Artificial intelligence (AI) is, to put it mildly, a hot topic in nearly every industry.

From media production to business analytics and every market in between, AI-enhanced business tools are unveiling new opportunities for efficiency and efficacy in the way we work. This naturally begs the question: how will AI enhance and change the construction industry?

Balfour Beatty’s answer is the currently under development StoaOne, a large language model (LLM) generative AI assistant with the ability to mine untold billions of data points from our expansive and secure cloud. Generated results could be endlessly useful for our business and the industry at large, connecting our teammates with instant insights and project information as they procure, plan and execute their projects.

Large Language Models in a Small Nutshell

StoaOne will ultimately function as an easy-to-use, app-based Large Language Model, not unlike the popularly discussed ChatGPT. While not an artificial intelligence tool in the science fiction sense, end users experience an LLM in largely the same way. Using statistical analysis, incomprehensibly vast data mining and processing and language models, an LLM generates cogent and understandable text. To the end user, it feels like it can talk to you.

“StoaOne will give our teams the ability to take advantage of Balfour Beatty’s hundreds of years of cumulative experience from across the business,” says Kasey Bevans, senior vice president and chief information officer. “Our teammates already share expertise across markets and project types, but StoaOne can stretch that collaborative effort to new extremes, including projects and experts without contemporary connection points.”

Balfour Beatty’s development of StoaOne, a collaboration with Microsoft AI, follows closely in the footsteps of UK-based Balfour Beatty, plc’s development of the same system. Ultimately, StoaOne seeks to deploy the superhuman processing capabilities of generative AI while protecting our clients’ sensitive information.

More than ever, our client’s data security is one of our greatest priorities. LLMs require input to produce output, and while a public-facing program like ChatGPT has the entire internet at its disposal, applying it to our historical project data would amount to unlocking a swinging, two-way door and exposing our clients to significant security risk.

“StoaOne will still utilize input from the internet to present its results in a comprehensible and conversational format, but it’s deployed within our already secured and firewalled servers of information,” Kasey adds. “Protecting clients’ sensitive information and project data is always at the forefront of our efforts to innovate and expand new tools.”

Bringing Experts Together

The power of generative AI rests not only in its processing capabilities, but also in its accessibility. Results are both prompted and responded to conversationally, empowering any teammate to enjoy their advantages regardless of personal comfort with technological tools.

For a hypothetical example, a business development leader could be faced with inspiring confidence in Balfour Beatty’s solutions for a prospective client’s unique problem. Likewise, project leaders could be seeking solutions to complex logistical challenges that can arise during construction. In either case, collaboration with project stakeholders is the first key to success, and accessing our deep network of expertise is the second critical key.

In addition to collaborating with other team leaders and placing inquiries within professional networks, leaders on our marketing, preconstruction and project teams would be inclined to explore Balfour Beatty’s solutions on past projects with similar challenges. With a tool like StoaOne, that exploration process can be enhanced and empowered beyond the limits of human cognition. A similar project from 11, 15 or more years prior with few remaining employees may have the perfect answer, and StoaOne would be able identify, process, distill and present those results in mere seconds.

“AI tools like StoaOne can never be a replacement for the human element in critical project decision-making, as a statistics-based algorithm can never truly understand the people-first and Zero Harm values that drive our business,” Kasey adds. “What it can do is ensure that our teams across the U.S. always have full access to our wealth of project data.”

Even as Balfour Beatty pushes the boundaries of construction technology and explores new and exciting ways to leverage AI tools, it’s more important than ever that we infuse this effort with the Zero Harm ethic at the core of our identity. AI tools – and indeed any technology – require human oversight not just for quality control and accuracy, but to ensure that their use remains consistent with our values.

The Future of AI-Enhanced Construction

Artificial intelligence, at least by popular definition, is here to stay. But Balfour Beatty’s implementation of AI-enhanced tools has only just begun, and beyond the exciting new development of StoaOne.

In reality, our experts are leveraging AI-enhanced tools every day, harnessing the power of more data than has ever been possible.