AI adoption often starts with the wrong question.

“What can we do with AI?”

It is understandable. New tools appear almost every week, employees are already experimenting with them, and there is growing pressure on leadership teams to have an AI strategy.

But starting with the technology creates a problem: when you go looking for somewhere to use AI, you will usually find one.

That does not mean it is worth doing.

For property and construction businesses, we think there is a better starting point:

THE STARTING QUESTION

“Where is valuable professional time being spent on work that doesn't really need that professional to do it?”

That changes the conversation completely.

Instead of searching for AI use cases, you start looking at how the business actually works.

01 / THE WORK

Look for the work surrounding the expertise

Property and construction businesses run on professional expertise.

A building surveyor's value is not their ability to format a Schedule of Condition. It is their ability to inspect a building, understand what they are seeing and exercise professional judgement.

A quantity surveyor's value is not manually transferring quantities between documents. It is their understanding of cost, risk, procurement and commercial outcomes.

The same applies to engineers, architects, project managers, facilities managers and other professionals across the industry.

Yet a significant amount of their working week can be consumed by the activity surrounding that expertise.

Searching documents. Extracting information. Measuring drawings. Compiling reports. Reformatting data. Checking information between files. Producing repetitive first drafts. Moving information from one system into another.

This is often where the more interesting AI opportunities are hiding.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERTISE / HUMAN

Judgement · Experience · Decisions · Relationships

WORK SURROUNDING IT / INVESTIGATE

Searching · Extracting · Measuring · Compiling · Checking · Reformatting

These activities are candidates for investigation, not an automatic case for automation.
“Don't replace the expertise.
Remove the work surrounding it.”

02 / ASSESSMENT

What makes a process worth investigating?

Not every repetitive process needs AI, and not everything that can be automated should be.

When we assess a process, there are several things we want to understand.

WHAT MAKES A GOOD OPPORTUNITY? / FIVE TESTS

  1. 01

    TIME

    Does it consume meaningful amounts of time?

    Saving ten minutes from something performed once a month is unlikely to justify much investment.

    Saving three hours from something performed hundreds of times a year might.

    Frequency matters as much as the saving per task.

  2. 02

    REPETITION

    Is the work sufficiently repeatable?

    The process does not have to be identical every time.

    But there should normally be some repeatable structure: common inputs, recurring activities, recognisable decisions or reasonably consistent outputs.

    A process that is completely different every time is usually harder to improve systematically.

  3. 03

    EXPERTISE

    Is the professional doing work beneath their expertise?

    This is particularly important in professional services.

    If an experienced surveyor spends hours turning notes and photographs into the first draft of a report, there may be an opportunity to separate preparation from professional judgement.

    Technology prepares.

    The surveyor reviews, corrects and decides.

  4. 04

    INPUTS

    Are the inputs accessible?

    Property and construction processes often involve drawings, PDFs, photographs, spreadsheets, specifications, reports, emails and information stored across different systems.

    Understanding those inputs is critical.

    Sometimes AI is the important part of the answer. Sometimes conventional automation is. Often it is a combination of the two.

  5. 05

    MEASUREMENT

    Can we measure the improvement?

    This is one of the most important tests.

    Before changing a process, establish how it works today.

    How long does it take? Who is involved? How frequently does it happen? Where are the bottlenecks? Where does rework occur?

    Without a baseline, a successful demonstration can look impressive without anyone knowing whether it has actually created commercial value.

03 / SCOPE

Start with the process, not the department

There is also a temptation to approach adoption department by department:

“What could AI do for project management?”

“What could AI do for finance?”

“What could AI do for management?”

Those are useful questions, but we find it more useful to go another level down and examine individual processes.

Across property and construction, that might uncover opportunities around:

GO ONE LEVEL DEEPER / INDIVIDUAL PROCESSES

  • document search
  • quantity take-off
  • tender review
  • specification review
  • defect reporting
  • planned maintenance
  • project reporting
  • condition surveys
  • invoice processing
  • reinstatement cost assessments

The point is not that every business should automate these processes.

The point is to identify your processes that combine significant effort with a realistic opportunity for improvement.

04 / VALUE

Don't confuse an AI opportunity with an AI solution

Finding a process that could be improved does not mean the answer is to immediately build something.

The next question is whether the opportunity is worth pursuing.

Suppose a process takes four hours.

Reducing it to one hour sounds good.

But if it happens six times a year, the maximum theoretical saving is only 18 hours annually.

Now imagine another process takes two hours but happens 1,000 times a year.

Reducing that by 50% potentially releases 1,000 hours.

OPPORTUNITY A / ILLUSTRATIVE4 h → 1 h

6 times per year

18 hpotential annual release
OPPORTUNITY B / ILLUSTRATIVE2 h → 1 h

1,000 times per year

1,000 hpotential annual release

The less glamorous opportunity may be substantially more valuable.

This is why we believe AI adoption needs commercial prioritisation rather than a list of exciting ideas.

05 / SOLUTION

And don't assume you need to build something

Once a worthwhile opportunity has been identified, there is another question:

“What is the simplest sensible way to solve it?”

OPPORTUNITY IDENTIFIED / EQUAL OPTIONS

  1. 01Existing productSometimes an existing product already does the job well.
  2. 02Small automationSometimes a small automation is sufficient.
  3. 03Bespoke solutionSometimes the process is distinctive enough to justify one.

Sometimes an existing product already does the job well.

Sometimes a small automation is sufficient.

Sometimes the process is distinctive enough, or sufficiently connected to your own templates, standards and systems, that a bespoke solution makes more sense.

Then it may be worth building around the way your organisation actually works.

“The objective is not to maximise the amount of AI in the business. The objective is to improve the business with AI, where AI is justified.”

06 / ACTION

A useful place to start

If you are responsible for AI adoption in a property or construction business, try this exercise.

Ask each team:

START HERE / ASK YOUR TEAM

“What work consumes a disproportionate amount of your time but doesn't require all of your expertise?”

  1. Identify the process
  2. Measure the current state
  3. Estimate the value
  4. Understand the risk
  5. Decide whether technology earns its place

Don't mention AI initially.

You may hear about a report that takes half a day to assemble. A tender pack that somebody manually reviews. Information repeatedly copied between systems. Drawings measured by hand. Hundreds of documents that are difficult to search.

Those are the conversations worth investigating.

Measure the current process.

Estimate the potential value.

Understand the risk.

Then decide what technology - if any - deserves to be introduced.

That's how we think AI adoption should start.

“Start with the business, not the technology. Then use AI where it earns its place.”

The BUILD™ framework sets out how we take a worthwhile opportunity through assessment, implementation and review.

START WITH THE BUSINESS,
NOT THE TECHNOLOGY.

THEN USE AI WHERE IT EARNS ITS PLACE.