TAMPA, Fla. — Artificial intelligence is now making its way into the construction industry, and construction companies say it could help bring the cost down for you, the consumer.
During a tour of the Pendry Tampa with Coastal Construction, Bay News 9 spoke with Chief Investment Officer Patrick Murphy, who is also the founder and CEO of Togal.AI.
What You Need To Know
The CIO of Coastal Construction recently founded Togal.AI to be used in the construction industry
Thousands of documents and blueprints can be uploaded into the program, and AI can answer any questions in an instant
The Associated General Contractors of America awarded Coastal Construction and Murphy with its AGC Innovation Award for creating the new AI tool, which they say “saves firms ten-thousand hours of work a year.”
“Now with AI, you’re automating that entire process,” said Murphy. “So what would normally take a human 2-3 weeks to do manually, we are now doing with a click of a button with Togal.AI and it doesn’t stop there.”
He explained how AI impacts these large construction projects.
“When you’re on the job site instead of having to sort through plans manually and swift through hundreds of pages to look for, say, the paint that was specified,” he said. “Just ask a question like you would ChatGPT.”
In an instant, the answer to just about any question in the blueprints or plans is at your fingertips. Nate Ripkey is the Senior Project Engineer. He said they’re able to upload thousands of pages of documents to Togal.AI to refer back to.
Ripkey askedTogal.AI: “How many window types are included in the plans?”
He then read the results, “So it tells me there are 24 different exterior store front windows, it gives me the labels for all of them, it gives me the link where it found those labels at and then it tells me there are 3 types of interior storefront windows.”
Having this type of technology cuts pre-construction time by 20-25%, which Murphy says ultimately cuts costs for the public.
“You can’t change the land cost, you can’t change the material cost, they’re outside our control, but you can use technology to reduce the amount of time in pre-construction saving money, helping reduce the time it takes to build, and that helps all of us,” he said.
The Associated General Contractors of America awarded Coastal Construction and Murphy with its AGC Innovation Award for creating the new AI tool, which they say “saves firms ten-thousand hours of work a year.”