by Jason Costello
Artificial intelligence (AI) has clearly taken multiple industries by storm. Finance, marketing, academics, and myriad others are embracing the rise of AI while also trying to understand the exact role it will play in the workforce of the future. The construction industry is also beginning to explore the potential of artificial intelligence and machine learning to drive efficiencies into the jobsite, along with improvements to safety and quality.
AI doesn’t mean you’re turning over the control of the jobsite to a machine; in fact, humans are likely to play an even greater role in daily operations as AI acts as a partner tool to allow project managers and executives to focus on high-quality work and begin leaving basic tasks in the hands of an AI solution.
At Callahan Construction, our internal AI council is already experimenting with AI tools along with the integration of software that uses AI to expedite key tasks. Below are some of the technologies Callahan is considering implementing to harness the power of AI:
- Using ReadAI and OtterAI for transcribing and providing notes on meetings, especially when sharing action items from coordination meetings with the team.
- Leveraging OpenSpace and AI to compare and track 360-degree camera captures against the project’s BIM model in real time.
- Using other LLM AIs (CoPilot, ChatGPT, etc.) to flush out concepts and help provide a framework to build from, which can be used to build a general outline of a presentation (among other specific use cases).
- Deploying General Search Engine AI (Google Gemini, Perplexity) for concise and consolidated search results to find answers to questions accurately and quickly.
For now, Callahan’s AI committee is looking to build out the various use cases for AI and create a library that will provide guidance on how to standardize AI throughout the company. One path already being considered is using an AI tool like CoPilot to reference internal documents and provide Callahan-specific responses to prompts.
When it comes to helping free up its teams to focus on delivering highly specialized services to its clients, Callahan is eager to deploy AI tools that will take repetitive processes off a project manager’s plate. The company is hoping AI will someday soon be used for specific tasks like reviewing plans and specs for building submittal logs, scanning preliminary reviews of submittals, finding potential scope gaps, and more. While it’s impossible to see what the future holds, it’s obvious AI will play an outsized role in the AEC industry.
Jason Costello
Jason Costello is assistant project manager at Callahan Construction.
