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From professional conferences to happy hours, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is dominating conversation among members of the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. The American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC)—the business voice of the nation’s engineering industry—recently released a comprehensive whitepaper on the unique challenges and opportunities the expanding AI landscape presents for its member firms. This paper was commissioned by ACEC’s Technology Committee as a service to the Council’s member firms. It serves as a roadmap for the effective and responsible adoption of AI, with an eye toward enhancing productivity, innovation, and sustainability in engineering.
A word at the outset: there is a wealth of invaluable information within the pages of the full Report, and we wholeheartedly recommend that firms use the Report as a starting point for their AI journeys. That said, we also felt it would be useful to create a truncated version of the Report—a “Cliff’s Notes” of sorts that would serve as a quick reference on specific topics surrounding AI. To that end, the content within these pages represents an abbreviated summary of the information within the full Report. We have divided the information into three discrete categories: The Case for Adopting AI; The Challenges of Adopting AI; and The Path for Adopting AI. This is not a full accounting of the larger Report, nor is it intended to be. Rather, this summary outlines the reasons why firms should adopt AI—and how they can overcome obstacles to that adoption.