-
AI Shifts Future of Work
Peggy explores the role of AI (artificial intelligence) in the future of work, looking at real numbers and success opportunities. She explains how AI is shifting skills needs in many industries, pointing to recent research. She also discusses: A gen AI history lesson and the impact it will ultimately have in the future. A PwC…
-
Sustainability in Supply Chains in 2025
Peggy Smedley and Josué Velázquez, research scientist and lecturer, MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, talk about sustainability in supply chains. He says sustainability is part of MIT’s core mission, which focuses on solving the problems of humanity. They also discuss: What happens in the sustainable supply chain lab. How generative AI is impacting the…
-
The Power of AI
Peggy Smedley and Akli Adjaoute, entrepreneur, founder, Brighterion and author, Inside AI, talk about his journey with AI (artificial intelligence)—and the role across industries. He says AI is powerful when it is used well. They also discuss: If AI is going to take over our jobs. Some of the most exciting tasks AI will help…
What's Trending
Gen AI (artificial intelligence) brings many benefits to many industries. Now, it can bring benefits to the classroom, as education will see an infusion of gen AI to help teach construction professionals at Western Michigan University and beyond. Dr. Hexu Liu earned funding from an NSF (National Science Foundation) grant of nearly $300,000. The team launched a pilot program at WMU in September 2024. It will allow the university to develop an AI-powered training platform to enable gen AI and BIM (building information modeling) to bring a classroom project to life. The training platform will include AI learning tools tailored to undergraduate construction education, which will address some of the hurdles currently faced in individualized learning, curriculum design, and instructor support. Here is how this can help in education: Transform how digital skills are taught Close the skills gap Prepare the workforce for the future of construction Looking to the future, the platform will be adopted into WMU’s curriculum. The objective will also include a web-based platform, integrated with ChatGPT, to deliver an interactive, self-pace learning experience. Keep an eye on this trend for the…
Natural disasters are picking up speed. An estimated 55,000 people died in the Turkey-Syria earthquake in February 2023. Around 50% of the reinforced concrete structures worldwide were designed without any seismic considerations—and naturally that percentage is much higher in many developing countries. Most of the ways to address this currently are very invasive and require parts of the building to be closed for a long time. What if we could use a simple low-cost, minimally invasive way to preserve all the buildings that already exist from disaster? That is exactly what a team of researchers at Purdue University is testing—a cost-effective, minimally invasive technique to fortify older concrete buildings against earthquakes. The approach involves installing adhesive anchors to metal triangular haunches as braces to reinforce beam-column joints. The haunches are attached with post-installed adhesive anchors secured with epoxy mortar, so material cost is relatively low. There’s indirect cost savings by keeping the building’s functionality intact during the installation of the haunches. Here is how this can help: Save lives. Reduces capital losses. Preserve structures worldwide. Looking to the future, the opportunities for this are huge, ultimately having a worldwide impact, especially as natural weather events continue to pick up speed. It will certainly be something to watch in the months…
Social
Constructech Top Products 2025
ASCE Report Card
The opportunities gen AI (artificial intelligence) brings to most industries are significant—dare we say remarkable? But let’s be clear, there are still some challenges. For example, most LLMs (large language models) are trained on publicly available data and the vast majority of enterprise data remains untapped, and much work needs to be done to address this. And again, dare we say address this sooner, rather than later? Enter Granite 3.0, IBM’s third-generation Granite flagship language models, which was announced earlier this week at IBM’s second annual TechXchange event. By combining a small Granite model with enterprise data, especially using the…
We have come a long way with safety. If you journey back to the year 1960 and walked a construction jobsite, you would see very different work conditions than you see today. Hard hats were not mandatory yet and PPE (personal protective equipment) wasn’t the common three-letter jobsite acronym that it is today. Workers would be hanging from the top of buildings, with little gear to protect them. We have certainly come a long way, right? Yes and no. The reality is every year, one in 100 construction workers still get hurt bad enough to need time off work. We…
What You Missed
How much of your workweek do you believe is spent on ‘work about work’ instead of…
Design, build, operate: Imagine if data could flow seamlessly through throughout the lifecycle of a facility,…
#Factoftheweek 1 out of 3 travelers … Are you planning a summer trip? How are you…