Editor’s Note: This is one of three Q&As with startup leaders in the construction industry. You can read predictions by Vinay Shet, co-founder and CEO of Teleo, here.
OEMs and private equity firms continue to team up with startups to accelerate the development of next-generation technology for the construction industry.
Those burgeoning technologies — from autonomy to AI to robotics — promise to increase safety, productivity and efficiency in field and office processes.
For this series of Q&As, Equipment World tapped a handful of startup leaders to find out what technologies are ripe to disrupt the industry and what to expect in the next five years. Those same experts also touched on some of the roadblocks to technology adoption and what contractors can do to alleviate pain points during operational changes.
Erol Ahmed, director of communications at Built RoboticsBuilt Robotics
There are many technologies that are already on the market but haven’t fully taken hold on jobsites. How do you expect that landscape to change in the next five years?
We’re at an inflection point with autonomous tools: in the next five years, we’re going to see widespread adoption of advanced technologies in construction because they will prove themselves to be the better way of doing things. Some parts of the construction process are using techniques from a century ago, but the needs of that time don’t match our own: declining productivity, rising costs, an unprecedented workforce gap, and a focus on safety all mean we have to do things differently.
