AI Adoption in Construction Held Back by Legacy Systems, Security Concerns

Research from IFS, a leading technology provider of enterprise cloud and industrial AI software, shows despite high levels of AI optimism among service companies, hurdles still stand in the way of successful AI adoption and deployment.

Factors slowing adoption progress were identified as a legacy-based technology landscape (41%), ethical/safety/security concerns (36%), and data complexity (32%).

However, there is optimism about the benefits of AI. Nearly 75% of construction & engineering respondents felt the industry is adopting AI at a quicker pace than others. Product and services innovation (32%) and people productivity (31%) are the two areas where construction & engineering companies expect AI to make large differences.

Sustainability planning also correlates directly with overall AI optimism. Most construction & engineering respondents that have an AI strategy for sustainability believe it can have the biggest impact in meeting sustainability goals (25%) and accurate demand visibility to control waste (22%).

Christian Pedersen, Chief Product Officer, IFS, commented: “At the surface level, the lack of optimism across some respondents may suggest we are at the edge of a trough of disillusionment, particularly following the all-encompassing hype that AI enjoyed for much of the last 18 months.

“The lofty expectations for AI bely a fundamental misunderstanding of how it is supposed to drive value. The real power lies in Industrial AI, where data flows through every part of your business, combining structured, interlinked datasets to uncover insights, optimize every process and marry the digital with the physical world. If a business doesn’t have a strategy to reach that point, then they need a partner who can guide them on that journey,” concluded Pedersen.

There are more insights and actions in the Industrial AI: the new frontier for productivity, innovation and competition Executive Report.

Research Methodology

Censuswide surveyed 1,709 C-level/President/SVP/Directors who work in Services, Manufacturing, Telecommunications, A&D, Construction & Engineering, or Energy & resources in organizations with $50m+ annual revenue (Aged 18+) across the US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, UAE, Norway, Japan, Australia, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.