(Hopefully) a new era in how we run projects

Last year I wrote about using LLM’s to look through a project filesystem and return questions and answers. I started working on it at some point, realizing quickly it is very challenging to do well. Later on last year, however, I heard about GraphRAG and Tunk Tools and found a renewed interest in the space. Not so much in building my own (Tunk Tools is pretty well funded, and I can barely write python scripts), but in exploring how it could be used in different parts of the industry. The current offering from Trunk Tools is mostly a RAG system based on a corpus of the project documents, with their customer being large general contractors. The premise is beautiful and should be repurposed across the industry.

I have been on a few “alternative delivery method” (CMAR, progress-design-build, etc.) projects that have had huge, disjointed project teams. Information was changing every day, and it was impossible to disseminate it appropriately. With something like Trunk Tools there could be a system of agents with a constant eye on project files (sharepoint, ACC, procore, etc.) and logged changes, then the right people could be notified at the right time. It could also catch inconsistencies across the system, so that teams who were not on the right path could be notified before proceeding too far.

Both of these, of course, are the primary purpose of the design/construction manager. The biggest problems on job site typically come from coordination and information asymmetry. These AI systems could be a huge part in solving that, if we can figure out how to fully leverage them with a reasonable level of confidence. Of course, that would mean putting a lot of people like me out of a job, which wouldn’t be the worst thing, I am sure I’ll find something else to do.

If the knowledge work gets off-loaded to machines (and is performed better) that would probably increase the value of the craft workers. So not only would they get paid more, but they might enjoy their work more. Without so many inconsistent stories from the office, they would have a higher confidence that the work they are doing is the “right” thing. For an industry that continues to lag behind most others in it’s ability to adopt new things, all this will probably happen slowly.

I look forward to seeing where this new wave of tech takes us. Hopefully its to more productivity in how we (as a society) construct our built environment.