This episode of The Future Built Smarter examines the intersection of AEC technology and artificial intelligence (AI) with guest Alice Leung, Vice President at Brick and Mortar Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm that focuses on construction technology. Alice explains that the firm invests in startups that address existing productivity challenges within the industry. "We're here to invest in startups that are trying to solve real problems in the construction industry—not just crazy solutions looking for problems to solve.”

Alice says the industry is seeing an influx of interest and investment in technology—noteworthy at a time when McKinsey & Company reports continue to highlight stagnation in construction productivity. "The industry is frustrated that the world thinks we are not more innovative, more technology forward, or productive," she says.

AI is the chief driver of innovative construction technology, with current practical applications including streamlining manual tasks to make operations more efficient. This is transforming the estimating process, for example, with some AI software companies using AI to count components such as light fixtures or toilets from PDFs and models, significantly reducing the time and labor required for these tasks—and freeing up technical staff for more important design tasks. “Another low-hanging fruit area is in RFP's—just being able to take past project proposals [and using AI] to help write new proposal material,” Alice says. “So, if you're limited by the number of people that you have putting together proposals, if you're able to leverage AI to speed up a lot of that work, in theory, you can go after more projects, you can win more work, build out a stronger pipeline.”

Alice adds that AI also is being used more and more to quickly create 3D environments to allow architects and engineers to present their designs to clients at an early stage, allowing them to visually understand the design and speed up decision-making. "Generative AI is really good at turning sketches into photorealistic stuff... There is just so much auto creation of virtual environments."

Those in the AEC industry who are looking to innovate with AI technologies should not overlook the importance of governance, particularly regarding data privacy. "There’s a lot of conversation around data privacy... do we share our data with startups?" Alice says. When evaluating working with startups, she adds, “make sure that they have the technology architecture to be able but to swap in and swap out AI models,” which are getting better and exponentially faster—and often updated every six months or so. “The last thing you want is to have a big partnership with a startup that has hard coded their model or has built it in a way where they can't swap it out easily.”

Learn more about Brick & Mortar Ventures at brickmortar.vc/.