AEC Business

Innovation consultant Gijs van Wulfen, creator of the FORTH innovation method, author, and keynote speaker, returns to the AEC Business podcast ten years after his first appearance. This time the topic is AI, and his message is clear: AI has changed the speed of innovation, but not its fundamentals.

We discuss why generating a thousand ideas is no longer the problem, and why AI can never take ownership of an innovation. Gijs explains why he calls replacing people with AI "window dressing" for cost cuts, and why European companies should insource AI rather than outsource innovation to startups. He also describes how an installation company uses AI to help junior technicians work like seasoned experts.

He then makes the case that corporate innovators are really risk reducers. He closes with practical advice for construction firms on where to start with AI.

Listen to learn how to make innovation more effective in a traditionally cautious industry.

AI strategist Sam Zolfagharian returns to explain the metric one top ENR engineering firm, Wade Trim, uses instead of ROI: RONI, the Risk of Not Investing. She argues that asking for AI's return after a year or two is the wrong test, and that firms need different measurements at each stage of maturity. Activity counts at inception, changed workflows at integration, and only at transformation does dollar ROI make sense. Also covered: agent adoption at scale, token costs against employee effort, and why building a data lake will not fix your data problem.

Maarten Vroegindeweij, founder of the OpenAEC Foundation, makes the case that AI will not kill open source AEC software but help it win.

Aarni talked with Paul Indinger about the challenges of construction sales and how AI solutions like Building Radar can make a difference.