“The function of AI already far outpaces what construction’s ready for now,” says Dodge Construction Network’s Steve Jones. AI is ready for the industry, but how does the industry get ready for AI? A recent CMiC X Dodge survey reveals it may already be.

On December 5, 2025, CMiC and Dodge released a survey asking over 6,000 companies across various sectors of the construction industry their stance on artificial intelligence—whether they use it or not; whether they like it or not; whether they have or are planning to implement it or not; and so on. Considering its reputation for skepticism and reluctance when it comes to adopting new forms of technology, the construction industry pleasantly surprised CMiC and Dodge with its answers to these questions, with 87% of contractors believing AI will have a meaningful impact on construction.

“The research indicates the construction industry is nearing a tipping point for AI adoption,” says Steve Jones, senior director of industry insights at Dodge Construction Network, who sat down with Construction Executive to delve further into the survey questions and answers and what the industry’s current position on them means for AI’s future role in construction.

Other results worth noting include:

• 85% of contractors expect they will spend less time on repetitive, mundane tasks
• Over 70% believe they can make better decisions because AI offers insights they might not arrive at on their own
• 75% look ahead to AI helping them learn from past projects by mining historical data
• 40% are currently allocating a dedicated budget to AI
• 38% are creating implementation teams
• 19% report adapting legacy workflows for an AI environment
• 51% are actively evaluating several potential AI-related changes across their teams
• 81% recognize the benefit of automated constructability analysis to identify potential field issues during design
• 80% express interest in intelligent permit submission with automatic compliance checking
• 79% note strong potential for autonomous project optimization that adjusts schedules and resources in real time
• 76% identify opportunities in dynamic pricing optimization based on market conditions and risk factors
• 92% acknowledge the value of automated contract creation and management
• 79% value intelligent bid-no-bid decision support

The overall findings seem overwhelmingly optimistic. Was that surprising?

No, because there’s already so much in the general consumer environment about AI. It’s very different than when BIM came out—because that wasn’t widely talked about; you had to be in the industry to even have heard of it and it was easily dismissed as just another form of 3D. But now AI is so wide and there probably isn’t anybody who answered our survey who isn’t already also using ChatGPT or Claude or one of these LLMs. They know how it functions, what it does, and they’ve heard so much about it.

I expected the job loss question to score pretty highly in terms of concern—I was pleased to see that that was pretty low, around 20%. I think we may have gotten over that concern.

For the last two years I’ve been pushing to call it augmented intelligence instead of artificial intelligence. AI is here to help us all be better and faster. It isn’t here to replace anybody.

The survey shows 85% of contractors expect they will spend less time on repetitive, mundane tasks. It’s surprising that that’s not 100%. It that because contractors don’t expect AI to be able to automate everything?

There are certain repetitive tasks that don’t lend themselves to AI. It will be interesting to come back to a study like this two or three years from now asking similar questions and compare answers. The answer may be 99% at that point, but at the end of the day, AI’s not going to dig a ditch for you. But there is a robot that’s going to dig that ditch. And the robot will be powered by AI.

Would you say AI is creating opportunities for more jobs rather than replacing workers?

I don’t know that it’s creating the opportunity for more jobs, but what it’s going to be able to allow people to do is contend with the resource strain and drain from the workforce shortage that isn’t going away. The combination of AI automating mundane tasks and robotics being able to actually do labor will help people become much better decision makers.

Only 40% of those surveyed are allocating a budget for AI. Is it that people can’t yet afford these full tech stacks? Or is there just not enough buy-in to AI in general?

There still seems to be a general wait-and-see attitude. People like to know they’re not alone in whatever it is they’re doing. We can say, ‘Here is what a hundred other folks who look a lot like you are doing with this and what’s working and what isn’t working.’ So, they can have the confidence to move forward.

With AI, once people are in the game, they like to play the game and they don’t know why they didn’t start playing earlier. So, how fast do you see the number of players increasing by the end of the decade?

I think it’s longer than that. Because even as big as AI already is, construction is a people business at the end of the day. Human beings have to make the decision to get in the pool and how far down towards the deep end to swim. It’s such a fragmented and growing business right now, nobody has very much time to put energy into something that would seem extracurricular.

If you look at this industry 15 years from now, it will look dramatically different than it does today. But I don’t think the next four or five years are going to show that much. We will begin to see greater preparation, much more engagement and awareness. And I think we’ll see a similar pattern of those who have gotten into the game and are using AI saying that it’s great. The vendors need the feedback coming from the users. The more people who’re using AI, the more feedback they can give and then the better the vendors can make those tools function. The function of AI already far outpaces what construction’s ready for now.

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