Smart Construction: 7 Ways AI Will Change Construction

What do you think of when you think of Artificial Intelligence? Smart devices? The IOT? Self Driving vehicles? Skynet? Everyone and their grandmother is talking about AI and for good reason too. Artificial Intelligence is a hot topic because of its potential to change the way humans do just about everything.

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Don’t believe us? Artificial Intelligence has infected almost every industry there is out there, infiltrating your phones, homes as smart speakers, your movie selections, and even your car. However, you do not have to worry ...yet. AI is here to help, allowing humans to be more efficient at what they do, tackling challenges across the globe.

As stated by Oren Etzioni, "A calculator is a tool for humans to do math more quickly and accurately than they could ever do by hand; similarly, AI computers are tools for us to perform tasks too difficult or expensive for us to do on our own, such as analyzing large data sets or keeping up to date on medical research."

The world of construction is one of those industries poised to gain a lot from intelligent computing creating better buildings, cities, and communities for the world to live in. Today you are going to get a foundation on some of the biggest ways AI is changing the world of construction.

Design Optimization

One of the first things to discuss when talking about AI and construction is the design process as well as the factors that influence it. Construction design now is rather archaic, slow to adopt new technology, therefore slowing the process of creating a building.

Using Artificial intelligence, owners and contractors can use a supervised learning system to from collected environmental data, building data, material data etc. to identify the best way to create a building or even a community.  

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A contractor may build a home in a new area or region. A construction AI system may recommend to a builder what materials, specific design languages, and costs are needed to create the home based on available data, within seconds.   

Data is the name of the game and will be for many of the topics on this list. In short, AI allows contractors to analyze massive amounts of data in real time drastically cutting the entire construction process down to a fraction of what it was years ago.

Quality Control

The process of quality control is tedious but crucial for a contractor and business, as well as its future occupants. Neural networks, the foundation of AI itself, could help with this process. Neural networks could be used to asses drone collected images to compare various construction inconsistencies against existing models.

Contractors and owners will be able to spot any issues or potential threats to a building before they happen, saving on cost and time.

The Construction Business Model

An artificially intelligent system probably knows your clients better than you do. Across multiple industries right now AI is used to better understand customers needs, creating custom brand experiences. The world of smart construction will not be any different.

Understanding a client’s needs based off of data will be the new age of construction. Intelligent construction will predict customer trends, adapting your business model to the market, sometimes even in real time. A builder using AI will be able to predict what combination of services is most attractive to a client.

Project Selection, Creation, and Completion

Though still a far off possibility, smart construction may be completely run by a future AI system, an idea that is both scary and exciting for many in the industry. The right AI system could potentially work with clients on their designs, produce the final design and send a robot out to complete it, all while being run by just a few people.    

Smart 3D Printing

Builders using 3D printing to construct homes is no longer just a long-off fantasy. 3D printing homes are becoming commonplace and this new disruption is thanks to Artificial Intelligence.

Using smart robotics, contractors are able to build homes in hours rather than weeks or even years. Learning from simulations, builders might employ AI robots to construct homes in the near future.  

Modular Construction and Prefab Homes  

Modular homes and prefab homes are a unique and relatively new addition to the construction industry. In short, these homes can be built offsite saving time and resources, eventually to be delivered to the area of their choosing.

AI could eventually make this process even more efficient, improving supply chain coordination, a crucial component to the success of these types of homes.    

Project Management

Managing a construction project has a host of factors to consider, with each one having the potential to delay a project for years. AI can manage all of these tasks without breaking a sweat.

Future construction programs will manage entire projects providing builders with project risks, constructability, and the structural stability of various technical solutions for large commercial projects, single homes, and projects out of this world.