Since ChatGPT’s launch in 2022, businesses have rushed to tap into the strategic potential of AI. The construction industry, which tends to lag behind other sectors when it comes to technology adoption, has been slow to invest. Generative AI offers the sector, tools that go beyond analysis and prediction, laying the foundation for today’s agentic systems. Now, AI agents can move work forward faster and more cost-effectively by not only generating content, but by planning, coordinating, automating and executing tasks within defined guardrails, adapting for context in real-time. Autodesk’s Head of AI Growth Strategy Samuel Omans calls this “adaptive execution” and argues AEC firms risk falling behind if they ignore it.
“Our research shows that the cost of rework due to poor project data and miscommunication in the US alone is $31bn[i] – half of the total spend on rework; and then there is the overspend as a result of not being able to anticipate the future performance of a building” says Emmanuel Di Giacomo, EMEA AEC and AI Ecosystem Development Managerat Autodesk. He also notes that an estimated 14 hours a week gets spent on tasks that could be automated[ii]. More alarming, a staggering 96% of data gets lost in the construction and design process[iii].
“When data is fragmented or unstructured, its value is lost,” Di Giacomo adds.
AI enthusiasm cools as implementation challenges emerge
Findings from Autodesk’s 2025 industry report State of Design & Make: Spotlight on Construction[iv] showed a clear link between organisations far ahead in their digital maturity and their confidence in their financial outlook. Of the 3,503 leaders and experts from 27 countries across the construction industry surveyed for last year’s report, 82% of digital leader organisations said they felt positive about the financial performance of their business despite the uncertain macroeconomic landscape. Of those earlier on in their digital transformation journeys, 63% were confident in the future outlook of their business and for those at the starting blocks, just 52% felt well equipped to navigate the complexities ahead.
But the same report showed that outside the small group of digital leaders interviewed, trust in AI in the industry has dropped significantly from 2024, when 80% said they thought AI would be transformative. In 2025, respondents faced the cold reality of turning this technology into real applications, with sentiment down 12 percentage points.
“This global decline in sentiment signals that AI is following the classic tech hype cycle, as leaders face the challenges of implementation, an ongoing technical skills shortage, and the limitations of the current technology,” the report says.
The reality is that apart from the bigger firms, the industry is still fairly early on in their digital transformation. Many AEC firms are only now embedding BIM, cloud collaboration and data-driven workflows—technologies that have been mainstream in other industries for years. According to Autodesk’s report, spreadsheets are still the top digital tool for construction.
“The construction industry has a lot of discontinuous risk and reward in terms of the players within it,” says Omans and explains why the sector is famously behind the curve with regard to technology adoption. “The architect, the engineer, the contractor, the property developer – they each have their own incentive structure and risk profile. It’s a highly litigious field. It’s a low trust industry and so these are some of the key situational factors creating blockers.”
In construction, adopting new technology is as much about contracts and incentives as it is about software.
Another issue is data. Vast amounts of information are created during design and construction, yet a significant proportion is never reused once a project is complete. AI systems are only as effective as the data they can learn from. Finally, there is a human factor. The AEC workforce features an older demographic typically resistant to change and a growing skills gap in the number of professionals capable of using the latest technologies to their full capacity.
Concerns around reliability, accountability and trust remain significant, particularly when AI systems move closer to decision-making. But in the Autodesk’s 2025 State of Design & Make Digital Transformation Pulse, two-thirds of respondents said that common data environments (CDEs) improve trust between collaborators.[v]
So, how should leadership teams move from AI ambition to practical adoption?
Omans recommends this four-step approach:
- Build a data strategy that aligns with business goals
At the heart of the proliferation of digital construction tools is the need to better manage and share data. The construction industry produces quintillions of bytes of information every day and those mountains of data can be turned into actionable insights by organisations that have the right tech, and the right talent, to properly analyse it. Proper data management also avoids silos that confuse AI tools and act as roadblocks to efficiency. Currently though, Autodesk’s State of Design and Make report reveals an average of 13 hours per week is spent looking for the right data and less than 50% of survey respondents say their data sharing ability is acceptable.
- Establish clear governance accountability.
Quality and standards are key to risk control, value protection and credibility. Constructions firms sit on a wide range of data: design models, site photos, worker data, cost forecasts and sometimes government and critical infrastructure data. Establish governance policies that define data ownership, how long its kept and what’s off limits. Put measures in place so AI tools do not share information without appropriate permissions.
- Create space to experiment without compromising security
We are seeing a lot of business innovation coming from the bottom up. Some of the most interesting and creative applications of AI are coming from companies that have established secure virtual laboratories or “sandboxes” for their employees to experiment with the latest AI workflow tools. This allows a business to cycle through the latest innovation quickly and adopt those that work.
- Align AI applications with your go-to-market strategy
Identify where your business creates value, then apply AI where it strengthens differentiation or enables new services.
“At Autodesk, we think about agentic AI in terms of three pillars: automation, analysis and assistance. Automation reduces low-value, repetitive tasks. Analysis uses data to anticipate performance—structural, operational and environmental. Assistance augments human capability, surfacing insights and options without removing control,” says Di Giacomo. “In a sector where mistakes are costly, AI must enhance professional judgement, not replace it.”
“Our focus is to act as an AI ally, embedding intelligence into existing workflows rather than forcing radical change, so that businesses can benefit from Autodesk AI technology today while they consider how to restructure their organisations for the AI future.”
[Authors]
Sam Omans, Head of AI Growth Strategy, Autodesk
Sam Omans, PhD, works at the intersection of artificial intelligence and industrial transformation. He is Head of AI Growth Strategy at Autodesk, shaping strategy and investment for the company’s foundation model initiative, translating advances in artificial intelligence from research into enterprise capability. Trained as an architect and historian, he focuses on how technology reshapes human reasoning and professional decision-making, becoming embedded at industrial scale. He serves on the faculty at Yale University. His research on spatial reasoning has been supported by fellowships from the Fulbright Program and the Getty Research Institute.
Emmanuel Di Giacomo, EMEA AEC and AI Ecosystem Development Manager, Autodesk
An architect by training, Emmanuel Di Giacomo has more than 35 years of experience in 3D software industry, including over two decades at Autodesk. He is currently EMEA AEC and AI Ecosystem Development Manager for Europe at Autodesk, where he drives BIM and AI adoption across the AEC industry and supports public and private stakeholders in their digital transformation efforts.
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[i] Construction Disconnected – FMI Report
[ii] Construction Disconnected – FMI Report
[iii] https://fmicorp.com/uploads/media/FMI_BigDataReport.pdf
[iv] https://construction.autodesk.com/go/design-and-make-construction-spotlight-report
[v] https://www.autodesk.com/design-make/articles/2025-digital-transformation-pulse
