Small and global firms pay price for inaction on AI adoption – while mid-size companies reap the rewards, writes Maryrose Lyons, founder of the AI Institute
How early did your company create its AI strategy? How effectively does it implement it?
The answers to these questions decide whether you’re part of a growing company in today’s construction industry or one with stagnating ambitions.
The AI in the Built Environment report, a deep dive into AI adoption in the UK and Irish construction industry published earlier this month by my organisation, the AI Institute, found that it is mid-size companies that are reaping the biggest rewards from early AI adoption.
Indeed, executives of mid-size firms are reporting that steps they’ve taken to embrace AI strategy and training have increased productivity by up to 20% – which equates to around four extra hours of work per week, per team member.
This trend contrasts starkly with the construction industry writ large, where just 30% of companies are providing AI literacy training to staff and only 20% have established AI policies governing the proper use of AI tools.
Shadow AI use putting data at risk
Don’t be so naïve to think that the lack of training is a barrier to AI use across the wider workforce. Shadow AI is a big problem affecting all industries. In the construction sector alone, some 80% of those surveyed reported that staff are using ChatGPT without training or guidance. This is an unnecessary risk that exposes company data.
According to our report, those that stand to lose most are smaller firms which claim to be ‘too busy’ to focus on AI adoption. Smaller firms are the very ones who must adopt, and soon, otherwise they will be outperformed by those who have already invested time and capital in AI training and technology. It’s almost a truism: AI won’t take your job, but someone using AI will.
The same holds for business. The AI Institute takes a practical, people-driven, ground-up approach to introducing AI to a business. It’s not about replacing what your people do; it’s about augmenting what they do with intelligence.
Strategy first for firm foundations
A common story within the construction industry is one of big firms making significant investments in Small and global firms pay price for inaction on AI adoption – while mid-size companies reap the rewards, writes Maryrose Lyons, founder of the AI Institute AI pilots, which are then rendered ineffective by the lack of foundational knowledge across the organisation. Big investment does not automatically lead to success.
In contrast, mid-size companies have shown what can be achieved by first developing a formal strategy outlining what the business wants to achieve with AI, setting out guidelines for appropriate AI use and then introducing mandatory AI literacy training for all staff.
This covers core AI skills like prompting, data security and agents. On this foundation, businesses are able to organise and standardise their datasets and automate processes in preparation for landmark investment in an AI solution tailored specifically for their company’s operations.
A playbook for AI adoption
The good news is that there is now an emerging playbook on how to successfully introduce AI and augment business process. This was not so clear a year ago, but now there is a strong cohort of early adopters who are leading the way by demonstrating an emerging best practice.
There is now a clear set of steps to follow, starting with strategy and training, leading to automation of administrative processes and later data cleansing with a view to implementing your own custom AI to solve your very specific problems.
The AI Institute can help put companies on the right path through AI training, strategic advice and custom builds for individuals and companies wishing to embrace AI and change the way they work.
An engineering company we have worked with is Ethos Engineering, an innovative M&E company highly regarded for its work in the data centre industry. Ethos was one of the earliest to embrace AI and we have successfully delivered AI literacy training across its teams. Staff are reporting time saved on multiple tasks, increased quality of output and higher morale from finally being able to focus on high value activity rather than time-consuming administrative tasks.
AI represents a massive opportunity for the construction industry to unleash its full potential and bring its current 1% rate of growth in line with the global economy’s 2.8%
annual rate. Key to this is training and automation, sure, but also cultural change.
In our survey, some executives reported a cultural resistance to new technology within their organisations, especially among SMEs.
Reluctant late adopters should beware. The future will not wait.
AI Institute is offering a 10% discount on all training courses for readers who book online using the promo code startnow.
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