The Construction Industry Bottleneck Blocking Global Innovation Despite AI and New Technology

0:00 [SPEAKER_02]: On this week's show, we're live from AGC National, 2026, and I am here with the panel of all panels. [SPEAKER_02]: We'll get to that. [SPEAKER_02]: All right. [SPEAKER_02]: It's so awesome to be here with you guys. [SPEAKER_02]: We just got off stage. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm feeling the flow.

0:18 [SPEAKER_02]: Chris, how you doing, man? [SPEAKER_01]: Good, Jeff. [SPEAKER_01]: Good doing well. [SPEAKER_02]: So thank you for having us in for putting the panel together. [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to dive into what it's about, but before we got cutler with us as well. [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, hey, happy to be here, Jeff.

0:30 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's cool. [SPEAKER_02]: We're in a podcast booth, right? [SPEAKER_02]: Like, Damon, how are you feeling over there? [SPEAKER_03]: I feel fantastic, man. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm a, a caffeinated. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm ready to spin around on this chair. [SPEAKER_02]: That's right. [SPEAKER_02]: We're hyphenated.

0:41 [SPEAKER_02]: We got podcast fast track is actually like running this forest. [SPEAKER_02]: So for once in my life, [SPEAKER_02]: I don't have to worry about any of the details. [SPEAKER_02]: We just get to be here at this fantastic venue. [SPEAKER_02]: Before we dive into what we want to talk about on technology, et cetera, you guys know, check us out at thecontecru.com or check us on social at youtube.com forward slash at.

1:04 [SPEAKER_02]: the content crew. [SPEAKER_02]: That's where the snippets come from. [SPEAKER_02]: And hey, follow my guests because hey, that gives me some credibility. [SPEAKER_02]: We like those socials. [SPEAKER_02]: We like those follows. [SPEAKER_02]: All right. [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm going to let you all do your own introductions because well, let's just be honest.

1:21 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to do a lot of work over here. [SPEAKER_02]: So Chris, tell everybody who you are, which is where you come from and a [SPEAKER_01]: Great. [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks, Jeff. [SPEAKER_01]: First of all, I do want to say first of all, a big fan of you, Jeff, and big fan of the content crew.

1:32 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm always happy for a while now, but my name is Chris Green. [SPEAKER_01]: I am the SVP Innovation and Insights at American Global. [SPEAKER_01]: My role kind of centers around the intersection of construction, risk, data, advance analytics. [SPEAKER_01]: I help clients with large projects and data driven decision making.

1:49 [SPEAKER_01]: So I've been doing it for a little over 10 years now, and [SPEAKER_01]: Getting contractors to leverage their data in the way that helps them make better decisions, is about them all about connected with risk. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's awesome because that's what our panel was about. [SPEAKER_02]: We'll get back to it, but I hope nobody doesn't know who you are, but it's awesome to have you back on the show and sitting down with us.

2:05 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's great to be here. [SPEAKER_00]: It's been in several years, too, so it's good. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's good to get the band back together. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, color knob coming from the Haskell Company, large design builder out of Jacksonville, Florida. [SPEAKER_00]: We are global.

2:16 [SPEAKER_00]: I lead our innovation and venture efforts are group called this rub tech, which if you haven't heard, now you have. [SPEAKER_02]: You got to check that out. [SPEAKER_02]: It's dy disrupts tech that way and you know, good shout out to Hamza, you know. [SPEAKER_00]: Got love, Homsa. [SPEAKER_02]: You got love, Homsa, been on before and it's so awesome because you and I've been around this game kind of from the same time frame-ish.

2:38 [SPEAKER_02]: So I feel like it's like, Kindred gettin' us back together. [SPEAKER_00]: Indeed, I couldn't agree more, yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: It's interesting, maybe we can dive into that a little bit later about where we think we might have been versus where we are over this time period. [SPEAKER_02]: Where we might have been, where we're gonna go and well, how we're gonna be wrong.

2:52 [SPEAKER_00]: The future is bright, yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: The future's bright, but I'm always wrong about it. [SPEAKER_02]: not to be left out, Damon. [SPEAKER_02]: Coming on the far end of the show here, first timer, first timer. [SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, this is a Damon or Nary construction innovation sustainability partner at Access XL insurance.

3:10 [SPEAKER_03]: Part of the construction group. [SPEAKER_03]: We offer evaluated services in the form of benchmarking tech partnerships, whatever clients need. [SPEAKER_03]: My background is in construction management. [SPEAKER_03]: Used to work for Lennely's Chicago. [SPEAKER_03]: I also teach it Northwestern as part of their project management program.

3:27 [SPEAKER_02]: This is what we're going to do. [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to talk a little bit about technology, data, risk, and kind of how it all comes together. [SPEAKER_02]: But Chris, I want you to talk about, you put our panel together. [SPEAKER_02]: And what was the impetus behind why you'd want to get this kind of an odd group together?

3:42 [SPEAKER_02]: Because on the panel, you guys know I work for Bluebeam. [SPEAKER_02]: So I represent a Bluebeam on the panel. [SPEAKER_02]: But today, just whole seat. [SPEAKER_02]: So why did you want to put this panel together? [SPEAKER_01]: Well, first of all, I like working with all ducks, like the three of you, but, you know, in all seriousness, I am seeing a trend that contractors kind of need help now, more so than never before, because so much has happened over the past 10, 15, 20 years in this space, and people are basically just kind of like lost and drowning, and they need to get back to the basics.

4:11 [SPEAKER_01]: We talked a little bit on the panel about like kind of carving the fat and trimming back, and getting your foundation right. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, so I was hoping that you guys could join me on [SPEAKER_01]: talk about the shared pains in the shared games like you say all the time Jeff and try to figure out what does a proper foundation look like and what does success look like in today's world.

4:31 [SPEAKER_02]: Little shout out to Nathan Wood we're still in that front me shared pain shared gains shared risk shared reward but to that point Chris like cutler you're in [SPEAKER_02]: Haskell. [SPEAKER_02]: So you're seeing how it's working, but you're also in disrupt tech. [SPEAKER_02]: So you're investing, you're investigating, you're analyzing.

4:48 [SPEAKER_02]: So why is this market right now such a crazy space to be in? [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's a long list, right? [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's it's super interesting right now in this day and age because of the complexities of the projects. [SPEAKER_00]: And again, I'm speaking from the seat of of where I am today.

5:05 [SPEAKER_00]: And I know everybody's business is a little bit different in the space, but [SPEAKER_00]: The complexities of the projects that we're dealing with, the size, I mean, I know that we're going through unique inflection point in Haskell, just our growth has been unreal. [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, we're very fortunate for that, but at the same time that, you know, starts to show, starts to show the stress and it starts to push the boundaries where the organization can go and the way we've done things isn't the way we can continue to do things, right?

5:30 [SPEAKER_00]: So I think, [SPEAKER_00]: It's a unique time and I think that laying the foundation for disrupt tech and how we've got a team dedicated to help the core business work through some of these growth challenges is at a at a very unique time right now. [SPEAKER_00]: So I think we're just really just now starting to blossom so it's pretty exciting.

5:47 [SPEAKER_02]: it's crazy too because like we used to think of like a half a billion dollar half a billion dollar project is like a big deal and now like a one billion is that so it's a billion and I'm waiting for it to wait for three we're seeing tens of billions it's the scale is outrageous so we'll get we'll come back to some of where we thought we'd be where we think we are now but [SPEAKER_02]: I think that's what's great to bring Damon in on the XXL side because that risk is increasing and you talk about risk.

6:16 [SPEAKER_02]: So how has that increase in scope? [SPEAKER_02]: How has this changed for you? [SPEAKER_03]: Well, used to be, we could look at a submission and, you know, buying a policy kind of like in the sort of like traditional sense. [SPEAKER_03]: Um, now you're talking about people that are almost at their limits, uh, you know, and one project.

6:36 [SPEAKER_03]: Um, uh, we usually don't say no right off the bat, right? [SPEAKER_03]: So how are we going to get there? [SPEAKER_03]: Is there, is there, um, a quota share is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, is there, [SPEAKER_03]: risk sharing high retention, you know, is there something that we can do to get the client there?

6:54 [SPEAKER_03]: Most of these projects are JVs at this point, right? [SPEAKER_03]: That presents issues because maybe we like a couple of the partners that are current clients, maybe we used to [SPEAKER_03]: and share some of the other ones and don't anymore for certain reasons so that all of it is something that has to be worked through that's why we do traditionally consider our clients partners because we we're going to get there right we'll find a way to get there but it isn't it isn't the straight line path that it used to be just you know check the submission over the wall and then the policy comes back the other side [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I think that kind of goes to the industry itself.

7:35 [SPEAKER_02]: Right. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think I, when I put this together in the beginning, would have thought of the, it was always AEC right, then you started putting owners in and then you got to think like, oh, we got building product manufacturers, we have insurance, we have. [SPEAKER_02]: lawyers we have like we have this ecosystem and the entire ecosystem is under a strain from the size of the projects the scale the complexity the speed you know and and then a dwindling labor force that's taking a lot of that knowledge with them so cutler we got to do this you like you and I've been around a long time like where did you think we were going to be what are some of the bets that worked and the bets that you know didn't you don't have to talk about the actual companies

8:19 [SPEAKER_02]: the technologies or the things we thought because when I remember sitting down in the beginning of these shows and being like oh yeah robots this that it's done yeah it's not done and it's not going to be done so talk a little bit about the history. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, for sure. [SPEAKER_00]: So, I mean, when I first came into the space, I was from a different industry and came in a bit naive and was like, ah, you know, how hard could this be, right?

8:44 [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, everybody's got a plan and you get punched in the face. [SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, then realizing that, you know, it's, it's, it's super valuable to our, our local communities that we're working in, the infrastructure we're building is, like, next generation, my kids will be using this.

8:59 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, these wastewater facilities that we're building, they'll be leveraging these data centers. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you can, you can name it. [SPEAKER_00]: And I, one thing that I didn't see coming was the influx of the, the, the bites and atoms conversation, right? [SPEAKER_00]: How like if you would have told me actually construction is going to be one of the biggest bottlenecks for advancing the latest technologies we have on the planet.

9:23 [SPEAKER_00]: I would have been like, nah, get out of here. [SPEAKER_00]: You're crazy. [SPEAKER_00]: And then here we are right. [SPEAKER_00]: And so that's pretty interesting. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, really excited about robotics. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that that has, you know, the timelines been pushed out some realistically.

9:37 [SPEAKER_00]: I think we're having to rethink what the robot actually means. [SPEAKER_00]: I think everybody just got a really excited about, you know, oh, it's going to be out there swinging hammers doing the same thing. [SPEAKER_00]: Same thing we've always done and I think that that's just kind of shot at this point where we're really rethinking how we can use it and then just the constraints that have forced different [SPEAKER_00]: And then some things that I didn't think we're going to take place quite as quickly as they are like changes around design and engineering and how that's how that work is executed and how technology's playing a role and how that work is executed so I mean it's a mixed bag but it's it's pretty interesting and I feel very fortunate that I get the lens of a haskell where we do have the architects and the engineers and the builders all under one roof to kind of see how that plays out right so.

10:30 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's that contractual method of design build, which creates a better, you know, single team to attack that. [SPEAKER_02]: But I think it's really interesting that you hit on it. [SPEAKER_02]: It's one of the things I found. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, mine was a little bit different coming into a masonry contractor, but to realize that the world around us is built by people.

10:48 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I said that in the panel, I'll say it every time I talk, like, I didn't realize that. [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, it's Dustin Burns who said it one day, like, when you sleep in your bed at a hotel, you don't think about your bed falling through the floor. [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks construction for doing that, right?

11:03 [SPEAKER_02]: Because you built a building in such a way that that's what you do. [SPEAKER_02]: But you're right. [SPEAKER_02]: Like, when you say to the listener out there, [SPEAKER_02]: were the bottleneck. [SPEAKER_02]: It's because the hyperscalers can't be brought online. [SPEAKER_02]: The advanced manufacturing can't be brought online without us building it physically.

11:19 [SPEAKER_02]: And we literally are the physical bottleneck and to give you an idea like to the listener, what does that mean? [SPEAKER_02]: Well, we're using models now to drive innovation in medicine, in using models to look at the world [SPEAKER_02]: but that can't happen until we build it and we are the puzzle that they have not figured out.

11:43 [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm with you lots of the bets I've made in the beginning. [SPEAKER_02]: Who it's so bad that we're this far into it because I'm on record over and over. [SPEAKER_02]: So the good thing is we're good at being wrong. [SPEAKER_02]: So Chris is where I like being wrong happens, but what can we do about being wrong?

11:59 [SPEAKER_02]: And how can we maybe leverage technologies to help us? [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Be wrong better. [SPEAKER_01]: Be wrong better. [SPEAKER_01]: That's not being wrong. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, we're always going to be wrong. [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's part of our resilience. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I think no one should ever be afraid of failure.

12:15 [SPEAKER_01]: I think if you have the mindset and I have this mindset that like there is no failure, we're always going to adapt. [SPEAKER_01]: You're always going to be resilient and you're going to kind of like go with the flow and change as needed. [SPEAKER_01]: So if you kind of are always pushing forward, then you don't necessarily have to worry because you have to have faith in yourself that you will kind of succeed and figure out what you want to.

12:37 [SPEAKER_01]: Harder at an industrial macro level, but I think if each person kind of feels that way, you're going to push forward. [SPEAKER_01]: We're seeing so much change right now. [SPEAKER_01]: Like you said, there's hundreds of stakeholders out there. [SPEAKER_01]: The one big difference I'm seeing now is that we are bringing more psychology, more human approach to all of this.

12:53 [SPEAKER_01]: It's not necessarily as technical all the time, and I think that's half the battle right there, and that's a very good thing that we're doing that. [SPEAKER_02]: It's a really good thing, and to hit on that point of like, what was it? [SPEAKER_02]: Is it Albert Einstein that said if I tried something and failed 99 times, I learned, I didn't fail, I learned, and then on the hundredth I got it right, but that was just the hundredth try.

13:15 [SPEAKER_02]: you've got to continue to iterate and learn, but I used to say that, and then I got these events like this. [SPEAKER_02]: I got these, well, there's gray as I am right now, but wasn't back then of, no, we can't do that. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, you're right, we can't fail on projects, right?

13:34 [SPEAKER_02]: Lives are at risk, infrastructures at risk. [SPEAKER_02]: So when you say fail, like, what does fail mean? [SPEAKER_02]: What can we fail at? [SPEAKER_02]: Because we can't fail at projects. [SPEAKER_02]: Right. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, you do your best, right? [SPEAKER_01]: If you look at making a different decision or a safer decision, you do your best with what's at your fingertips, with a data coming through, with the best practices that we have right now, you can't call that failure sometimes, but I think you can always learn from it.

13:59 [SPEAKER_01]: And we talk about it on the panel today. [SPEAKER_01]: Sorry, measuring the good stuff, too, not only the bad stuff, be positive around it, create this culture in your company, that makes it better for you to measure that stuff here. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that was really interesting. [SPEAKER_02]: That was something we learned really early on.

14:14 [SPEAKER_02]: If you just measure near misses, [SPEAKER_02]: you don't get a lot of data. [SPEAKER_02]: But if you then include people doing things correctly in safety, you get these big numbers. [SPEAKER_02]: And Dave and I want to bring this to you because you guys do this like benchmarking thing. [SPEAKER_02]: And what I think is interesting of it, talk a little bit about that because [SPEAKER_02]: I've said this people over and over.

14:36 [SPEAKER_02]: If I keep measuring myself against my own data, I just know how much I suck. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how much I suck against the industry. [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe I don't suck as bad as I thought. [SPEAKER_02]: So talk about how benchmarking can help these folks and you talked about it on the panel, but anonymization, et cetera, but talk a little bit about that.

14:54 [SPEAKER_03]: Again, generally the way it works is a client will go through a questionnaire with us, a standard questionnaire, depending on the whole bunch of them. [SPEAKER_03]: The one that seems to be pretty popular is the technology adaption maturity, call it Tammy. [SPEAKER_03]: And we basically take their scores and compare it to all the other insurers that have taken the same test.

15:18 [SPEAKER_03]: And over the years, we've noticed a few things. [SPEAKER_03]: And this is part of the value they get out of it. [SPEAKER_03]: One is the companies that are say like $300 million to say like half a billion dollars versus the companies that are a billion to eight billion, right? [SPEAKER_03]: The jump in technology.

15:40 [SPEAKER_03]: is so significant between those two, right? [SPEAKER_03]: And then you get beyond that, and then there is no jump, right? [SPEAKER_03]: So it's very instructive to kind of say, like, listen, you're good at what you do now. [SPEAKER_03]: You want to go from point A to point B. [SPEAKER_03]: you're going to have to spend a lot more than you are right now to get there.

16:04 [SPEAKER_03]: And it's, and I, you know, you could argue with me to your blue and the face, but this is the empirical data, right? [SPEAKER_03]: Companies that are at the level you want to be at are spending or invested in tech to this extent. [SPEAKER_03]: Now be on that. [SPEAKER_03]: It kind of plethoraes out.

16:21 [SPEAKER_03]: There's only so much tech out there that's going to add value, right? [SPEAKER_03]: So those are the kind of things we're getting. [SPEAKER_03]: The other thing we that clients really like about this is that you mentioned it earlier, right? [SPEAKER_03]: IOT. [SPEAKER_03]: Some of these things that were robotics, things that were like early in their development, you know, maybe work great on one project or something like that.

16:40 [SPEAKER_03]: But we didn't see the scaled up adoption that we thought we were going to see, right? [SPEAKER_03]: And that plays out in these benchmarks. [SPEAKER_03]: And you can, you'll say like, well, you guys scored low in IoT category, but I really wouldn't worry about it because it's a critical component because like, if not, you're trying to keep up with the Joneses and it's just not going to work.

17:03 [SPEAKER_02]: And I think there's something interesting because we talked about this on the panel as well. [SPEAKER_02]: It's just like setting a vision is important. [SPEAKER_02]: And I get to say this so you guys don't have to like, you don't have to be a growth business. [SPEAKER_02]: You can be a lifestyle business and I think you need to understand that.

17:17 [SPEAKER_02]: Like if you're at that 250 million, we know, no matter what you are, when you go through that next to a billion, there's a lot of growing pains. [SPEAKER_02]: And you have to be ready. [SPEAKER_02]: You have to have the chops for it. [SPEAKER_02]: You have to have the intestinal fortitude for it.

17:33 [SPEAKER_02]: And by the way, quite frankly, you don't have to do it. [SPEAKER_02]: It is the decision and the vision and the company needs to decide and know, and when you do that, then you've got to be like, okay, we're all in. [SPEAKER_02]: The cards are in, we're going to invest, we're going to change, we're going to do what we want.

17:47 [SPEAKER_02]: That's a decision. [SPEAKER_02]: But I like to see that there's a point at which you sort of plateau and the things work and that kind of works, right? [SPEAKER_02]: There's a scale at which a penny on top of it's not going to change any of it, right? [SPEAKER_02]: So that's what you're hitting on.

18:00 [SPEAKER_02]: And people need to make that decision, but also, [SPEAKER_02]: There's so many things that go fall over that aren't just technology in that. [SPEAKER_02]: It's process. [SPEAKER_02]: It's trying to change. [SPEAKER_02]: It's flying the plane and trying to repair it while it's still in the air.

18:19 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, how do you do that? [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm just kind of interested, like, cutler, how do people, how does Haskell, how does a good company tackle that problem? [SPEAKER_02]: Because you guys went through that. [SPEAKER_02]: So what does that look like? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mentioned it on the panel too, but I think a big piece of it was having the foresight to carve out some resources.

18:40 [SPEAKER_00]: You don't need 10 people, you know, right? [SPEAKER_00]: It can be one person to start and depends on your firm size and what makes sense for you, but you need someone that has their head up that's looking at what's coming and can take an accurate assessment of your business and say, okay, where can we focus?

18:55 [SPEAKER_00]: Where is this lower hang free that we can work on? [SPEAKER_00]: because typically your business is probably at capacity at, you know, 99% of the time operating at 99%. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, so there's not a lot of time for people, you know, similar to your example where you're talking about, you know, if you're walking around the tablet and front of your face all day on the job site, you're really kind of missing the bigger picture, right, in a lot of cases.

19:16 [SPEAKER_00]: And so, [SPEAKER_00]: that's kind of similar where I think that that's an important piece is like having having resources that can be dedicated to this mission because there's a lot going on and there needs to be kind of a focus on it and then the support for it too, right? [SPEAKER_00]: But it's not easy to redirect some of these ships, right?

19:32 [SPEAKER_00]: And even a ship, the size of the Haskell, right? [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, [SPEAKER_00]: We're having conversations internally about like, you know, maybe is it faster to market concept if we sort of created a Haskell light like a little speedboat next to us and see like mimic what the project would look like being, you know, AI first, right, something like that rather than trying to inject that and break some of the processes while we're in flight as to your example.

19:56 [SPEAKER_00]: So, [SPEAKER_02]: the innovators dilemma, right? [SPEAKER_02]: We've seen that all along. [SPEAKER_02]: How do you innovate inside of a company that's working like a machine? [SPEAKER_02]: That is a very difficult process. [SPEAKER_02]: And there's risk involved in it. [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, you're flanked by risk on both sides.

20:10 [SPEAKER_02]: And you're invested [SPEAKER_02]: Chris and that in that risk how do you guide your partners through that risk phase in that risk assessment and whether they should or shouldn't and you know do they build has to light or you know don't that I think you're right like every company has the own vision.

20:26 [SPEAKER_01]: And you have to follow the vision that works for you. [SPEAKER_01]: So a lot of times, companies will come to us and they'll just say, we want to start this journey. [SPEAKER_01]: How do we start this journey? [SPEAKER_01]: Then we have very sophisticated clients that say, how do we refine the journey that we're on, right?

20:39 [SPEAKER_01]: Everyone's in the different boat, but at the same time, we do, I try to bring it back to keep your data house in order, build the right foundation and data architecture. [SPEAKER_01]: You mentioned plumbing today, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So make sure that your data plumbing is in order so that you can build on top of that foundation.

20:56 [SPEAKER_01]: connect different things like IoT, reality capture, work-awareable technology sensors, anything that goes above and beyond. [SPEAKER_01]: I find if you start too big then you're just going to be jamming in everything because you have 16 different screens up on your wall that say 16 different things because they're 16 different companies.

21:14 [SPEAKER_01]: I really try to push for a couple of things to have that single source of truth. [SPEAKER_01]: I know that is kind of a buzzword, but I think we should be trying to achieve that. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think anyone has achieved that just quite yet, but for my perspective, it means connecting your exposure data, what is it, where is it, how big is it, what's your contract delivering model with your policy coverage, so what's, whether you covered for you rates, deductible, [SPEAKER_01]: And then you connect that with your failure data just being able to measure those three things give you this idea of project health for the first time.

21:48 [SPEAKER_01]: And then when you can measure project health, you can decide what technology solutions do I need to put on there that works for me. [SPEAKER_01]: In order to do all of that, you need to have a pretty robust data plumbing within your company. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, you can't engineer a 15 story building with the foundation then go, you know, we're going to go 30.

22:05 [SPEAKER_02]: falls over. [SPEAKER_02]: And that consistently happens. [SPEAKER_02]: Now, the beauty of technology is you have some flexibility to grow that. [SPEAKER_02]: But you have to plan for that growth. [SPEAKER_02]: And that's a key component to what you're talking about. [SPEAKER_02]: And Damon, you're not in your head over there.

22:20 [SPEAKER_02]: Because again, you guys have that vested interest in partnering to make it all sides successful with your clients. [SPEAKER_03]: We go through a lot to get a partner, a tech partner onboarded, right? [SPEAKER_03]: That's actually going to stand behind and recommend the clients. [SPEAKER_03]: But when we get there, we are able to confidently say, you are identifying a particular risk.

22:47 [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe it's a builder's risk type of thing. [SPEAKER_03]: And you might have an issue with a pipe leak, right? [SPEAKER_03]: help you put in place to make sure that that is something that is managed, right? [SPEAKER_03]: And I think that we a lot of times, and we talked about this on the panel, right?

23:09 [SPEAKER_03]: We'll get approached either by a client or by the tech themselves, and they'll say, you know, well, we were really helpful on this one project, you know? [SPEAKER_03]: Well, that's great. [SPEAKER_03]: That was one project. [SPEAKER_03]: We are looking for programmatic changes, right? [SPEAKER_03]: We're looking for things at scale.

23:25 [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that's been a lot of these topics, a lot of these like discussion groups where a part of scale is kind of a real issue. [SPEAKER_03]: And now I think you were talking before about some of the text that really didn't take off, right? [SPEAKER_03]: And I think scaling is one of them, and that's kind of what we look for in our partners and what we're going to recommend to clients is it.

23:47 [SPEAKER_03]: Is this something that can be a part of your business as usual and make an impact at a broad scale? [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's that's one of those things like we hear about the vibe coding all the time and it's like, well, great, you could vibe code your way to that solution right now, but is it going to scale and can you roll it out and can you get adoption that becomes a different thing and I'm not going to say that vibe coding is not the way it's a POC right now could it change in the future I think so like again, I'm not going to predict because I'm just going to be wrong, but.

24:18 [SPEAKER_02]: We've said this a lot on the panel, the panel, and to the listener, sorry, you missed the panel. [SPEAKER_02]: So next year, you got to come or this summer, just so you know, we're here planning for the technology summit this summer in August. [SPEAKER_02]: It's the AGC technology event.

24:34 [SPEAKER_02]: If you want to come here, some of the solutions, some of the talks, et cetera, you guys got to come there. [SPEAKER_02]: They'll be a website for you guys to check out, but do that. [SPEAKER_02]: But we'll give you a little something that we didn't talk about. [SPEAKER_02]: And I didn't prep these guys, so we're just going to do it.

24:48 [SPEAKER_02]: There is this two letter thing floating around. [SPEAKER_02]: And I want to get a perspective on AI from each of you, from your perspectives, and maybe a little... [SPEAKER_02]: Where could this thing go? [SPEAKER_02]: So Chris, we were sitting down last night chatting about it. [SPEAKER_02]: Like, what are some of your thoughts on it?

25:07 [SPEAKER_02]: And where do you think this thing might be going? [SPEAKER_01]: So we took a very proactive approach in the American Global around AI. [SPEAKER_01]: So I think it was about a year and a half ago. [SPEAKER_01]: My self and my colleague, Nancy Rogi, we went all over the offices and we did our AI training roadshow.

25:24 [SPEAKER_01]: So [SPEAKER_01]: A lot of the people at the time have never used AI, they were like, how do we access chat GPT? [SPEAKER_01]: Where do we go? [SPEAKER_01]: How do we do it? [SPEAKER_01]: We did that because we wanted to have, we didn't want to say no, shut it all down, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So we do have the corporate version of chat GPT within the American Global, but we have to train people in how to use the guidelines properly.

25:44 [SPEAKER_01]: we had to plant the seed because from my journey in AI, especially with the LLMs, it was progressive. [SPEAKER_01]: The way I use it right now is not the same way I use it two years ago, right? [SPEAKER_01]: But I think I had to have that phase to build me up to me now, using it. [SPEAKER_01]: And I think everyone at the company is slowly starting to get that.

26:02 [SPEAKER_01]: And it becomes a way to be more productive, yes, and we also talked about this earlier today. [SPEAKER_01]: It needs to give you time to think more. [SPEAKER_01]: It needs to give you time to not be lazy, but it's very easy to slip into that area. [SPEAKER_02]: It's super easy and Damon, that's why I want to pitch it to you because you did have something on the panel that I can connect to this is like, [SPEAKER_02]: How can you make sure that AI is allowing you time to think?

26:30 [SPEAKER_02]: Or at least how do you approach it? [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, the comment that I was going to make, and I'm not sure if this were you were going, but the comment that I was going to make was, I think we are getting to a point where you would not be competitive anymore. [SPEAKER_03]: If you were not fully utilizing AI, and that could be at the individual level, [SPEAKER_03]: It's going to be at a corporate level, but it's going to come up point where companies that are succeeding at winning and delivering work are taking full advantage of AI in every aspect that they can, and it would be impossible for someone to say, like, I'm not going to do it the whole way.

27:09 [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's similar to like, you know, [SPEAKER_03]: You come, the roofers use nail guns. [SPEAKER_03]: They don't use hammers, right? [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, like, someone showed up with a company showed up at your house with a bunch of hammers, right? [SPEAKER_03]: You'd be like, you guys are going to be up there all day.

27:21 [SPEAKER_03]: Like, forget this, like, I think that's where it's going. [SPEAKER_03]: That could be a scary concept for some folks, but I feel like, [SPEAKER_03]: the genius out of the bottle at this point, right? [SPEAKER_03]: It's getting better. [SPEAKER_03]: People are doing more with it. [SPEAKER_03]: It's becoming more successful.

27:40 [SPEAKER_03]: It's getting more specialized, right? [SPEAKER_03]: There's more construction-specific AIs, right? [SPEAKER_03]: And yes, it's, I use it quite a bit. [SPEAKER_03]: And I can tell you that it finishes nothing. [SPEAKER_03]: Right? [SPEAKER_03]: Like it gets me much further, much faster than I ever have before, but like it finishes nothing.

27:56 [SPEAKER_03]: I finish everything because it is what it is, right? [SPEAKER_03]: It's calculator. [SPEAKER_03]: So I feel like that is where we're going to see, that's what we're going to see happen in the next. [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, I wish I could say five years, but I'm thinking more like three or sooner, that could be in the microwave faster and like a year and a half.

28:16 [SPEAKER_02]: But the, you hit on a lot, the one thing I wanted was like, how do you help it teach you to learn? [SPEAKER_02]: So you were talking about this with students like, how are you seeing in the student environment? [SPEAKER_02]: That's okay. [SPEAKER_02]: Like it's what you hit leads right into how are you leading students into that.

28:29 [SPEAKER_03]: So, yeah, so the class that I teach, we started noticing that some of the assignments were coming in, clearly, clearly coming out of chat GBT or some garongers, whatever they were using, and I took the approach and the university back this that. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to call you out in class.

28:48 [SPEAKER_03]: If I could tell that that's what you did, I'm going to call you out in class. [SPEAKER_03]: If you can speak to that work intelligently, maybe not accurately, but you've got a opinion of what's on that page. [SPEAKER_03]: And then great, it's a tool and we all need to learn to use it. [SPEAKER_03]: If you can't, it's plagiarism.

29:03 [SPEAKER_02]: It's such a simple, fantastic way to explain how it can make you smarter or dumber. [SPEAKER_02]: And that's literally the precipice we're at is we get to choose smarter or dumber because smarter means it gave me that information faster, gave me time to think and digest and make mistakes, right?

29:23 [SPEAKER_02]: So now I go to an expert and I have a little bit more of a base like I came to school doing the homework, but we do homework wrong. [SPEAKER_02]: That's the way it is. [SPEAKER_02]: Then the teacher gets to teach us. [SPEAKER_02]: That's exactly what it is. [SPEAKER_02]: But if I just spit it out and then, yeah, I'm just dumb.

29:39 [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm getting dumber because I'm doing less. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just asking a machine that, by the way, is trained to be nice to me and tell me what I want to hear. [SPEAKER_02]: Which, again, that's a total separate topic. [SPEAKER_02]: But this is the path that we have. [SPEAKER_02]: And so, color, they've, they've gotten out all that now.

29:56 [SPEAKER_02]: Where do you see the future of this thing go and like get get out there on the ledge with me? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, for sure. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not going anywhere. [SPEAKER_00]: It's here today. [SPEAKER_00]: It's being used as a thought partner today, which again is great. [SPEAKER_00]: I hope I'd like to think it's making me smarter, not dumber.

30:14 [SPEAKER_00]: However, it can very much be used in that. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that the check your work element, like you know, you had with your students, [SPEAKER_00]: very important element of it. [SPEAKER_00]: You also can't entrust it with everything, right? [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, you're still going to have to do it.

30:28 [SPEAKER_00]: It goes back to the conversation. [SPEAKER_00]: This is a people, people driven business. [SPEAKER_00]: This is humans that are building these buildings for us. [SPEAKER_00]: And if we can give them tools to do things faster and more efficiently and get the answers and in a much more rapid fashion, excellent, I'm all for it.

30:40 [SPEAKER_00]: It's great. [SPEAKER_00]: But you can't, you can't let the risks just fall [SPEAKER_00]: And that's a big element of it because if you're opening up your organization to AI, I mean, you have to understand that the majority of your younger employees are already using this today, and how are they using it?

30:59 [SPEAKER_00]: Are they using it with your company's information? [SPEAKER_00]: Or not? [SPEAKER_00]: And how do you shut that off? [SPEAKER_00]: If that's an issue, IP leakage is real? [SPEAKER_00]: There's a ton of other things that come with this whole AI. [SPEAKER_00]: And again, I'm an optimist. [SPEAKER_00]: I think we're we are going to find [SPEAKER_00]: robots to do the things that we don't like to do, and I'm fine without ever having to drive again in my life.

31:21 [SPEAKER_00]: I know that might make some people upset, but it is what it is. [SPEAKER_00]: I think as long as we continue to stay in front as much as we can and harness it without inhibiting innovation, then we'll be successful with it. [SPEAKER_00]: But it's definitely a harbinger for technology in our industry.

31:33 [SPEAKER_00]: I definitely 100% absolutely that. [SPEAKER_02]: I agree because that's what I always talk about is like we've got to lift our heads up if our heads are in our iPads, if our heads are in our phones, if our fingers are down doing those things, we're just punching buttons. [SPEAKER_02]: And there's nothing that can replace a general form and with years of experience that has the eye and [SPEAKER_02]: I said this on a recent show like I would love to get here where it could tell me that something's swinging for my head, but I just don't know that we're going to get there for a long time and I want that general form and to stop me and say, watch, that's going to come for your head or hey, you've got that hooked in your belt wrong and it's going to fall for stories and go through somebody's head.

32:13 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I want their heads up and you hit on something really unique too because if you use the models the way they're supposed to be used as a ability to democratize the experience. [SPEAKER_02]: So they're feeding their experience in and they're actually, I don't want to say talking to it because this becomes this like weird humanistic thing, but you're training it, right?

32:38 [SPEAKER_02]: And you're giving it knowledge that it's going to spit back. [SPEAKER_02]: But like you said, you know, I got to test you on it. [SPEAKER_02]: But now at least I can say, hey, here's the short interval plan. [SPEAKER_02]: Here's what's going on. [SPEAKER_02]: And I can expect my team to digest it.

32:53 [SPEAKER_02]: And then instead of going [SPEAKER_02]: I can just ask them to converse with me because once a conversation happens, I'm gonna uncover this layer of connective tissue to problems, to risks, to other things. [SPEAKER_02]: So that's where this all comes together. [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, we're hitting that time.

33:15 [SPEAKER_02]: Cutler, you hit that mic drop for me. [SPEAKER_02]: I wanna give each person a little parting thought and where to connect with you. [SPEAKER_02]: So, Damon, give me a little parting thought and where can people connect with you? [SPEAKER_03]: a parting thought would be AI is powerful tool, right?

33:30 [SPEAKER_03]: I think that all of the IP leakage you mentioned, right? [SPEAKER_03]: That's all real, but we're construction. [SPEAKER_03]: We use a lot of powerful tools, right? [SPEAKER_03]: And they can be used wrong and hurt somebody. [SPEAKER_03]: You can be trained on them, get your work done. [SPEAKER_03]: And I think that's really how you have to approach this.

33:45 [SPEAKER_03]: If you want to get old to me, LinkedIn's probably the best way. [SPEAKER_03]: We'll drop that in the show and it's for you. [SPEAKER_02]: Connect with them like we always say, you got to connect with those guests. [SPEAKER_02]: It gives me street [SPEAKER_00]: So I would just say, it's an exciting time to be in the industry.

33:59 [SPEAKER_00]: It's more exciting than ever. [SPEAKER_00]: Builders keep building, start-ups, founders keep building. [SPEAKER_00]: We need this tough space, but it's absolutely critical to the future existence of how we live our day-to-day, and it's never been a more exciting time to join the industry.

34:13 [SPEAKER_00]: So if you're thinking about it, do it. [SPEAKER_00]: If you're not in it, consider it, and just keep hammering. [SPEAKER_00]: And if you want to connect with me linked in, sometimes a little bit of a mass or a cutler dot in up at Haskell, just drop me a line. [SPEAKER_02]: That's awesome.

34:26 [SPEAKER_02]: We'll put it in the show notes. [SPEAKER_02]: Chris, the master of ceremonies, they put us together, but now you got to ride along and give your input. [SPEAKER_02]: Tell everybody a final thought and [SPEAKER_02]: where to connect with you. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, my final thought would be deep technical skills are becoming table stakes right now.

34:42 [SPEAKER_01]: Now, more so than ever, we need to bring back humanity, bring back human behavior, change management, think about the psychology of it all before deploying. [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's going to be more than half the battle. [SPEAKER_01]: So if you want to have more of a conversation with me, happy the chat reach out on LinkedIn, Chris Green at the American [SPEAKER_01]: and we'll drop it in the show notes.

35:01 [SPEAKER_02]: Chris, thank you so much for putting the panel together because my final thought is, I get to sit in the seat in the wildest ride in the coolest industry with the coolest people because it is about the human connection. [SPEAKER_02]: And thank you to AGC for letting us do this for a let-ness record, for letting us get on stage and for just giving us a forum where we can meet incredible people with incredible ideas and be in the best industry there is.

35:28 [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks guys for joining me. [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for tuning in today to geek out for our interview with Damon, Cutler, and Chris to read all our new stories. [SPEAKER_02]: Learn more about guess and listen to the show visit the contentcrew.com. [SPEAKER_02]: This is the content crew signing out.

35:43 [SPEAKER_02]: Until next time, enjoy the ride and geek out.