Dive Brief:
- London-based contractor Balfour Beatty is developing its own artificial intelligence-based application, called StoaOne AI, which has scanned 8,000 documents for information to feed back to project teams and help them with their builds, said the CEO Leo Quinn to investors during the company day. full year earnings call on March 13.
- A second tool, which will mine billions of data points from health and safety observations and past incidents to predict, prevent and mitigate risk, is also in development, the firm said.
- Quinn said the company works with Microsoft and other technology companies to develop its own in-house solutions. These include “people-centric” technologies, he said, such as security-focused applications such as sensors around machines and computer-assisted authorization processes.
Diving knowledge:
Other contractors have also been making forays into AI. Sweden-based Skanska, for example, debuted its proprietary chatbot AI Sidekick in February AI and construction technology also continue to be a great attraction for builders who seek to advance growing labor shortage.
Quinn said the need for technology to help fill the construction job gap.
“We have a real skills challenge in the industry and if we’re going to have any chance of really delivering all the work that’s out there, we need to use technology to make people more productive,” Quinn told investors during the call “And at the same time, we make them safer and more confident in what they’re doing.”
Specifically on AI, Quinn said the company deployed a Microsoft AI system inside Balfour Beatty’s firewall to experiment with potential use cases.
Other companies have been viewing AI in a similar light. Redwood City, Calif.-based DPR recently said yes optimistic about technologybut urged caution in applying commercial programs such as ChatGPT to construction processes due to larger safety and security concerns.
Quinn, however, said this was the same area where technology can help the most.
“In addition to doing things that keep people safe in terms of safety observations and improve the work environment, which is essential, what we are doing [is] we are investing access control and tracking and tracing people,” Quinn said.
