Having places to live, work, shop, and otherwise conduct our daily lives is critical. But someone has to build those structures, and someone has to account for all the various aspects and needs of the construction. Technology has always been a major component of the evolution of the construction industry over the many millenia, and now construction is seeing significant benefit from the use of AI.

There’s significant inherent complexity involved in construction projects that require significant planning and advance preparation. Unlike software projects where you can change things on the fly, construction projects are much more set in advance. If you’re building a skyscraper and it has to have a certain amount of windows, you can’t just decide to change that on the fly after all plans and materials have been ordered.

Furthermore, construction projects have a significant amount of dependencies and advance planning needed. You have to plan the electric, HVAC, plumbing, and parking. You have to deal with the environmental aspects, zoning, and regulation. You also have to plan and design land usage and landscaping. There are so many things to take into account with construction projects. So it’s no surprise that complex construction projects can take years of planning before you even start digging the first trench full. The more construction project managers are on top of things, the more that the construction project will be a success,and the less that there will be cost and schedule overruns or other critical factors that can endanger the success of a construction project.

Given all the above complexity, it’s little surprise that AI is already making an impact on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of construction projects. From optimizing construction project scheduling to optimizing resource allocation, helping with risk management and predicting things like potential delays, cost overruns, resourcing bottlenecks, and generally enhancing and enabling decision making in a much better way, AI is already proving its value.