BUILDING SMARTER:
HOW AI CAN RESHAPE PRODUCTIVITY AND RISK MANAGEMENT IN CONSTRUCTION ROB MCGILLEN, VICE PRESIDENT & AI PRACTICE LEADER | CBIZ MARTY McCARTHY, MANAGING DIRECTOR & MID-ATLANTIC CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY LEADER | CBIZ
For construction businesses used to operating on razor thin margins in highly competitive markets, and while subject to extensive regulations, AI represents an incredible opportunity to realize valuable efficiencies. The technology supports efforts to improve productivity, expand the capabilities of enterprise platforms, and generate reports and documents tailored to meet specific use cases and requirements. On their own, any of these latent advantages could be key to growing margins and protecting profitability, taken together they’re rapidly becoming essential for achieving and maintaining a competitive advantage. As AI technology becomes more entrenched in the industry, AI is supporting essential estimates, schedules, and risk management functions. Here’s a breakdown of how AI can help, construction-specific benefits, tips for successful implementation, and common obstacles to overcome on your AI integration journey.
SPOTLIGHTING PRODUCTIVITY GAINS From estimates to close-outs, AI tools help compress timelines and reduce rework across project lifecycles. A few of the common use-cases where AI can drive value in construction: • Pre-Construction: Using AI, companies can arrive at more competitive bids by analyzing historical bid data, material price movements, and labor availability to estimate costs quickly and more accurately. • Scheduling and Logistics: Machine learning can be employed to identify sequencing conflicts, anticipate disruptive weather events, and issue alerts regarding supply chain bottlenecks before they cascade into change orders. 28 CONSTRUCTION TODAY
• Field Operations: Progress monitoring, safety compliance, and quality assurance can be enhanced by combining video feeds with AI monitoring, saving the time of your superintendents and inspectors. • Close-Out and Documentation: Cut weeks off project turnover by using AI to automate punch list, as-built reconciliation, and warranty tracking processes. With practical applications in mind, AI can have an impact that is as powerful as it is immediate, reducing manual efforts relating to estimations, scheduling, rework, and more.
SPECIALIZED AND TO-SPEC AI The capabilities of the AI platform a business chooses should drive that decision. Some are exceptional at producing code, others at generating decks and collateral. In construction, look for the following features: • Spec and Code Compliance: AI tools will be most useful when they can parse project specifications, recall building codes, and review contract language to flag conflicts, missing scope, or non-compliant elements. This is a rapidly trending area for AI enhancements. • Contract and Request for Information (RFI) Analysis: Models trained on construction and contract law can help project teams draft RFIs, evaluate the validity of change orders. and highlight risk clauses in subcontract agreements. • Safety and Compliance Intelligence: Predictive models that correlate jobsite conditions, crew composition, and environmental data can generate real-time safety scores.