Leveraging Artificial Intelligence in The Construction Industry: Application Areas and Future Opportunities

Overly manual operation and heavy reliance on labourers have led to low productivity in construction. The construction sector is therefore widely recognized as one of the most under- digitized industries. At the forefront of digitalization, Artificial intelligence (AI) would be the game changer to drive magnificent improvement to the performance of the construction industry. Past efforts have been made to put AI into a sharper focus and extend the application scope in construction. However, there are still a lot of grey areas in the AI applications and future opportunities of adopting AI in construction are under explored. This paper therefore examines the application areas of AI in the construction industry and identifies the future opportunities of AI adoption in construction. A questionnaire survey was employed to collect views from a wide construction community to investigate the application areas and future opportunities of leveraging AI in construction. The results show that construction stakeholders generally perceived AI to impact construction jobs positively. The study also identified various application areas to leverage AI in construction. Progress monitoring and scheduling are among the popular application areas for deploying state-of-the-art AI solutions in the construction industry. By investigating state-of-the-art AI and future opportunities in construction, the study offers empirical results to support the development of AI in construction. The paper also gives insights into understanding the stakeholder perceptions towards AI adoption. AI plays a role in revolutionizing the construction industry, leading to more productive, automated, and reliable workflows in construction.