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Each year, WGI and Columbia University’s Global Leaders in Construction Management (GLCM) look at the 10 strategic technology trends we believe will be transformative to the infrastructure and Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry in the coming year.  

Once again, providing even more rigor to our analysis of the strategic technology trends shaping the infrastructure industry in 2024, we conducted additional primary research to learn first-hand from industry leaders and practitioners — and received 576 responses.  

Working in conjunction with Columbia University, we asked the GLCM Network, as well as WGI’s client base, which trend would have the most business impact in 2024. 

We found the most impactful trends cited were artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ ML) — including generative AI — at 50% of respondents (up from 32% last year), 3D printing at 11% (down from 12%), augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) at 8% (down from 13%), digital twins at 7% (down from 8%), and autonomous vehicles and drones at 6% (down from 10% (see page 3).  

It makes sense due to AI and generative AI’s tremendous growth in mindshare throughout 2023, with respondents’ views of it as the most significant technology trend, and its potential for the most business impact in 2024.  

While 3D printing jumped ahead of AR/VR this year (moving into 2nd place), and digital twins jumped ahead of autonomous vehicles and drones (moving into 4th place), it was interesting to see that the top 5 strategic tech trends remained the same as per 2023. 

Some of the trends seen as less impactful in 2024, in relation to others, were hyperautomation (3%), lidar (2%), and the metaverse (2%). It makes sense; the metaverse is still in the early adopter stages in our industry, while hyperautomation and lidar are likely seen more as internal enablers for process improvement and operational efficiency than external enablers.  

When it comes to adoption, generative AI is quite an anomaly with its current mainstream adoption status, yet still at the peak of the technology hype cycle. It’s far more typical to see early adopter technologies at the peak of the hype cycle rather than mainstream technologies.  

For this reason, we expect generative AI to dip into the trough of disillusionment in 2024 as it naturally recalibrates itself, moving into the slope of enlightenment and plateau of productivity. For a more detailed analysis of generative AI’s journey in adoption and maturity, please see our article on CIO.com entitled “5 ways CIOs can help gen AI achieve its lightbulb moment.”  

As you’ll see in the various 2024 predictions from WGI and industry subject-matter experts, many of these trends are coming together in unique ways. We explored this in WGI’s “2024 Predictions for the Infrastructure Industry,” where we found some interesting new approaches harnessing both the seismic shifts, such as generative AI, and the smaller rumblings from other essential tech enablers. All these approaches are fueled by human creativity and ingenuity, helping our industry maximize productivity and efficiency across our multitude of processes and workflows. 

Plans for Generative AI

With generative AI taking the spotlight in conversations throughout 2023 and going into 2024, we incorporated several additional questions for this year’s research. We designed them to help us better understand the existential threat of gen AI to industry participants, the top three use cases planned, its relative priority in terms of investment, and the anticipated timeframe for return on investment.  

In the first question, we asked about generative AI as an existential threat. It was not the typical question about the “singularity” and AI becoming self-aware (and the corresponding threat of AI to humanity) but as an existential threat to the business. That is, how much do you see generative AI as an “existential threat” to your organization’s future (i.e., you must adopt or face going out of business)? 

Surprisingly, we found that over 80% found it “somewhat” or higher of an existential threat to the future of their business. In addition, over a quarter (26%) found it “very much” or “extremely” an existential threat, and only 18% cited “not at all.” 

In terms of the top three use cases participants plan to leverage generative AI within their organization in 2024, we found the top picks are construction planning and scheduling (44%), risk assessment and mitigation (36%), and estimating and cost control (35%). 

In terms of investment priorities, generative AI was rated by over 50% of respondents as a top investment priority for their organization (i.e., those who stated “agree” or “strongly agree”), and only 13% disagreed (i.e., those who stated “disagree” or “strongly disagree”). 

In our final generative AI-related question, we asked participants how long they anticipate it will take to see a return on their investment in its implementation. While the majority cited one-to-three years (43%), we also saw 15% citing under one year, and 27% citing three-to-five years. The jury is likely still out in terms of the time for ROI on generative AI and is highly dependent upon the specific use cases. However, it was encouraging to see over 50% of respondents citing less than three years. 

Moving Forward 

In summary, 2024 looks well-positioned to be a highly productive year for generative AI in the infrastructure industry. Half of all respondents in our research cited it as the strategic technology trend that they expect to have the most business impact in their industry in 2024.  

Over half of our 574 respondents rated it as the top investment priority for their organization, and likewise, over 50% anticipate a return on their investment in less than 3 years. Over 80% of respondents found it “somewhat” or higher of an existential threat to the future of their business – meaning they need to aggressively deploy or face mounting competitive pressure from other adopters in their industry.  

With so many use cases for generative AI across the AEC industry, it will be important for industry participants to experiment early and often, build their digital competency, train and upskill their teams, continue to build their technology partners and ecosystems, carefully balance innovation with governance, risk, and change management, and maintain a strategic focus on both the revenue growth potential — and the cost-savings potential from this strategic technology trend. 

Let’s Talk

For more information about this study or to have a conversation with one of our experts, please contact us today.

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