CLOSE

Specials

  • Interior Design
  • Construction Demolition and Recycling APAC
  • Architectural Glass APAC
  • Startups APAC
  • Construction Forensic Services
  • Flooring System
  • Waterproofing APAC
  • Wall Systems
  • Safety and Compliance Europe
  • Roofing Systems
  • Construction Executive Search
  • Construction Engineering
  • Roofing Systems Europe
  • Project Management Europe
  • Steel Building
  • testin
  • MENA
  • Safety and Compliance APAC
  • Civil Engineering
  • Air Quality
  • Commercial Concrete
  • Cladding Systems
  • Construction Equipment
  • Mechanical Electrical and Plumbing
  • Marine Construction
  • Bridge Construction
  • Construction Demolition
  • Building Information Modeling
  • Safety and Compliance
  • HVAC
  • Others
  • Construction and Bid Estimation
  • Green Building Solutions
  • Dry Construction
  • Roofing Tech
  • Construction Demolition and Recycling
  • Flooring Tech
  • Steel Building Apac
  • Construction Tech
  • Door Systems
  • MODULAR CONSTRUCTION
  • Elevators and Escalators
  • Architectural Glass
  • Construction Middle East
  • Europe
  • APAC
  • Roofing System APAC
  • Construction Demolition and Recycling Europe
  • Modular Construction Europe
  • Plumbing System
  • Underground Construction Solutions

I agree We use cookies on this website to enhance your user experience. By clicking any link on this page you are giving your consent for us to set cookies. More info

Skip to: Curated Story Group 1
constructionbusinessreview
US
EUROPE
APAC
  • Home
  • Contributors
  • News
  • Conferences
  • Newsletter
  • Magazine
  • About

Thank you for Subscribing to Construction Business Review Weekly Brief

×
#

Construction Business Review Weekly Brief

Be first to read the latest tech news, Industry Leader's Insights, and CIO interviews of medium and large enterprises exclusively from Construction Business Review

Subscribe

loading
  • Home
  • Contributers

Recommended Insights

Mediatecture

Raymond Kent, Principal, Innovative...

Industrializing the Construction Process

Wolf Mangelsdorf, Partner, Buro Happold

Leveraging Advanced Technology To Prove...

Peter Tuffo, President of Suffolk’s...

Reimagining Office Space For A New Way Of...

Scott Cannon, Executive VP and General...

Mitigating Patient Anxiety Upon Reentering...

Andrea Kingsbury, IIDA, LEED AP ID+C,...

Nyc's Emissions Law Is A Challenge - And...

Yasemin Kologlu, RIBA, LEED AP BD+C,...

Textile Visualization for Furniture

Ronald D Gordon, SVP of Technology, MicroD

Why Should We Break The Norms?

Mediatecture

Raymond Kent, Principal, Innovative...

Industrializing the Construction Process

Wolf Mangelsdorf, Partner, Buro Happold

Leveraging Advanced Technology To Prove...

Peter Tuffo, President of Suffolk’s...

Reimagining Office Space For A New Way Of...

Scott Cannon, Executive VP and General...

Mitigating Patient Anxiety Upon Reentering...

Andrea Kingsbury, IIDA, LEED AP ID+C,...

Nyc's Emissions Law Is A Challenge - And...

Yasemin Kologlu, RIBA, LEED AP BD+C,...

Textile Visualization for Furniture

Ronald D Gordon, SVP of Technology, MicroD

Why Should We Break The Norms?

AI has Potential but is Not Yet a Reality in Construction Tech

Matthew Ohlman, CTO, Shadow Ventures
Tweet

It’s no secret that technology adoption in Construction lags behind other industries. Even though US Con­struction spending totaled more than $1.3 trillion in 2018, the industry consistently fails to adopt new tech­nology. Why? Margins are razor-thin, workers are busier than ever, and an aging, technology-adverse workforce is in control.


The industry has to adapt. Construction has a massive labor and productivity problem on the job site. Millennials and Gen-Z are not interested in manual labor and are instead drawn to professional jobs or less labor-heavy sectors. The lack of technology adoption also makes the industry unattractive to younger generations. At the same time, productivity (measured as output per worker) for the construction sector has remained flat while other industries, such as manufacturing, have increased its productivity significantly over the past few years.


These problems sound like the perfect use cases for Artificial Intelligence. As seed-stage investors in Construction Tech startups, my colleagues and I get a unique first look at the technology innovation happening to solve these problems (and more) in the industry.


Many startups are indeed claiming to use Artificial Intelligence— so many that it seems to be an unwritten rule that every startup pitch deck must now mention Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or other related buzz-words.


But Artificial Intelligence is not new and has been heavily researched for decades. In 1950, Alan Turing wrote a now-famous paper describing what has since been named The Turing Test—still the standard today to judge if a machine can exhibit human-like thought. Yet in the 69 years since Turing published his paper, no computer has been able to pass the Turing Test. So why has AI now become the latest buzz-word in Construction Tech? Exponential growth in computational power coupled with the ability to cost-effectively store the estimated 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created every day has brought computing to a point where algorithms can be effectively developed to deliver accurate results.


Increased investment dollars can go a long way in attracting more innovative talent to the market and allow startups to scale faster so that they can provide value on larger construction projects


The unfortunate reality, however, is that while we have been able to harness increased computing and storage power to make undeniably revolutionary technology, the field of computing has made relatively little progress towards the original vision of Artificial Intelligence.


Despite this, there are innovative startups that are using today’s AI to help the Construction industry keep up with the demand for higher outputs and reduced cost as well as solve other difficult challenges. One significant problem these startups face is a lack of data.


Nearly all AI solutions require massive amounts of reference data for training. Without training data, the solutions are academically interesting but lack the accuracy to be useful in real-world projects without significant human oversight. Since Construction has proven to be a laggard in technology adoption, the historical data needed often does not exist. Larger, more tech-savvy firms may have some data sets but are reluctant to share it with outside parties. Although data availability will increase as new technology adoption increases, the overall lack of data will continue to be a significant barrier to Construction Tech startups today and into the near future.


Recent venture capital attention in the space should increase the number of companies that actually develops defensible technology solutions. Increased investment dollars can go a long way in attracting more innovative talent to the market and allow startups to scale faster so that they can provide value on larger construction projects. Nevertheless, we have a long way to go and have merely scratched the surface of AI in Construction Tech today, despite the hype.


Weekly Brief

loading
Top 10 Interior Design Companies – 2021
> <
  • Interior Design 2021

    Top Vendors

    Current Issue

Read Also

Construction Industry and the New World

Thomas Gröninger, Project Manager, Large and Mega Projects, STRABAG AG (STR: VIE)
Construction Industry and the New World

Cybersecurity Of Hvac Systems In The Era Of Connected Devices

Matthew T. Goss, PE, PMP, CEM, CEA, CDSM, LEED® AP(BD+C), MEP/Energy Practice Leader, CDM Smith
Cybersecurity Of Hvac Systems In The Era Of Connected Devices

To Curb Climate Change and Design for Whole Life Carbon, the HVAC Industry Needs a More Transparent Roadmap

Rebecca Delaney, P.E., Associate Director and Operations Leader for Sustainable Engineering Studio, and Luke Leung P.E., ASHRAE Fellow, LEED Fellow, BEMP, P Eng, Director of Sustainable Engineering Studio, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill
To Curb Climate Change and Design for Whole Life Carbon, the HVAC Industry Needs a More Transparent Roadmap

BIM in 2020

Reinardt Bronkhorst, Senior BIM Lead, SSH
BIM in 2020
Building Design flexibility a solution for the project and a hope for the planet

Building Design flexibility a solution for the project and a hope for the planet

Moad ZIADI, Director of Construction Projects Europe at Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield
CEQS: A Vision for the Future Role of Cost Engineers and Quantity Surveyors

CEQS: A Vision for the Future Role of Cost Engineers and Quantity Surveyors

Eugene Seah, Senior Director, Key Account Management, Surbana Jurong

Projects Today Come Down To Nerves Of Steel And Realistic Expectations

Jason D’Orlando, Senior Managing Director, Life Sciences Project & Development Services Michael Morehead, Senior Director, Industrial Project & Development Services
 Projects Today Come Down To Nerves Of Steel And Realistic Expectations

Key Challenges in Managing Construction and Demolition Waste

Jonathan Shamrock, Technical Director, Tonkin & Taylor Ltd
Key Challenges in Managing Construction and Demolition Waste
Loading...

Copyright © 2022 Construction Business Review . All rights reserved. |  Subscribe follow on linkedin

This content is copyright protected

However, if you would like to share the information in this article, you may use the link below:

https://interior-design.constructionbusinessreview.com/cxoinsight/ai-has-potential-but-is-not-yet-a-reality-in-construction-tech-nwid-52.html