In a recent interview, Shankar Kalyana, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Stantec, gave us his opinion on the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry. With decades of experience in digital transformation, Kalyana brings a unique perspective to the challenges and opportunities facing the sector.
Kalyana views AI not as a replacement for human expertise, but as a tool for augmentation.
“I’m a huge believer in augmented intelligence as opposed to artificial in the true sense,” he stated, showing his approach focuses on enhancing human capabilities to tackle increasingly complex problems.
The impact of AI on the AEC industry is expected to be significant in the near future. Kalyana predicted: “I see this the matter of the next three to five years. I think we’re going to see some market movement especially in some of the spaces we talked about.”
One key area where AI is poised to make a difference is in reimagining customer and employee experiences.
“The use cases really we have to look at them through the lens of the two value drivers: one is how do you change customer experience and how do you change employee experience,” Kalyana explained.
The potential of AI extends beyond improving existing processes. Kalyana envisions a shift in how problems are approached: “We are moving from a sense and respond era to a predict and preempt era.” This proactive stance could revolutionize decision-making in the industry.
However, Kalyana also acknowledged the challenges that come with AI adoption, including ethical considerations and resource requirements.
“We talk about sustainability but to run AI it takes a lot of computing to do that and that’s extremely power consuming,” he noted.
Looking to the future, Kalyana remains optimistic about the role of AI in addressing global challenges. He suggests that in 5–10 years, we may see significant progress.
“We’ll look back and say well, you know what we have taken on sustainability, we did some good things with it and by the way now we have better handle on climate change as opposed to what we did ten years before,” he said to finish.
Featured image: Credit: BST Global
