I love this article in last week’s The New York Times about the growing use of AI tools across the construction industry 🚧.

Interestingly, AI and the construction industry share lots of similarities to AI and the legal industry ⚖️.

Of course, AI can’t physically assembly a new building – just like AI can’t represent a client in-person in a courtroom proceeding or be physically present at the negotiation table like lawyers.

Also, as this quote from the article explains, the construction industry (just like the legal industry 😉) does not have the strongest track record for embracing technology: “The construction industry is the largest in the world, in terms of dollars spent, yet we are the least productive in terms of technological adoption and productivity gains.”

However, as the article expains, AI tools are increasingly deployed for construction projects and are speeding up the construction process: “Drones, cameras, mobile apps and even some robots are increasingly mapping real-time progress on sprawling job sites, giving builders and contractors the ability to track and improve a project’s performance.”

Sarah Liu, a partner at Fifth Wall, a venture capital firm focused on real estate investments, provides this terrific summation about AI: “The best companies aren’t touting themselves as AI companies. They’re touting themselves as problem-solving companies.”

As lawyers, let’s learn from the growing construction industry on how we can use AI tools to be outstanding problem solvers for our clients and move with greater speed and agility!