The business you build around it is. The AI you buy isn't the advantage

The man who built Facebook's computer vision team says reading a construction drawing is harder than what he was doing at Facebook. That line reframes the whole AI conversation in construction and it's just one of the threads in this week's briefing.

In this episode:

The procurement story we've been building. A number of the research findings that will make commercial construction executives uncomfortable in a productive way. Full report drops 24th April - sign up here.

Shadow AI is your governance crisis. A senior leader at a major US general contractor describes his single biggest fear around AI... and it's not the technology. It's Bob in pre-con. Plus Maryrose Lyons on why your company data is walking out the door via your staff's phones, and nobody's written a policy about it.

Data-readiness is the ten-year moat. Three different AI founders, three different domains — procurement, scheduling, drawings — all saying the same thing. The value doesn't sit in the AI. It sits in the connected data around it. Why the firms pulling ahead aren't buying better AI. They're preparing better businesses for it.

The divergence moment. Opus 4.7 was released this week. But there's a model sitting next to it on the benchmark chart called Mythos, and it's significantly more capable than anything on the market. It's not available to you. It's not available to me. And it's the live, in-the-wild evidence that the AI world just split into two tiers. Why this matters for any construction business thinking about the next three years.

If this briefing was useful, share it with someone in your leadership team who needs to hear it. Drop your take in the LinkedIn comments — I read every one.

This week's sources include:Lubo Bourdev & Hamid, PrimePoint - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDdK18qzQwg

Maryrose Lyons, AI Institute - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev6oPUWYgzA

Nitin Bhandari, Planera - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTnsWQLN4aQ

Bricks & Bytes procurement research report (drops 24 April). https://bricks-bytes.com/downloads/procurement-report/