What AEC firms need to know: A guide to responsible AI adoption

With the entire world racing to adopt Artificial Intelligence (AI), the AEC industries are under immense pressure to keep up and integrate AI into how they work and what they offer to clients. Mistakes in AEC can have devastating consequences, so before firms rush to adopt AI, they need to make sure they’re doing it in a way that’s both compliant and error-free. 

It’s hard to overstate how potentially transformative AI is for architecture, engineering and construction. It has the ability to streamline various project workflows, reducing both labor costs and labor hours out of the work architects, scientists, and engineers do. As with almost every other industry, the excitement of the transformative promises of AI are translating into a race between competitors eager to move faster while cutting costs in the long run.  

AI jargon is making its way into firms' marketing pages, as CTOs and CIOs are pressured to let their customers know they’re on the cutting edge of technological advancement. Whether it’s a simple CoPilot-aided boost in productivity or an in-house solution built to address a specific engineering issue, AEC firms are rushing to ensure they can tell investors and customers their firm is leveraging AI.  

The reality is that the rush to adopt AI can lead to an over-reliance on systems that aren’t fully understood or properly vetted. This is remarkably risky in the AEC world, where legal and safety compliance is mandatory and quality standards are non-negotiable.