BIM use requires her to digest numerous standards and execution plans and she uses a third-wave AI agent that summarizes all of those requirements.

On the design side, she uses AI for video and image models and looks forward to employing AI to incorporate BIM models as well.

“There’s a really large spectrum of things that we’re exploring,” said Ikede.

Time is also saved creating massing models, she said. That’s usually very labour intensive, looking at site topography and changing the placing of buildings to respond to design requirements. AI from Autodesk completely changes the process.

“AI is able to do that in seconds, where you would need maybe one person spending several days just randomly placing blocks on a site,” said Ikede.

Miller said EllisDon employs 300 specialists in its digital group,

leveraging AI in various ways on a daily basis. But an increasing focus is on sustainability.

“The issue is, how do you actually measure, capture, your carbon emissions, your footprint?” said Miller.

“The ROI is really not so much a dollar figure, but more on a time saving.”

EllisDon uses 80 virtual design and construction specialists, often tapping into Autodesk platforms and building models during takeoff, Miller said. There are constant changes during that design phase, he said, and EllisDon is working to use AI to harness data and speed up design-build changes.

“So back and forward, getting it right, or at least 80-per-cent right the first time, will alleviate immense, not only stress, but also money and time and frustration around the collaboration between the GC and the design firm,” said Miller.

Johnson noted many larger contractors are building up their technical capability internally and starting to build the tools they’re going to use, which promotes efficiency and speed.

“I think it changes the mindset of contractors, and it changes the way that software companies that work with contractors think about contractors,” she said.

Structured, unstructured data

Foster said automation is being used for both structured and unstructured data. Unstructured data such as photos, files, PDFs and information in Excel spreadsheets that is stored in a construction cloud folder can be automatically transferred to SharePoint or similar platforms for content management and collaboration.

Meanwhile, financial data falls into the category of structured data, with rows and columns.

“We’re moving both unstructured and structured data, but the highest demand is really in the structured financial data, that’s number one,” he said.

“If you can automatically transfer the status of an expense or purchase order or a payment application on behalf of your accounting team, not only do you immediately provide efficiency in your accounting department, but also you derisk the project’s data from being accidentally typed over or misnamed.”

Miller noted use of AI also helps eliminate the element of “human bias.” That’s when an employee has spent a long period working on a project, only to have AI prove them wrong.

“Just removing that human bias is an eye-opener, which has then led to more engagement. ‘OK, now we’ll trust AI,’” he said.