Contractors tout tech as AI arms race continues

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Dive Brief:

• As artificial intelligence continues to gain prominence in the construction world, two large builders are touting their new solutions as effective tools of the trade.
• Granite Construction and Skanska have shared in-house tools that the building firms are applying to current jobs, known as Asphalt Guru and Safety Sidekick, respectively.
• Watsonville, California-based Granite’s Asphalt Guru is an artificial intelligence learning platform. Swedish builder Skanska announced the launch of its Safety Sidekick application, an AI-powered assistant designed to transform job site safety, according to an April 24 news release.

Dive Insight:

The rollouts mark a continuation of a broader trend across the building industry since AI entered the world stage a little over two and a half years ago — contractors are looking for ways to add AI to their workflows, and hope to capitalize on the tech in order to gain an edge over the competition.

As AI becomes more widely used and bucks its fringe status, that edge can lead to tangible, publicized benefits. Granite, for example, recently took home the Innovator of the Year award from the Associated General Contractors’ annual conference for its use of its Asphalt Guru platform.

Asphalt Guru uses 900 pages of interview transcripts and thousands of documents, combined with external data like OSHA injuries, DOT standards and industry articles, to help train its asphalt paving team, according to the news release. More than 400 Granite employees have already used the platform, which has answered more than 1,000 questions, per the news release.

“It’s an honor to be recognized for a tool that preserves the expertise of our paving professionals,” said Daniel Mekis, Granite CI project manager, in the news release.

It’s now integrated into the company’s Asphalt Basics E-Learning program, and available via mobile devices in the field.

On Skanska’s side, Safety Sidekick serves as a digital companion for workers and leaders at every level by consolidating Skanska’s EHS Manual, OSHA construction standards and supplemental safety documentation into one streamlined, easily accessible resource available on both mobile and desktop platforms. 

A more general variation of the tech, known solely as Sidekick, has been in use at Skanska since December 2023. The Safety Sidekick falls under the builder’s suite of Expert Sidekicks, which are tools built with specific information for each purpose.

“These tools empower our people to turn data – including our enterprise knowledge – into actionable insights that better support our project teams and deliver more value to our customers,” said Anita Nelson, chief strategy officer at Skanska USA Building, in the news release.