Everyone’s talking about AI in construction. Most of it is marketing. Here’s what actually works, what doesn’t, and why ENGINEERED INTELLIGENCE™ is different.
The Hype
Open any construction industry publication and you’ll see AI mentioned on every other page. Predictive scheduling. Automated safety monitoring. Generative design. Digital twins with AI brains. The promise is everywhere.
The reality is considerably more modest. Most “AI-powered” construction tools are thinly wrapped language models with a construction-themed interface. They look impressive in demos. They fall apart on real projects with real complexity and real consequences for getting it wrong.
What Actually Works
After two years of building and testing AI capabilities in our Enterprise Hub, here’s what we’ve found actually delivers value:
Document analysis and cross-referencing. AI is genuinely good at finding discrepancies between specifications, submittals, and drawings. It catches things humans miss — not because it’s smarter, but because it doesn’t get tired after reviewing the 50th submittal of the day.
Knowledge base retrieval. When a team member needs to know how a similar issue was handled on a previous project, AI-powered search through our 34,000+ chunk knowledge base returns relevant answers in seconds instead of hours.
Structured data extraction. Pulling key data points from unstructured documents — RFI response times, submittal turnaround, deficiency rates — and surfacing trends that inform management decisions.
What Doesn’t Work (Yet)
Autonomous decision-making. AI is not ready to make judgment calls on construction projects. Not even close. Anyone selling “AI project management” is selling a fantasy.
Replacing experienced professionals. AI augments expertise — it doesn’t replace it. You still need people who have been in the field, who understand construction sequences, who can look at a situation and know something is wrong. AI makes those people more effective. It doesn’t make them unnecessary.
ENGINEERED INTELLIGENCE™
We coined this term because it captures exactly what we do: apply structured, purpose-built AI capabilities to specific construction management problems where they actually deliver value. Not AI for the sake of AI. Not a chatbot on a website. A fully integrated operations infrastructure that makes experienced professionals measurably more effective.
The difference between hype and reality is simple: hype is a demo. Reality is a team using the system every day to deliver real projects, with real deadlines, for real clients who care about outcomes — not technology.