Summer is here in the United States, and in our summer blog series, we are talking about one of the hottest, most talked about technology of the decade: AI (artificial intelligence) and the impact it is having on the construction jobsite.
If you have been following along here, then you know in the first phase of this blog series, we have been talking about AI in general and AI throughout the lifecycle of a construction project, including design, construction, and building operations. In the second phase of the blog series, we have also looked at it in key areas like accounting and ERP (enterprise resource planning) and bidding and estimating. Today, let’s narrow in a bit more on the jobsite.
The construction jobsite is a complex and interesting place—one many construction companies are aiming to make it more efficient and safer. In fact, ResearchandMarkets suggests the market for construction site safety monitoring will grow 11.25% between 2025 and 2030, amassing $4.613 billion by the end of this decade.
Realtime monitoring provides a number of benefits on the construction jobsite, including greater productivity, heightened collaboration, insights into project details, and ultimately a tighter construction schedule and a better bottomline.
The number of examples of site safety solutions in the construction industry are truly endless. There are hundreds to choose including drone surveillance, AI-powered safety cameras, and wearables that monitor worker fatigue or exposure to hazardous conditions, just to name a few.
As one specific case from the end of last year is Texas A&M is doing research on how hybrid systems using computer vision and the IoT (Internet of Things) could potentially prevent falls from heights in residential construction.
The model uses computer vision to monitor the site on an ongoing basis and identify potential hazards and unsafe behaviors. The wearable sensors can then also provide data on worker movements, environmental conditions, and equipment usage.
The next phase of the project will leverage data using advanced algorithms and AI to predict and identify high-risk scenarios. This represents both proactive, preventative measures, and reactionary realtime measures, solving both future concerns and the here-and-now.
Of course, this isn’t the first university to do research in this area. In 2023, the University of Houston created ViPER+, which uses ultra-wideband tracking to monitor workers and heavy equipment, even in non‑line‑of‑sight situations, to automate the monitoring of policies of safe zones and distances between workers and operating equipment. The technology can detect any violations of policies while workers and equipment are working.
In the same year, in a Master’s Thesis, at Simon Fraser University, we see a BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy)‑based indoor localization and alerting system combines Android apps, zone mapping, and ML (machine learning) models for hazard detection and on‑site alerts. Narrowing in on infrastructure, also in 2023 we see UCF (University of Central Florida) has done research on AI and AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality), leveraging mixed reality inspection tools and GAN (generative adversarial network)-generated synthetic data to do realtime detection of structural issues and simulate risks before problems occur.
These examples are fun and exciting, but are they practical for all? Aligning people, process, and technology is a hurdle many companies are still facing—and that is exactly what we will explore in our third and final phase of this blog series. In the coming weeks, we will explore the practical side of what this all really, truly means for the construction industry. Stick around. There is still more to explore.
Do you have technology designed specifically for the construction industry? We want to hear about it! We will have a call to entry for our 2026 Constructech Top Products award program. Make sure to enter your product for consideration.
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