AI in Construction: Boon or Bane?

George Watts, Director of Project Management, SLS Consultants

The future of construction could resemble a "cybernetic ecology" where human mastery is maintained by deliberate choice to achieve stability (homeostasis). For that to happen, we must resist the urge to automate for the sake of automation. Instead, we should use AI to augment human decisions, while ensuring that we "hold the button" on our projects at all times.

For decades, the construction industry has grappled with communications problems, worker burnout, costly errors, schedule slippage, waste and more. The rise of artificial intelligence has placed the industry at a crossroads. We are left to wonder whether AI’s growing implementation will be a boon for efficiency or a bane for organizational stability and jobs.

The issue can be understood through two key questions:

• Is AI a good way to add value and elevate our workers out of dull, dirty and dangerous tasks by developing superior professional skills?

• Or, will software and machines take our jobs and eventually control everything?

Before diving in, we need to face the fact that AI is here to stay. It is no longer a peripheral experiment. It is driving massive transformation in every industry. Some people say that in 2026, the global market for AI in construction could reach unprecedented heights as firms transition from pilot AI programs to essential processes and integrated workflows driven by AI.

Whether that growth happens in the next year or five years, industry leaders have a responsibility to understand the duality of AI in order to keep their firms and people performing at the highest levels, while avoiding detrimental impacts of bad actors and devious scams. In a recent New York Times interview, Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, characterized the current era of AI as a "country of geniuses" capable of radical progress, while simultaneously warning of inevitable disruption.

Why It Matters

Construction executives are currently managing one of the most pivotal times in a generation. The Associated Builders and Contractors project a shortage of 499,000 workers in 2026 driven by attrition of an aging workforce and increased demand. AI not only gives us a competitive advantage to start filling that gap—it is a requirement to survive.

The Promise: A Productivity Revolution

The "boon" of AI is its capacity to handle the "messy complexity" that often overwhelms human cognition and time on large-scale projects.

• Predictive Logistics and Risk Management:  Machine learning algorithms now analyze historical project data, weather patterns, and supply chain health to flag potential delays and build data-based risk registers, enabling Project Managers to proactively lead their teams.

“AI not only gives us a competitive advantage to start filling that gap— it is a requirement to survive.”

• Job Site Tracking: Computer vision, biometric badging systems and wearable sensors enable real-time, automated monitoring of surveying, time-card management, safety metrics and equipment maintenance with higher consistency than manual oversight.

• Generative Design:  AI-driven tools can simulate thousands of design alternatives in seconds, optimizing for constructability, building performance, and lifecycle costs.

As Amodei notes, productivity gains from AI systems can accelerate at an extraordinary pace. For construction, the take-away is shortened bid cycles and more reliable project outcomes.

The Peril: Disruption and Dependency

The "bane" of AI is the unbridled speed of its dissemination, driven purely by profit motives and the speed of doing basic tasks faster than a human can. A number of concerns come to mind.

1. Loss of Support Jobs: A 2023 McKinsey & Co. survey predicted an 18% drop in demand for office support workers in construction between 2022 and 2030 and customer service/sales jobs by 13%.

2. Loss of Critical Thinking: If senior level people spend less time mentoring new hires because AI handles the research and documentation, the pipeline of skilled people for future leadership roles may dry up.

3. Misalignment and Autonomy: As we grant AI agents access to project accounts and scheduling software, there is an enormous risk of "rogue" behavior without human supervision and intervention. Unpredictable actions might compromise a power grid or a financial system, causing catastrophic impacts.

4. Cultural Resistance: Field teams often view AI as a surveillance tool or a precursor to job loss. Without transparent and transformational leadership, the "bane" of AI will be a fractured workforce on site, and potential “victim” mentality from being constantly watched.

The Executive Strategy:

To ensure AI remains a boon, leaders must move beyond experimentation and toward strategic implementation, with appropriate countermeasures. 

1. Build a Data Foundation: AI is only as effective as the data it consumes and the prompts it is given. Consolidating fragmented data points into a "single source of truth" is the prerequisite for any intelligent system.

2. Implement Ethical Standards: Leaders must establish and impart clear principles governing human interaction with AI. Chatbots driven by AI frequently mislead humans with outputs that contain mistakes, or even made-up nonsense. To address that problem, Silicon Valley firms are creating systems that can de-bug AI-generated computer code and detect errors in solutions to math problems. Academic and industry discussions increasingly emphasize that AI should enhance, not replace, human judgment. The authors of Teaching Effectively With Chat GPT draw upon experience from the Harvard Kennedy School, stressing that AI should be used to enhance – not replace – human teaching, learning and critical thinking.

3. Prioritize Workforce Readiness: Successful firms are shifting their investment toward training people how to properly and ethically leverage AI with a commitment to transparency, fairness and human oversight. They are elevating skilled workers to supervisory roles, where they act as the "managers" of automated systems.