AI, Strategy and the Future of Construction and Surveying with Suzanne Hill

Summary

Suzanne Hill, business strategist for AI and founder of AI for SMEs, joins me to talk about AI at a strategic level. We look beyond shiny tools and explore how AI will change business models, client expectations, and the future of surveying and construction firms.

What we cover

• Suzanne’s journey from construction into AI
• Why AI is 80 percent strategy and people
• The risks of jumping into tools without direction
• Data ownership and client behaviour
• How AI could disrupt traditional surveying and construction roles
• What firms need to be thinking about now

Guest links

• Suzanne Hill on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzannehill1/

Useful links

• UCD (University College Dublin) – https://www.ucd.ie/

Guest Bio

Suzanne Hill is a business strategist specialising in AI and the construction sector. She is the founder of AI for SMEs and has over two decades of experience working with construction companies across the UK, Ireland, and internationally. With a background in construction and strategy consultancy, Suzanne helps businesses understand how AI will impact their business models, revenue streams, and long-term competitiveness. She is also a keynote speaker and advisor to senior leadership teams navigating digital transformation.

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Connect with me - Nina Young on LinkedIn

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Hello and welcome. You're listening to This is Surveying, the podcast shining a light on the people, ideas, and stories shaping this incredible profession. I'm Nina Young, founder of Surveyor UK and the Surveying Room, the community bringing surveyors together, breaking down silos, and making surveying visible. So for now, let's dive into our latest episode. Hello everybody, and welcome to This is Surveying. I'm your host, Nina Young, and today on the show is Suzanne Hill. Welcome, Suzanne.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Thank you. It's great to be here. Thanks for asking me along.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Well, I have to admit, I have been really looking forward to this one. We've had many conversations in the past about AI, I think, and I think this is going to be a great episode for everybody. Now, just to introduce Suzanne. Suzanne is the business strategist for AI and the founder of AI for SMEs. She is also an amazing keynote speaker and has been on some incredible stages. Some of them notable was one for eBay and another one was for Construction Live. And yeah, you're an amazing speaker, Suzanne. I think I ended up that skill, that skill that you have. So without, as always, we do at the start of the show want to learn really a bit about you for the listeners, Suzanne. So tell us a bit more about yourself.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Okay, so uh I currently work in AI. Uh I set up uh an AI company a year and a half ago, and but my background's actually in construction. So my first introduction to the construction sector was about maybe 26 years ago, and I was working for a Northern Ireland company, Brett Martin. I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with that company. So I was their export salesperson, and I was out in North and South America selling roofing products from everywhere from Canada right down to Chile. So it was a great introduction to the construction sector in in a continent where every market's different. So yeah, I mean, since then, I suppose that that's what really sparked my my love of the construction sector. I really like working in it. It's something very tangible. I think because you're building buildings and you're constructing things, it's it just makes it so exciting when you see everything coming together. But so about four years ago, I think, I well, I suppose I'm I'm fascinated by all things innovation, and I've had my own strategy consultancy for 23 years, and I've been reading about AI for maybe about seven years, but then about four years ago, I happened to be reading this article one day, and uh a penny dropped with me, and I thought, oh my goodness, if I don't upskill and really get to grips with this, then I'm not gonna have a job in five years' time. I'm not gonna be in a position where I'm able to keep my clients ahead of the curves. I uh did what any reasonable person would do and panicked. And uh then I I signed up to do a course at UCD University College Dublin in AI for business. So that was a bit of a baptism of fire because I was coming at it from entirely from a non-technical background. And I remember sitting in week two in this class full of techies of people who were working in the technology department of banks and all the multinationals that are headquartered in in Dublin. And uh there was a conversation taking place in the class about machine learning and neural networks and all this kind of stuff, and I was completely lost. And I was sitting there thinking, oh my goodness, I am never going to get my head around this, and I'm in the wrong place totally. But then kind of as the as the weeks went on, uh we started to discuss the business elements of it and strategy, and I thought, oh, hang on a minute, so I actually really get this, you know. So so I was just hooked when I realized how it could impact companies, how it could impact industries. And so yeah, when when I graduated from that course, I went straight on and did another advanced AI for business diploma, and that was kind of the start of I don't know, maybe 14 or 15 courses I've done now at this stage. But yeah, yeah. So but that just the intersection between construction and how AI impacts it is really, I suppose, my area of specialization. Through my strategy consultancy, I've probably worked with maybe somewhere between like 250 and 300 construction companies, not just in the UK and Ireland, but internationally as well.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

So there's quite a lot of those established relationships, haven't you? Yeah. So that you've gone to understand in-depth AI and then you've kind of put the two together.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Yes, yeah. So I I think when you actually understand the internal workings of a construction company, and then you're you're you're looking at AI and understanding it from that perspective and how it's going to impact them both internally in terms of how they run their business and what their business model looks like and their value streams. But then also, I suppose horizon scanning what's happening in the wider market and and looking for for signals or early signals of what way the market's going to go, and then kind of preparing your clients accordingly so that they're prepared for what's coming down the line. Because I think I suppose, I mean, we've had this conversation many times about how companies really approach. I think in the last couple of years, people have been tinkering with AI and they're they're dabbling and they're maybe using it for personal productivity within their company, but at company level, I don't see a lot of strategy going on or harnessing that the the the capabilities of AI at a company level. Everybody's kind of working individually or even at a department level, but it's it's siloed still. So I think that 2026 is going to be a real watershed moment for AI in the industry.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

I think you're very much in the construction space, and I'm more in the kind of the profession of surveying. And I'm seeing exactly the same thing. There is a lot that even are just starting to tinker with the tools, but and employees are using it, whether and even if the employer doesn't know, they probably don't even have an AI policy. But from a an actual firm level, I don't see much conversations or talk or even firms looking at this from strategic. And that's very much where you come from, isn't it? From a strategy level with AI. Can you explain what that is and kind of how and the importance of looking at AI from that angle?

SPEAKER_00 7:27

So obviously with AI, I think there's a lot of focus at the minute on the technology element of it, and of course that's an important part, but it's about 20% of the picture. And the other 80% is is really strategy, it's people, it's workflows, processes. So I think there tends to be this overfocus on the technology, and I think what companies haven't really understood yet is that AI is going to fundamentally impact the entire construction ecosystem that we're all working in at the minute, where the value sits in that. And if you rush down the route of implementing technology without being really clear on your strategy and your business model, and I mean your business strategy, not your strategy for the technology. And I think there's that, there's probably when you see people describing themselves as an AI strategist, to me, most of the time that means it's about the technology. And the most important part for companies is looking at what is their business strategy for AI. And there's a fundamental difference there because what you're really talking about is what their business model is going to be in the future. So if you think about the the entire ecosystem of construction will change, and if you think about it from that perspective, then you need to be thinking about well, how does our business model change in the future? So if you're approaching it from a technology perspective, all you're doing is accelerating your legacy business model. And what you need to be doing is doing a Madonna and reinventing yourself is with it, who are we going to be in two years' time? Because in actual, didn't she? She did, she did, yes. That's what everybody needs to emulate. So it's like, what are we going to look like in another two years' time? And it's going to be completely different. And what your your your revenue streams are going to be are also going to be different. So yes, I don't think companies have quite got their head around that yet.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

I think that it's difficult, isn't it? Because there is so much like misinformation, confusion, there is hype. There's a lot of people, these shining new tools, getting distracted, getting overwhelmed. And I think because this is pervasive, but it's global and it's impacting not just work but personal lives, it's it's everywhere and it's just gradually appearing in everything we use already and this kind of thing. I think, and also the the level of change with it, it's just so rapid that keeping on top of it is is almost impossible. And then it's having that foresight and to dedicate that time to looking ahead to imagine not just your firm and how that's going to work or your business, but what is everyone else doing around it? Because an example I see a lot is where clients are uploading their survey reports into a chat GPT, which is not secure. And it's like understanding and that the fact that even if you don't understand it or you're not making any effect, you're there's a lot of skepticism, and I don't want to know. I think a lot of people, and I don't know if you see that within construction, not interested, clients will still be using it. It's like you can't not you can't avoid it. But looking ahead to see how the whole environment is going to change, I think it's quite daunting for people, I think.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

It is, and I think if you take sort of the average company in anywhere in the construction sector with the skills shortages that there are, everybody is flat to the mat all the time. Uh the companies never have enough people, and everybody's stretched, and then somebody comes along and says, Oh, you've really got to be thinking about your AI strategy. It's like it's just like another hand grenade into the middle of and they're wrestling with they're wrestling with that, increased costs, um increasing compliance, ESG. It's not working in construction is not an easy, it's not an easy career. You've got a lot of things that you have to think about, and there's not a lot of headspace to to kind of take a step back and and to be thinking about some of this stuff. And then when you think about it and you think, well, we're certainly not bringing this in in a live project because we've got a formula, we know what works, and I think the fact that that margins are so small as well, one failed project can pull a company under, really. So so I think that there's there's an element of of sequencing, and I think that that also comes into your strategy. You can't afford to be investing time and effort and money into technology, which is fundamentally going to be archaic after a year. So it's so getting all of that right, and yes, there are there are certain tools that you could bring in, like bid management tools, or maybe speeding up the admin around your compliance, or just simple things, estimating tools that you can bring in that are not going to fundamentally change the backbone technology of how you run your company. So, of course, those are operational things that you can bring in to alleviate workload for people, which frees up their time to give them a bit of headspace so that they're thinking, right, okay, now I have headspace to think strategically about where does this department go or where does our company go in the future. So I think the two have to run concurrently, but it's it's you've got this balance between optimization and optionality. So optimization is optimizing your processes and you know getting insights from your data, and but you don't want to go too far down that road that you're closing off your options by saying, right, we're going to go all in on using this one particular platform. Because you might tie yourself up with that company, you might be so embedded with them. At the minute, I suppose strategically, business leaders need to be asking themselves, well, if we bring this technology in now, in another 12 months, how easy is it for us to extract ourselves from that?

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

So they have, for the time being, they need to be keeping their options open, you know, till we see a bit more about how this, how the wider landscape's going to pan out.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

I think I think you've hit the nail on the head with that kind of thing, though. It's like being savvy, being ri risk aware of these, uh what I hear a lot of is asking, well, how do I know what software to use? How do I know what what technology to use? And there's a lot of sadly, there's there's a lot of sort of companies and things that are going all these shiny tools, AI this and AI that, and like you, you're right, and they get swept up in it, thinking, oh, it's gonna save us all this time, it's gonna make everything efficient. But like you say, once they get tied in, but the other side of it is where the technology is improving and changing all the time. Like there's some things that we've been using three years ago that are rubbish now.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

They they jumped in, we like magpies, we got drawn in, didn't we? But I think that that is the biggest concern is that it is really hard to step back and have that mindset to look at something that is for many is quite alien, I think.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Yeah, I think when I'm explaining about AI to people, I say, look, I use this analogy of a car, and I say, look, say for example, you want to drive from London to Manchester. So go into Manchester's like your business objective, and the route or the that you take to get there is like your strategy or process, and the AI tools like the car. So the AI tool is just an enabler, it's just a means of getting you from one place to another or helping you to achieve your business objective. So, but the most important part of all of that is the driver of the car, and because they're the one deciding what's the business objective, what's the strategy, they're adjusting the route according to internal or external circumstances, but they are the most important part of the entire picture, it's their judgment that's important in the whole thing. I'm gonna have to nick this. I know, right? And then the the the fuel for the car is like your data. So it has to be in sufficient quantity and of sufficient quality to power you to your destination. And then I think, but I think that one of the big problems with the a lot of the information that's out there in the market at the minute is like you've got all these mechanics who are the techies and they're running around trying to explain to people how the engine of the car works, which doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, it just matters that you know how to drive, you know. So it's always always start with the strategy first. What are we trying to achieve as a company? What's our strategy for achieving that objective? What are the challenges that we have as a business, or where are the bottlenecks, or where are our processes really admin-heavy? And just when you're clear on all of that, it's at that point then that you go and look for an AI tool that helps you to solve that challenge or alleviate the bottleneck. But if you start with the tool first and then try to make it fit your business, you're going to end up with a whole lot of orphan tools that nobody uses and you'll have wasted a lot of money.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

And what what's your thought on something that I use, the AI tools? I actually use it to help me with strategy myself. So strategic directions, question my thinking. What are your thoughts on on that kind of thing to help sort of? I'm looking at from sort of obviously your your construction, but surveyors as well. And and because I think getting the mind the the mindset around it, a lot of people struggle with strategy. Yeah. And can you use these tools to help in that in that first instance before because that's a different thing, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Yeah. Well, yes, you can, definitely, and uh brainstorming with tools like ChatGPT or whatever it might be, uh, that's a really good place to start. It's also understanding strategy itself, because I I have worked with with companies where maybe their senior leadership team has had an away day or strategy day, and they come back with this document and they've showed me it, and they say this is our strategy, these are the outworkings of our away day. And it's entirely operational stuff, you know. So it's about also being able to discern what is strategy for our company. And it's actually quite surprising that a lot of people who are in that kind of position maybe might not be strategic thinkers. You might get one or two, but not everybody's a strategic thinker. So you're if you think of the impact of AI like a game of chess, there's an awful lot of people playing tiddlywinks at the minute, and they're not thinking about it from a really high strategic perspective of what is our game plan? And if this is if the whole playing field of construction that we operate in changes, what what game are we in as a company? And how do we plan to win that game? That's a disappointment, yeah. It's that that they're not thinking about, you know. So I haven't met anybody yet, yeah, you know, of who's thinking about it from that perspective. Most companies are just being, I would say, like just optimizing their current business model.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

So that's your experience with clients that you've worked with. That tends to be the case. Yeah. You said something earlier before we started, which was around you spend a lot of time trying to sort of undo people's misunderstandings.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

Yeah, I think there's a lot of misconceptions around AI, and I'll be running these one-day workshops for senior teams and company boards. Half the battle is getting them to unlearn some of the nonsense that they picked up online. There's an awful lot of nonsense spoken about on different forums. And I think as well on LinkedIn, I'm sure you've noticed it as well, like there's more and more AI-generated posts and also comments as well. It's you can tell whoever has posted it really doesn't know what they're talking about at all. And then people read that and they think that that's AI gospel, that's their interpretation of it, and uh then you get into these whole discussions, and it's like, no, uh, I'm sorry, but that's actually not the case. So getting people to unlearn a lot of the misconceptions is is kind of half the battle with any of these discussions.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

And and that kind of thing doesn't help either because then people are just because I think I'm seeing some of that where people are just fed up with AI because they see fake images, fake comments across social media and things, and they just think it's bad, it's rubbish, don't like it. So they're just shut down. So I'm not interested in it. So I think it's also a lot of people will be really, really late adopters, which is understandable, but I think a lot of people also, because of the negatives of AI that has been seen and people shout about, people are like, oh, right, it's rubbish, or I don't want to, or they used it once a few years back and it didn't work, and then so they ignore it. That's a worry I have in that I think there's natural scepticism a lot of cross-construction surveying and understandably, but at the same time, there's a lot of noise and misinterpretation, people saying it's rubbish. Uh, you know, I've seen surveyors go, you know, Chat GPT hallucinates, does but I know for a fact that they've probably because they don't want to pay for the the better version and they've just done a more seminar. They haven't prompted an oh well they they've said it was rubbish. So what you know, and they believe it.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Yeah. And I mean I can understand the AI fatigue because to be honest, sometimes you go on Line and you know, or you you open up something like LinkedIn, and every post nearly is about AI. You think, oh no, please, when you just come off it again. And I work in AI and I really love it, and I find the whole thing really exciting. But sometimes it's just like, whoa, can we not talk about normal things as well? But yeah, it no, it is. There are there are a lot of misconceptions, a lot of false information out there. There's a lot of people in the training space and in the consultancy space as well that have kind of tinkered about with ChatGPT and then have set themselves up as a trainer without any concept of ethics or compliance or governance or cybersecurity. I think that's one of the things about AI that you have to understand it from so many different facets. And there's no one person has all the answers. I don't have all the answers. My specialization is business model, revenue streams, the the bit around the people and the organizational transformation and what's the impact that's going to have on your workforce and all that type of thing. But I mean, once you start to get into the specifics of all the different facets, you need people who have domain knowledge plus AI knowledge. And I think that that's the big differentiator. That's why I specialize in the construction sector, because I have the domain knowledge plus the AI knowledge. So it's you can't just maybe you can launch yourself as an AI trainer teaching people how to prompt. But beyond that, unless you have an understanding of of all those other domains and a long track record behind you, then I just think you have a real believability and credibility issue. So I agree. But but from a company perspective, it's very difficult for people to, I think, to discern who's credible and who isn't. Because again, we can pick up on it because we're very embedded in in using AI and I'm very familiar with all the the different facets of it. But to the uninitiated, you might see an AI-generated post and you just think, oh, well, that person sounds like they know what they're talking about. Let's bring them in. And then all hell breaks loose, and you end up spending money in the wrong place. And but but again, there's huge risk factors where even before you buy the AI tools themselves, it's making the decision about which AI tools to use because you want to make sure that they're powering your future and not actually just optimizing your past. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

I think that's a difficult thing.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

There are. There are.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

There are. And a lot of what I try and do is just kind of inform, sort of spread awareness, get professionals to just start to understand it and and explore it because there's so much change coming. And like you, you know, a few years back I saw I thought something huge is gonna impact everything. And I started to talk about it. And I think you're right with 2026 really being the year where people not just dabble, but they they really now have to get more of an understanding and step back and look at their business as a whole strategic thing. But I think, like you say, I think most people don't think like that anyway, that run businesses have the strategy, the mindset. I I think that's so you're starting with that challenge in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Yeah, and I think that uh as we said earlier, that 24-25 was all about the experimentation phase and running a few pilots and whatnot. And now I think we're into a two-year period where companies have to definitively make a decision about their future strategy, and it's vital that they do that in the next six to twelve months. Because in by 2028, people will have to make a decision about okay, which backbone platform are we going to use? Because after that, then you'll be more or less locked into it, and to change away from that main platform is going to be extremely expensive, extremely difficult. So, and I think to a degree in construction that might be decided for you by the clients that you're working with. One of the scenarios that I see is that AI doesn't just capacitate your company, it's also capacitating your clients.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

Absolutely, yes.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

So you can get this displacement of the function that your company performs because your clients have access to the same AI tools as you and now they've decided to do it for themselves. So rather than hire you as a company, maybe they they get an extra person in-house. That extra person in-house plus the AI tools means that they don't need you to do anything for them. Which is why you need to be thinking about well, if we can no longer charge for that service, what other services should we be thinking about right now that we need to build up expertise in and change our business model accordingly so that in two years' time, when the client phases us out for this part of our business, that we actually have other revenue streams. And that is what I mean by the importance of the strategy. It's thinking ahead. Where could clients displace us? You're going to get pressure coming at you from all directions, companies that are bigger than you.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

That's actually, yeah. So Suzanne um brings me to mind about what we we mentioned before before the call was some examples of what's happening within construction, disruptive. And I think you touched you mentioned Acom. Could you tell us a little bit more about that, Senari?

SPEAKER_00 27:49

Yeah. So so yeah, I think that some of these, some of the things that's happening at a really high level in the marketplace of these global companies. And if you if you look at the case of Acom, where they've they bought over a Norwegian AI company, an AI engineering platform, and have decided to actually buy that over and embed it into their company. And I think that they're see so ACOM's 16 billion turnover company with I think 51,000 employees, and their CEO is quoted as saying we saw AI as an existential risk that if one of our competitors embedded AI capability could put us out of business entirely, and they're 16 billion turnover company. You know, so if they're looking at AI and thinking this could put our lights out, you know, it shows that nobody's immune to it.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

It's very forward thinking of them, isn't it? It's very forward thinking, and it's not a small thing because they're huge in the infrastructure change they have to make because of it.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So you can see how embedded actually buying over the platform, embedding it into the very fabric of the services that they offer, so that rather than it changes the entire procurement picture. It means that they can offer guarantees around program and risk and carbon footprint and the whole nine yards, they can they can offer that up front. So if you're coming with a traditional tendering model, you're not even, you're not playing the same game, you know. So so there's that impact and thinking ahead, well, if that happened, if somebody that we compete against bought over a company or they did some kind of tie-up with an AI technology or tool producer, how would that impact our business model? What would the existential threats look like to our company? So it's all that type of stuff that I would be working on with my client. We're looking at future business models, where are the risks coming from, where are the opportunities. And there are a lot of the companies I work with are kind of mid-size, let's say mid-sized companies, and they could find themselves under pressure from even from tier ones. So if you're sitting in your tier two company, you could find yourself under pressure from tier ones because they've optimized their business model to such an extent that now rather than bidding for the£100 million plus projects, now a£50 million project is viable for them. So they might start encroaching further down because they're able to do higher volume of projects. You might get this client disintermediation where the client decides, well, actually, we can do that part of that job in-house. So you might find a scenario in future where you don't even need meme contractors.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

Right. There was yeah, that's that's a real concern because that's I mean, that's inevitable, isn't it? It's gonna have a huge impact, huge shift.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

I think also one of the the interesting scenarios in the market is this the ProCore scenario where they've just bought over this San Francisco AI startup and datagrid. And and what datagrid can do from what I have read is that they're basically going to solve the fundamental issue in construction, which is that everybody's working off all these legacy IT systems, they're all siloed, none of them talk to each other. I think on average, construction companies are working with 11 different IT systems. So, data grid, you don't even have to be a pro core customer to get access to data grid. And what it does is it sits like a layer above all these disparate systems that pulls the information from each of them and assists AI functionalities. To me, that's an absolute game changer, and I think because it's also technology agnostics, it doesn't matter whether you're using Procore or Dell Tech or Econnex or Autodesk, whatever, it consists of it.

SPEAKER_01 32:02

What's the impact of this? Just to imagine.

SPEAKER_00 32:04

Yeah, so I don't know, like I kind of look at that situation and I think, well, you imagine you're so whoever wants the data layer wins, basically, wins the entire game. So if if you're sitting as Procore and you've got all these millions of customers globally, and you know, all your customers are starting to feed in all this information about how they manage their projects, everything, all their information, you're build you're actually building up a whole bank of intelligence on project execution.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

That's powerful.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

It's extremely powerful, and this is something I I need to look into further, and this is why it's so important for companies to be interrogating these companies around privacy, who owns the data, if they stop using the tool, what happens to their data? Is it is it's retained, is it destroyed, what happens, or is it already all in the mix there? So you could, in theory, if you were ProCOR, now I don't know what the company's kind of longer term strategy is, but if I was a construction company and I was using the technology or I was I I was available of that, they're gonna build up such knowledge that you know what does a what does a construction company do? It manages finance people and risk. And someone said to me, Oh yeah, but the client's not going to want to take on the risk for for project. So you could say, well, the client could run ProCore and just coordinate all the subcontractors, and they wouldn't need the main contractor in the middle there because they everything's going to be automatically controlled by the platform at the top. So someone brought up with me, oh, but the client won't want to own the risk. But the point is that there's so much intelligence to the nth degree that it de-risks the process nearly entirely. So if you were a construction contractor and you're building offices and, I don't know, hotels or whatever it might be, do you have to accept that a lot of the knowledge and methodology around that is going to be commoditized? Will you just have to accept that? And then is it the companies who who are contractors but maybe have a development arm who can move their value generation upstream? Or is would you have to look at particular areas of specialization and become a real specialist in a niche? Or and maybe ring fence that information if you've got proprietary methodologies for a particular sector, maybe do you do you kind of hide that off and build your own bespoke AI tool for that?

SPEAKER_01 34:50

So that's a bit of a mindfield, isn't it? And it is makes me realize I think that the the number one fear that like in surveying is using AI tools is data. Is the ask of that what where is that data going, who's using it, who has access to it, and the ownership. I do think so that that to me is a huge concern. And we know we know people are using it blindly. Even just the simple things like employees could be just uh accessing your company data. Exactly. Putting it in an open model confidential data. And I think uh there's so many things that are happening and so many variables, uh, and it's extremely disruptive. I think when you bring those big examples in that just says we're taking this seriously, and the big players are taking it seriously, then the smaller players are just gonna be sort of moved out if they don't adapt.

SPEAKER_00 35:48

Yeah, I think uh I set up Google Alerts for any kind of mergers and acquisitions news around all those big construction platforms and construction software companies and and also a lot of the big practices and tier ones to just see, because that will inevitably shape the market for everybody else. That's what's changing the dynamics of the market that we're operating in. So when you start to get your head around how even those two acquisitions are shaping the market, and there will be more and more of that in the next, I would say 2026, you're going to see a lot of that. But that's not to say that as a smaller company, you couldn't take proprietary knowledge, build your own tools, and and sell it to others in the sector.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

I uh adapt, haven't you? You've got to adapt.

SPEAKER_00 36:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:44

Because it's changing fast. And sadly, you can't just sit there and go, it doesn't affect me now. I don't want to use it. Like everyone else will be eventually. And if you don't adapt quickly, and I think you're right. I think that that whole thing you said earlier about 23, 24 to last year, people were dabbling. But I think we're now at that critical stage. Everything else just seems to have ramped up everywhere across all professions, with it being adopted at a high level, you know, like the NHS. Yeah. You've got these big organizations that are literally taking it seriously. So as a small business or medium-sized, you can't afford to just ignore it. And it's hard because people are scared, I think. I think there's a lot of fear. There's a lot of fear, and there's a lot of buried head in the stand. I don't know if you see that, but I think that's better to ignore it if it feels more comfortable. But I think we can't. One of the things you've mentioned briefly before was something around a community that you're looking to launch. I'd like to understand a bit more about that.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

Yeah, so that's it's quite an exciting development. I mean, one of the it's pictures actually how even your own business model evolves with all of this, because at the start, I was doing a lot of training courses and taster sessions and one-day master classes for companies, and there's still a lot of activity going on. But in a way, you you get to a point then, and you you've presented to the board or the the senior team, and everybody gets it, and now they understand why strategy is so important, and it's like, yeah, but uh, so what do we do next? So I'm actually building a community platform stroke knowledge hub. So rather than everybody paying for consultancy on a separate basis, you know, this is a the process of implementing AI and getting your strategy right and being aware of all those other facets that are involved, it's a it's a long-term process. This is a process that every company's gonna be working through for the next three years. Yes. It's not just like we'll do this little exercise off we go. Yeah. So it's how do you make that affordable for SMEs or mid-sized companies on an ongoing basis? So so this platform is it's designed for so it's gonna be a subscription basis. Companies can use it really instead of consultants fraction of the cost.

SPEAKER_01 39:13

Right, because consultants is quite prohibitive for a lot of businesses, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 39:17

It is, it is. So I suppose this democratizes the whole process for them. So you can buy a subscription to the platform, you can dip in and out of the content, it will be recorded content on there, there will be online live training on different elements of AI implementation. There will be subject matter experts, people who can really deep dive into things like cybersecurity and compliance and governance, and it's really like a hand-holding platform. We're going to have also then demos from the software vendors on there and people talking about the different AI tools and technologies. There will be live QA so that sometimes you get so far with something, and then you have a bit of a dilemma, and you think, I need some advice on this, so you can actually bring that to the community forum and get assistance from an expert on it. So it's really a ring fence forum for knowledge and for learning, and also peer learning. I'm taking about 10 uh construction companies through an AI implementation and strategy process at the minute. And we find that you get everybody in the room and everybody has different experiences, and there's a lot of peer learning as well. And the more and more social media goes down the route of all this AI-generated content and nonsense. The more people want to speak to other people in their industry, and they don't want to be dependent on an algorithm for visibility. They want to go on there, they want to post something, and they want to get interaction and talk to other people in their industry. So there'll be a whole forum on there for people to post, discuss with other people in the industry. So I think that that's really missing from the whole conversation around AI and construction.

SPEAKER_01 41:13

So what's your specific sort of ideal member? What what what they're where are they coming from for the community?

SPEAKER_00 41:19

So it could be construction contractors or subcontractors or consultants that are in that space as well. So so yeah, it's just but really focused only on AI in construction.

SPEAKER_01 41:31

Well, it sounds like a fantastic resource. And uh so that launches, is that next month?

SPEAKER_00 41:36

Yes, that will be launching towards the tail end of next month. Constructive intelligence is the platform.

SPEAKER_01 41:42

Excellent. Well, what we'll do is in the show notes, I'll include, as you mentioned earlier, your LinkedIn. Okay, perfect. I do want to get in touch with you and ask about that or anything we've talked about today. And obviously, um we're kind of uh coming close close to ending ending the uh the conversation, but and we we didn't talk much about your keynote speaking, but also it's just brilliant. But um if anyone wants to touch about that or anything to do with consultancy for firms, I think what I've always liked about you, Suzanne, and the conversations we've had is that you've always come at this from the bigger picture angle and seeing through so much noise, you have this concrete experience and knowledge in construction. You've seen this huge disruptive change coming, educated yourself, get yourself skilled up, and then now you're assisting these uh companies in such a I don't know, disruptive environment, and there's so much uncertainty going on, there's a lot of competition and a lot of change. And I think it's always good because you you you give that common sense approach and that literally let's just step back a minute, let's not just not get carried away with it all and let's just look at this from actually things are going to change outside your business uh in the next few years. Yeah, it's not just I need to work faster, and I think that's really important, and many, many surveying firms will need to understand that as well. That you I I've said these things before, but I think your expertise and knowledge is something that I think if anyone's listening and uh it was it is in with the construction space, I highly recommend Suzanne. And is there anything else you want to add before we kind of finish off for today?

SPEAKER_00 43:30

I think you're right that I I try to keep things simple. I try to, and I think because AI is such a it is such a vast subject, it's even more important to cut out a lot of that noise and nonsense that goes on around the the edges because it just ends up confusing people. So so yeah, I suppose that is my approach, just clear, direct, getting people to think about the right things. Yes, and simplifying it down and and using analogies. I like a lot of stories and analogies to just About it to give people a framework to to organise the information in their own head.

SPEAKER_01 44:05

I've already taken the car one because that to me is genius and I like that one a lot. I was just seeing Diagra, I was seeing I was seeing drawings of this car and yeah, the cartoon. I could I just yeah, my mind went off somewhere when you mentioned the car, the car thing that was uh that was brilliant. But I've been looking forward to this session, Suzanne, and I've really enjoyed it. I think there's a lot of things that a lot of the listeners are gonna give them some food for thought because not enough people talk about AI at the strategic level. Certainly not across construction. It's not something that I see much of. I see tools, everyone sees the tools, but actually addressing and looking at things from a future, also looking ahead and not just now and reacting and being more proactive and planning for what is inevitable and the change that's coming. But no, it's been really good, and thank you. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for listening to This Is Surveying. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review. It really helps more people discover the podcast and supports the work we're doing to raise awareness of the profession. You can also join the Surveying Room, the free and independent community from Surveyors UK, bringing surveyors together, breaking down silos, and of course making surveying visible. Just head over to surveyors UK.com to learn more and join today. All the links discussed in today's episode are included in the show notes.