Continuing our series on how tech is changing construction — one of the industries most resistant to change (and facing declining productivity) — this episode of the a16z Podcast looks at what happens when you go from planning to actually putting boots on the ground. How can tech translate rich data sets into the just-right types, amounts, and levels of information for each different piece of the incredibly complex, dynamic, time-and-space problem that is a building site? Productivity issues such as average cost increases of as much as 80% — and average delays of 20 months — for megaprojects in the industry make innovation an imperative. But how can that actually be implemented on a site?
Martin Fischer, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford; Saurabh Ladha, cofounder and CEO of Doxel, which uses AI to real-time measure progress and inspect quality on construction projects; and Christopher Rippingham, who leads technology and innovation leadership for nation-wide commercial contractor and manager DPR Construction discuss with a16z’s Hanne Tidnam how AI is introducing something fundamentally — no, foundationally — different for the construction industry: the feedback loop.