From BIM to Reality: Josh DeStefano’s Journey in Advancing ConTech Solutions Episode 10 | AEC Tech

00:57
Josh DeStefano
Hey Erin, thanks for having me on and hi Nandan, it’s great to meet both of you. Yeah, so I’ve been in the industry for a long time. I’ve had different roles, been in the industry since 2001, back when I was doing some civil engineering work, basically just connecting the dots in CAD kind of stuff. But I’ve been working for general contractors for a really long time. I worked for Lendlease, worked for WM Klarman, and worked for Swinnerton. But in 2012 I joined DPR. And I’ve had sort of different focuses over the years. I spent about five or six years in operations as a PE and I got some really good exposure to different projects, different types of projects, but also lots of phases of construction, everything from permitting to close out and commissioning. 

01:48
Josh DeStefano
So that really set me up for the sort of the digitization wave that kind of began for me sometime in 2007. And that’s when I started shifting over to focusing on BIM virtual design and construction. And then eventually that included things like reality capture and 360 photos and things like that. Spent a lot of time in that arena, probably about 14, 15 years in BDC and leading teams and understanding how we’re going to really get business value out of that and then how do we scale it? So I was involved in developing strategies and running teams and did a lot of coordination and reality capture work myself. And then a couple years ago I was invited to join DPR’s innovation team. 

02:40
Josh DeStefano
So we have a corporate innovation team that focuses on our innovation strategy, our processes, and sort of helps inform some of our venture capital side, which is our WND ventures. And yeah, it’s really great, because I get to take all that experience from being out on job sites and learning how to build stuff and get things done to now and being somebody who likes to disrupt the status quo a lot of times, try new things. That’s something that I always kind of added to my role in BDC was like, oh, let’s try that out, or this is a new thing. Reality capture was that for us, obviously, at one point. 

03:25
Josh DeStefano
So now I get to focus on how we do that and how we enabled others to do that, talk about our culture, which is a big point for us, and try to push that culture of innovation. And I’ve gotten involved in a couple other industry associations and things like that, like the USIBD where they’ve developed a level of accuracy standard, now working with the Reality Capture network to develop an association there and really just pull people together to try to solve some of those specific industry problems that we have around reality capture. So, yeah, doing quite a few things. 

04:02
Erin Khan
Yeah, yeah, quite a few. It sounds like the. Your cup is full with a lot of exciting initiatives. So. Yeah, great to hear. I’m curious, you know, you mentioned being a disruptor. I think a lot of us in the industry who are on the tech and innovation side, we. We probably would label ourselves that as well. Tell me a little bit more about that disruptor mindset and especially coming from the field and VDC and kind of channeling that to all the projects that you’ve got your hand in today. 

04:36
Josh DeStefano
Yeah, I mean, I think I had the perfect sort of recipe of a mindset that we really should take a look at new stuff if it’s got promise to, you know, improve our productivity or, you know, give us, you know, additional value that wasn’t there before. You know, a good example is, for me, reality capture. You know, it was something that was fairly new to the scene when I first, you know, got my first demo in 2010 or whenever that was. But, you know, eventually understanding that is the other side to the BIM coin. Right. It’s. It’s you. We always you know, I didn’t talk about it this way before, but I realized that, you know, we’re putting a plan together. That model is the plan. And with Reality Capturing, you’ve got that. That other side, that actual. 

05:31
Josh DeStefano
And so when I saw, you know, things coming up and emerging like 360 cameras and, you know, different things like that, where we could make, you know, the way the drone deploy talks about it these days, they talk about giving superpowers And I think that’s the perfect way to look at it. 

05:46
Josh DeStefano
Because now you’ve got the ability to sort of, like, you know, move through time. And so it’s really just like, you know, a combination of having that mindset that I’m not really going to accept these challenges anymore. A lot of people are willing to live with problems just because they know how to work through them, you know, and that’s sort of, in my opinion, what’s led us to this sort of, you know, save your mentality that, like, oh, I’m. I’m the guy that can solve this problem. And I kind of go, why do we have that problem in the first place? 

06:20
Erin Khan
Right. 

06:20
Josh DeStefano
So a combination of that mindset, but also leaders that were like, let’s go. Let’s. Let’s try new things. Let’s. Let’s break stuff. You know, let’s fail fast and learn. And that’s kind of how we look at it. You know, it’s like, there’s no innovation failure. It’s really just learning or getting the exact value that you expected kind of thing. 

06:43
Erin Khan
Yeah, that. That reminds me of just some general conversations I’ve had over the years with all sorts of different perspectives and roles in the industry. And one of the things that comes up time and time again is like, yeah, we’re an industry of problem solvers, so a lot of times, you know, we tend to rely on that strength. I can solve any problem. I can get through any challenge. I don’t necessarily have to change anything up. I know I can solve it somehow, some way. So we see a lot of times these teams take on unnecessary burdens and have, like, superhero syndrome. Oh, I can fix that somehow. Or we can just work really hard and get through this challenge. 

07:26
Erin Khan
But we never really tend to stop to, like, slow down a little bit and just think a little bit more critically to say, okay, well, if we just make a change here or there, maybe apply a new tool, maybe this doesn’t even become a problem ever again for us. 

07:42
Josh DeStefano
So, yeah, there’s a good sports analogy with golf. I used to play a lot more golf. I have three kids now, so I don’t play a whole lot of golf these days. But keeping. There’s this concept that if you have a slice and a lot of people, you know, don’t hit the ball straight, it’s very hard to do. But you’ll find, you know, some people are consistent with hitting the ball in a certain direction. And there’s this point where if you play that slice, you have to have it to play it. And if you play it, you gotta have it. Meaning if you hit the ball straight, all of a sudden it’s gonna be off in the wrong direction. 

08:18
Josh DeStefano
And it’s sort of like living with this problem instead of dealing with it, sort of fixing the swing and always, you know, trying to hit the ball straight. Instead we go, okay, well we have this problem, so we’re just going to adjust and deal with it. And I think it’s kind of the same thing. It’s sort of like, well, we want better tools, but we don’t want to take the time to pause and sort of, you know, check them out. And you know, it’s really interesting. I’ve been DPR for 12 years now, over 12 years now, and I’ve watched the company grow a lot and want to be more consistent. And you know, that’s sort of the yin and yang of innovation versus consistency. Because we have these conversations around, well, what about our best practices? 

09:01
Josh DeStefano
And I said, well, if our best practices are going to get better in a couple years, we need to be innovating on this now. And that’s, yeah, that’s a whole different topic of speed of innovation and sort of, you know, tech adoption speed. But yeah, it’s an interesting concept. 

09:17
Erin Khan
Yeah. 

09:18
Nandan Thakar
Josh, just to extend that in sort of more practical terms, more so at DPR so that others can learn from it, how do you guys identify? Because construction is an industry of industries. Right. So there’s a lot of problems to solve and a lot of coordination and alignment to be had different the head contractor and subcontractors and the asset owner. What is your process at DPR to identify areas of innovation? Like what do you guys focus on and how do those challenges filter through from the field to. You mentioned an example of reality capture, but like that, what’s the funnel that brings that target list so that you and the team go about looking for innovative solutions? 

10:13
Josh DeStefano
Yeah, I wish I had the magic bullet for that, but it’s pretty complicated. But at the same time, it really starts with our company strategies. Right. So we like to call ourselves a self performing general contractor. It’s part of our identity. So we’re looking at things that are specific to our crafts and our field workers. And so it has a lot to do with looking at the core business and starting with the strategies and sort of figuring out, all right, where do, what do we want to do, how do we want to do Business. We also look at our challenges, you know, and try to understand how different. We don’t call them departments, we call them work groups, but how different work groups, you know, what challenges are they facing. 

11:02
Josh DeStefano
Because really, when you look at innovation, it’s really hard to look at the entire organization, especially one, at, you know, 10,000, 12,000 people. It’s really hard to look at it as one organization. We really have to start breaking that down and looking at, okay, well, we do have these goals and challenges, you know, from an entire enterprise perspective. But just like you said, it’s a bunch of different industries and it’s a bunch of different businesses sort of lumped into. Into one. And so even, you know, a work group or department, you kind of have to look at what are their specific challenges. Just like you said, the frontline, you know, workers, like, we need to listen to them. And so as an innovation team, we do a couple of things. One, we. We spend time with people, you know, out at job sites and. 

11:52
Josh DeStefano
And, you know, introduce them to technology and also see what their pain points are. But we also try to align with specific work group leaders and business leaders on what are their specific challenges are. So instead of us trying to all boil the ocean, we have a team, there’s about nine of us, and several of us focus on specific areas. So my background in virtual design and construction, reality capture, and some of the technologies that are adjacent to all that sort of point me in the direction of, you know, things that have to do with those technologies. Right. So if we’re trying to, you know, improve our VDC workflows, or I happen to know, you know, that we’ve got particular challenges here or there with. With VDC. I have extensive knowledge of that, you know, strategy. I have relationships with the leadership team. 

12:47
Josh DeStefano
And so that’s a way to sort of leverage that and figure out, okay, well, you know, here’s some solutions that we should be testing out now, kicking the tires on now to influence that behavior later. And so it has a lot to do with that. It has a lot to do with, you know, trying to align with those folks and understand what are their specific pain points, while also balancing the new stuff that you’re still trying to figure out where that’s fitting in. 

13:12
Nandan Thakar
Yeah, great. I shared two observations. So all this resonates with me almost 100%, because for about four or five years, I was a CIO for a construction company similar to DPR, based out of Houston. Obviously, I ran Australia for them, and that company is about 40,000 plus people and big, you know, while you have business groups, we had operating units, they still do. And yeah, I think this is for a committee of experts like yourselves who drive things at a global level and then find proof of concept candidates within the operating units. And then, you know, if you have success then it can spread over other units or in absence of that, you have either operational leads or CIOs driving this solution and then they take a bend towards one vendor or another. 

14:22
Nandan Thakar
There’s one thing around having a good understanding of a problem statement and then matching it to a solution and then the second thing, especially in 5, 10,000 plus people, companies and growing how to make that consistent across different business groups. Right. So that you don’t have a pocket of excellence, that you know that value generation is shared across the board. So that was one, the second one. And in true Japanese style, you know, I’ve talked to a number of Japanese construction companies and they go to the nth degree to do workshops with all their fields, ops teams, post IT notes, you know, filter through ideas, you know, almost Kaiser and Six Sigma, and then filter down to what the problem statement is. 

15:11
Nandan Thakar
But yeah, now I understand what you’re saying that you know, if you have number of SMEs who have deep experience within that domain and if they interact with each other in a systematic way, that could really accelerate the identification of what a company should focus on. So no, great, thanks for that. Anything you want to explore further, Erin? 

15:38
Erin Khan
Yeah, just taking in a lot of it. I have been writing down a couple notes here and I think what comes back to me from what each of you are sharing is just we’re all trying to get to a more predictable outcome and construction and predictability is driven a lot by how well we can manage our information on our projects as well as the information from our people. So, you know, we’re in this, I would say, new age of AI, right. I can’t get away without bringing up the topic of AI these days. But it all drills back down to our data. 

16:24
Erin Khan
So it’s just bringing up those themes of like, how are we going to manage all this information, whether it’s problem statements that we’re drilling down to through sticky notes from conversations with our field teams, all the way back to sifting through a large data set of feedback or something that’s in our IT system somewhere and communicating that back to our leadership teams and then aligning the whole thing so that it ultimately results in more predictable, safer projects. So I kind of come back to that data component of it all. 

17:01
Josh DeStefano
Yeah, it’s a big topic. And I think that there’s a couple interesting things about it. And one is, I think you’re alluding to the use case and the need, which is, you know, there’s. I keep hearing that, you know, AI is good at things that we aren’t. In other words, you know, people aren’t good at it. And I. I think that one of the things that’s plaguing us is the amount of information that’s. That’s there. 

17:27
Erin Khan
Absolutely. 

17:28
Josh DeStefano
You know, jobs have. Projects have gotten really big, and in some cases, and a lot of those clients want to move really fast. And so that means you’ve got to be exchanging a lot of information. Like, information on a project is currency. And that’s one thing that I’m really excited about is I think that AI can help us sift through, find information a lot faster and sort of summarize it for folks. I’ve done some on the side personal experimentation with GPT. I’m on a local board for the Little League, and I’ve decided I will try this little test case to be able to talk to it intelligently, especially internally, when we’re talking about, like, what are we going to use that for? And it’s like, well, you know, here’s. Here’s an example, right? 

18:19
Josh DeStefano
You know, I put the constitution in there and I can reference it and I can, you know, provide others on this team, you know, reference to a document that reads kind of like a contract. And they can find, you know, information in there about, you know, how we’re supposed to run this organization. And so I think it’s stuff like that will help us, you know, find information, sift through it, and be able to sort of summarize it and take action on it. So I’m really excited about that. But what’s interesting is I think that AI has resurfaced sort of this like, oh, tech moves so fast. And my sort of message recently is not really. It’s sort of like, if you really. I mean, I think it’s moving very quickly. 

19:07
Josh DeStefano
And if you follow how hardware is developing and all this stuff, it’s, yeah, it’s good, getting a lot better. But I don’t feel like it’s as surprisingly fast as a lot of folks claim it is. And the reason that I say that is because AI is a great example. We’re talking about it again, but there’s this term AI Winter, that I learned about very recently, diving into this stuff, and I’m like, oh, what does that mean? Well, that means a lull in AI development and investing. And it’s been around for decades, apparently, because we’ve had this hype curve of talking about AI. It’s, oh, it’s going to be the next big thing, and then it dies down and then it happens again and it dies down. 

19:49
Josh DeStefano
And so we’re on, like, the third or fourth sort of discussion, if you will, as people, you know, being hyped up about AI. 

19:58
Erin Khan
Bit of a roller coaster. 

20:00
Josh DeStefano
Yeah. And we’ve had different breakthroughs, you know, in computer vision and machine learning and all this kind of stuff. And it’s great. Like, we’re getting to a point where there’s things that weren’t possible with machine learning and, you know, basic computer vision that would take a really long time to compute. And now we can do those things with the large language models and all this stuff that we’re hearing about today. So there’s breakthroughs, but it’s not like AI was invented by or, you know, OpenAI. Right. So it’s. That’s where I kind of go, you know, And a great example, we talked about reality capture, like laser scanners, things like that. Those have been around for a really long time. They were developed for, you know, different purposes, and some of it went to, you know, measuring weather and all kinds of crazy stuff. 

20:48
Josh DeStefano
But, you know, again, these are technologies that have taken a long time to mature. And so, you know, I find it really interesting. I sort of talk about, you know, there’s. As an. As an innovator, part of my job is to look as far down the horizon as I can and even extrapolate and anticipate what could happen beyond that. And so, you know, it’s not surprising that I would have that take. But I sort of, you know, the call to action there is sort of like, hey, you know, put your head up every once in a while and like, you know, check out what’s going on. I don’t think it’s moving as fast as. As you think it is. 

21:28
Josh DeStefano
And, we’ll be better prepared if people are sort of, you know, anticipating things coming up, because I think a lot of this stuff can help us a lot. 

21:38
Nandan Thakar
That’s a very interesting perspective because generally you get feedback that everything’s changing way too fast. And. And you being in that innovation panel and you saying it’s just moving at a considered pace, I suppose. And I think when you mentioned that this is the latest incarnation of AI, I suppose other Technologies have gone through that, right? Like your first iPhone was a revelation, but then there’s 10 years preceding that with PDAs and pages and what have you. 

22:15
Josh DeStefano
Exactly. 

22:16
Nandan Thakar
That led to that device. But it was the app store that clicked. Same with blockchains, right? Like someone cracked cryptography and then this, that and the other, and then combination of those dozen things with immaculate conception in Bitcoin is what it is. So. Yeah, no, you’re right. And I think the other thing that. It just occurred to me that while your role is looking for innovation, you want to be catching innovation at a point where, you know, it’s gone through the Gartner hype curve, where you’re not excited when it’s just the point. Then there’s that. What is it? 

22:54
Josh DeStefano
The trough of disillusionment. 

22:57
Nandan Thakar
Trough of disillusionment. And then the plateau of productivity, if I remember it correctly. And you want to be catching it at the start of the plateau of productivity, because if you catch an innovation too early and it hasn’t proven itself, it’s not going to be repeatable across your projects and business groups. Right. So. 

23:13
Josh DeStefano
Yeah, yeah. No, that’s a very good observation. I think of it also in terms of crossing the chasm. I feel like our group is sort of like innovators that came from the innovative side and the sort of visionary side, and we’re sort of like trying to bridge the gap and sort of say, like, okay, we’ve tested this over here and we don’t have a lot of data on it, but we think the technology is good enough. So. And that’s sort of speaking to the hype curve, like you mentioned. And that’s kind of where some of my focus has been lately, is really just understanding that, you know, the way that I might present something as an innovation leader, as an innovator, you know, I really need to get others sort of bought in on something. 

24:08
Josh DeStefano
Because what I’ve really noticed is that as we build that momentum, when I get other groups talking to themselves about why something is valuable, it’s. It takes on a different tone. I think it sort of validates it on a, on a different level. So that’s one of the things that I’ve noticed is I kind of have to know my lane as an innovator and as somebody who’s trying to bridge that gap and find those people that are pragmatic but also interested, and then they’re the ones who sort of latch onto them and that’s when you sort of create this, you know, a little bit more momentum. 

24:46
Nandan Thakar
Yeah, yeah. 

24:47
Erin Khan
Those disruptors that are still on the field side, I guess. 

24:52
Josh DeStefano
Yeah, exactly, yeah. 

24:54
Erin Khan
Do you ever miss being back in the field all the time or. 

25:00
Josh DeStefano
I mean, I do sometimes. There’s, there’s certain things about, you know, focusing on, you know, one specific project or, you know, really. I’ll tell you what I miss is I miss the ebb and flow of projects. You know, since I’ve been disconnected from being a project resource for a number of years. It’s been a while but you know, there was sort of a, a ramp up to, you know, a, a productivity zone and you’re sort of like you’re working your tail off. But yeah, you’ve got a few different, you know, goals. 

25:38
Josh DeStefano
You got this project that, you know, eventually you’re going to see the light at the end of the tunnel and then you’re going to take a break and then you’ll do it again kind of thing with this type of role, you don’t get that sort of sort of, you know, ebb and flow. There’s always something new to take a look at and I think that it’s. 

25:59
Erin Khan
A constant fire hose a little bit. 

26:01
Josh DeStefano
Yeah. And I think that’s what maybe makes it feel like things are happening so fast is that a lot of, you know, you get a breadth of particular solutions in a space now and so while it’s like, okay, well this has been around a while but all of a sudden there’s a dozen companies and so from the outside looking in, I totally understand that perspective that. Well, what do you mean? There’s not two to choose from and to flip a coin thing, it’s like, no, you got to do a choose by advantage and you know, really dive into the features and what do you want and is this going to solve your problem kind of thing. So it has become more complicated for sure, 100%. 

26:39
Erin Khan
I think there’s some really interesting stats out there about just the number, the quantity of startups in AEC and it skyrocketed from, you know, just a handful, maybe 10 from like, I don’t know, a few years ago to like thousands, like literal thousands and thousands of these solutions. So it’s simultaneously like one of the most exciting times but also pretty overwhelming to be in the industry. But overall I think it’s mostly exciting. It’s my take, I’m a little biased because I don’t know tech, but yeah, I agree. 

27:16
Josh DeStefano
I love learning about new stuff. 

27:18
Nandan Thakar
Yeah, yeah. And there’s a level of, you know, creative destruction too. Right. So there’s no harm in dozens of companies trying and then sort of cream floating at the top. And that’s just the process of innovation. Right. Like yeah, if innovation was that clear cut then you know, the tier one companies of 70s and 80s would have cracked the digital age. But it passed them by because it takes the risk takers and innovators to push the battle and they find commercial success or not is secondary. But ultimately it improves the industry in some way. 

27:59
Nandan Thakar
So what I wanted to ask you was with your broad observation of the landscape of what you’re trying to solve, what do you find as an area or a couple of areas that are really under addressed today, Josh, that you think more needs to happen in that field, which is like an obvious start. That’s a good question. 

28:22
Erin Khan
Curious too. 

28:23
Josh DeStefano
That is a really good one. 

28:27
Nandan Thakar
I mean, because this is almost like the voice of the customer. Right? Like me being a vendor. Yeah, I mean I’ve been where you are, so I bring that vision and that problem statement with me. But then I’ve been building the software and deploying and scaling for five years and again I’m not on the field now but I talk to customers and yeah, I mean what do you find as being under addressed today? 

28:55
Josh DeStefano
That’s a really good one. Under addressed is sort of the trick here because I feel like there’s a lot of things that are sort of getting addressed, but I feel like we could probably do more when it comes to safety. There was a concept that I learned and worked with a friend of mine who worked at a utility company and they were trying to safe off some roofs that had photovoltaics on it. And we talked in length, he was a safety expert and we talked about this concept of pre engineering or engineering out challenges. 

29:40
Josh DeStefano
And I think that we could do a lot more of that where you know, we could think about how buildings are actually going to be built and built in safety mechanisms like tie hooks and different things like that for workers out in the field, you know, into the structure, into things like that and not make them an afterthought. We experimented with an idea a few years ago where we would actually plan out the temporary lighting based on the OSHA standards in the model beforehand. And so we worked with a vendor that had some dynamic lighting sort of families and were like, okay, well, let’s adjust this to meet all the stats and specs of the temporary lighting, and then we’ll plan this out and see how it. Do some analysis on it. 

30:30
Josh DeStefano
And so I think there’s several things like that we’re probably, you know, not doing a whole lot on. You know, I think that AI has a lot of potential for helping people, you know, like we said, like, go through information and gather insights and things like that. But it can be very. Folks can be very hesitant. So we have, you know, several clients that just won’t let us use stuff, you know, and we understand the, you know, the risk behind it or, you know, the what they’re trying to avoid. But sometimes I feel like blanket sort of statements like, we’re not doing any of this, that or the other thing tends to throw out the baby with the bathwater kind of thing, where we’re. We’re throwing out all these potential, you know, productivity enhancements when. 

31:21
Josh DeStefano
And probably spending more money really having people do workarounds or use multiple platforms because they can’t integrate or plug things in. And from a legal perspective, I totally get it. You look at, oh, well, I don’t want this to overlap with that. And that makes a lot of sense when you look at it from an extremely high view. But when you get down to it and you go, okay, would you rather let someone use a better productivity thing and spend a little bit more time vetting that out and making sure it’s safe, or would you rather v $30 million out of your building? Like, I think you’d rather put money into your building and figure out a way to make it, you know, more efficient for people. And there’s just not that sort of. 

32:06
Josh DeStefano
The levers aren’t as easy to pull back and forth, if that makes sense. It’s a lot easier to say, okay, we’re not doing any of that because we don’t want that risk. 

32:14
Nandan Thakar
Absolutely. I mean, it’s interesting you mentioned that. And I’ll sort of join the dots between two things you mentioned in the last 20 minutes. AI or potential of AI agents and health and safety as an example or as a domain. So we are experimenting with something like that. So what we have done is everything you mentioned about customer hesitation is true, but we give them comfort that our AI agent will stay within their data model, so there’s no data that lives in the Internet, so no open AI stuff, and then ask permission to look at that needle in the haystack in the data that they already have. And we have customers that, let’s say, take 500 safety related photos on site a week. Over a number of years, they’ve built up tens of thousands of photos. 

33:16
Nandan Thakar
And it is, you know, very good opportunity for us, SureWorx to train our model to find hazards within those photos, tag those hazards, and then a second AI kicks in that based on the hazard tagging. So each time we tag a hazard, it goes to a human. And then they say, yep, this is cool. So it trains the model through their permission. So that’s unstructured data. But then the next step is, okay, well, we’ve got these 14 hazards tagged from gravity to electrical hazards to whatever. Would you like us to log a ticket to somebody with a certain priority? So that way people are just taking photos as they normally do, but then the AI agent is proactively working in the background to identify what could be like a sticky event and that improves safety. 

34:11
Nandan Thakar
So, yeah, just an example, I suppose, of what you were saying, that if you have something that can work on unstructured data and provide insights, not just notifications, then that might help everyone be, you know, go home safer, I suppose. 

34:28
Josh DeStefano
Yeah, yeah. And that’s a great example of a strategy, right, to make sure that it sort of stays within your own firewall, so to speak, on, you know, where the data goes, what models get trained and things like that. I think that, you know, some folks go, well, isn’t the advantage, you know, to be able to, you know, collect that information? Yeah, in some cases. But, you know, if you have those security concerns, then you’re going to want to keep it within your own area and you’re going to be maybe, you know, having to train it on your own data kind of thing. But you sort of have to pick, you know, which way you want to go. I suppose so. 

35:10
Erin Khan
Josh, just before we started the podcast, you mentioned experimenting with AI in a vacuum a little bit. Is there anything that is exciting that you’ve seen so far through some of the experimentation or something that’s particularly of interest for you? 

35:31
Josh DeStefano
Yeah, I mean, it’s one of those things where I think our teams have been looking at the value of AI. I mentioned my little side project and our internal teams have done some similar things and run with some specific ideas. And I think that it’s just sort of one of these things that we’re not, you know, broadcasting, you know, everywhere kind of deal. But we’ve been, you know, looking at different AI embedded, you know, solutions for a little while. I used to talk about AI with, you know, a structured site. Back in Ex Con 2019, for example, we were talking about machine learning and AI, and were kind of already saying, like, it’s here, it’s in your phone. You know, there’s things that are working back and forth. 

36:23
Erin Khan
I was probably there. 

36:25
Josh DeStefano
Yeah, you probably were. 

36:27
Erin Khan
Like, I’m pretty sure I was there. Yeah, yeah. 

36:29
Josh DeStefano
And so, you know, it’s. I think that, you know, it’s just sort of interesting to see the perception and there’s some, you know, specific tools that folks are learning about that we’re experimenting with, like, trunk tools that we’re looking at right now where, you know, you can throw in your information and they’ve got a very similar sort of like, you know, I don’t know the exact term, but, you know, the firewall, the environment that keeps it within our own, you know, space and doesn’t train, you know, or look outside. And so, you know, we’re still dipping our toes in that kind of stuff, but it’s really, you know, there’s a question of sort of like, well, do you develop some of this in house? Do you go outside? Sort of got the best, you know, way to do it. 

37:19
Josh DeStefano
And, and sometimes you gotta try something out, you know, and see, like, is, you know, essentially a proof of concept. Like, does this even make sense? Right. Does this. Are people going to use it? And so we’ve, we’ve done a few things like that. The one that I get to talk about the most is the Little League idea, because that was sort of just, you know, taking ChatGPT and trying to, you know, train it for what I could do with it and see if it would help, you know. 

37:50
Erin Khan
Right, right. 

37:52
Josh DeStefano
But there’s lots of different things that I think one of the misconceptions is that AI is a product by itself. And I think that we’re sort of thinking about it right now too much as its own product. But if you look at robotics, reality capture and AI, you start thinking about what those things can do together. That’s a whole different scenario. So we’re experimenting with some robotic solutions that kind of do that. They incorporate AI for navigation and things like that, where you don’t have to do a whole lot of mission planning or anything like that. You kind of just tell it to go and capture the information that you want to capture, where you want to capture, or do whatever that robot is supposed to be doing kind of thing. 

38:39
Erin Khan
Yeah. 

38:39
Josh DeStefano
So, yeah, it’s really interesting. But I think at some point we will shift and we’ll get more comfortable with AI and we’ll get more comfortable thinking about it as, you know, like copilot. It’s just on my computer now kind of thing. And you know, I get this extra tool or this extra sort of mind even though it’s, you know, artificial, but I get a helper in some way, like. And so I think we’ll think of it as more like an add on or a feature or you know, maybe we’ll even expect it. I think I said at RCN that I’m anticipating it getting boring at some point. Like, yeah, we’ll just be looking at it. We’ll be going. And what’s interesting is that concept actually came from a meeting that I was on where were doing a remote session with a robot. 

39:32
Josh DeStefano
And so we’re on a call just like this and we’re watching a robot go around. And you know, in this case it was capturing photos and scans. And you know, somebody pointed out this is gloriously boring. Like it’s, it’s amazing. It’s so awesome. But at the same time it’s very boring because there’s no drama, it’s working, nothing’s happening. And so I think that’s, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel and this one where we kind of go, what was all the hype about? Because it does, you know, it would make our jobs easier at that point. 

40:08
Erin Khan
Yeah, it’s intuitive, I think maybe to maybe connect a few things here in my mind. So I’m thinking it’s basically like a spice that’s letting you unlock another level of flavor, if you will, for like a dish analogy or food analogy. But so we’re getting to like this deeper level of capabilities or this next horizon with like an AI accelerator, if you will. So it’s almost becoming intuitive. Right. So it’s second nature. It’s hopefully, you know, just going to be something that is naturally helping us throughout our day. Taking away some of the stuff that humans really shouldn’t be doing and is great for an AI bot to handle and ultimately will, fingers crossed, maybe one day even be able to say construction AEC is the safest industry, why not? 

41:14
Erin Khan
And maybe achieve new horizons for different sectors of the business and the industry overall. So exciting times. Yeah. 

41:23
Josh DeStefano
I don’t know where it came from, but I heard somebody at DPR say that success is not making the same mistake twice. And I think in construction, we make the same mistake over and over again. And I think that part of that is, you know, generations of people coming in and out. And you know, we talk about, you know, this skilled labor shortage. We also talk about people with skills and knowledge and extensive experience in the industry leaving the industry for whatever reason. And, you know, I think some of these tools can help us, you know, still retain those insights. And if we start combining that experience with the technology that we have in different ways, then we’ll be able to leverage that and, you know, stop making a lot of those same mistakes. 

42:14
Josh DeStefano
And you know, for me, you know, it was seeing things like, you know, us getting started with a coordination process and, you know, seeing building systems in the steel. You know, it’s like, how do, why are we, why do we keep doing this kind of thing? We know we can’t, you know, do that. And that idea of, you know, making the industry safer, making it more productive, making it easier on our people and, you know, being more consistent, but working with what we have or, you know, doing more with less is huge. 

42:48
Erin Khan
And it. So I go back to Nanda and your question earlier, like, what is one of the underserved areas? In my mind I was thinking, oh, it’s learning and training and knowledge capture. So, you know, we have like tons of reality capture resources, but where’s the knowledge capture resource? 

43:08
Nandan Thakar
Because when I started organizational change management, I mean, it’s a fancy term, but when you broke it down into component parts, the training, the identification of champions, the handholding, proving that this is actually good in medium to long term, and then making it consistent over different projects, business groups and sites, that is where even after identifying solution, there is a lot of org change management that needs to go in, which is a very different but complementary skill set, I suppose. 

43:44
Josh DeStefano
Yeah, it kind of goes back to that problem solving mindset that we talked about earlier. 

43:49
Erin Khan
Right. 

43:49
Josh DeStefano
It’s like if somebody can figure out how to solve the problem, sometimes their identification or their value feels like it’s in solving that problem. And it’s like, well, there’s tons of different problems. That’s why we have so many startups, is because there’s so many different problems. And you can break down problems, you know, to very small things or, you know, larger, you know, complicated, you know, processes and bottlenecks, but we sort of got to get past that like there’s, there’s going to be other problems to solve. You know, if we can get people past these first ones that we’ve already, you know, encountered a couple times, then, you know, we’re going to be a lot better off and we’re a lot closer to that idea of product predictability. 

44:40
Nandan Thakar
Yeah, correct. 

44:41
Erin Khan
Definitely. So, Josh, I guess wrapping up at least some of my thoughts, what do you think the construction worker of the future looks like? 

44:56
Josh DeStefano
Oh, that’s a good one. I’ve thought a bit about what the job side of the future would look like. 

45:05
Erin Khan
Yeah, we always ask that job site, but we never really ask the worker. 

45:09
Josh DeStefano
The worker as well. I mean, if you go back a little bit and then mention the iPads, that was what. They were released in 2010. So, you know, I remember when I got to DPR in 2012, it was sort of like, what are we using these things for? It was a question of. It was still, you know, a few years later, it was still sort of like, is this a business tool? I think we’re in that same, you know, similar position with a lot of the tools that we’re looking at that are emerging right now with robotics, AI, reality capture, a lot of these things. And so, you know, I think reality capture is going to get a little bit more passive and automated. 

46:01
Josh DeStefano
We’re already seeing that, you know, a lot of things headed in that direction, whether it’s an automated capture or, you know, smart helmets, different things like that are capturing information. Already seeing a trend, you know, on larger projects that tend to initiate what to anticipate, if you will. We’re seeing a lot of data be captured on those jobs. So I think that, you know, as more jobs do more capture, smaller jobs are going to be, you know, wanting to use that as well. So I think that, you know, the construction worker of the future that used to, you know, carry a hammer and now carries a battery powered nail gun is probably going to have, you know, some sort of robotic element to help them out. 

46:56
Josh DeStefano
There’s some really exciting stuff around that where, you know, that enables, you know, varying people with varying abilities to do different types of work. So I think that’s a really exciting aspect of robotics. You don’t have to be a big, strong man to, you know, carry something if you can, you know, tell the robot or control a robot to be able to do some of those things. So it opens up the industry for a lot of different people. So, you know, I’m hoping to see more diversification, you know, more robotic elements. 

47:28
Josh DeStefano
And, you know, I think eventually we’ll think of those things not as things that are going to replace the job, but as things that are enhancing it, just like we did with, you know, power tools and, you know, cordless tools and computers and a lot of those things that we sort of take for granted. So, you know, I’d like to see us augment the environment a lot more and do more sort of spatial project management where we’re, you know, it’s, it’s kind of the idea of the metaverse, if you will, but, you know, not really in the way that it was presented to us originally, more in the sense of like, you know, layering the pertinent information, getting the information out to, you know, people where they need it. And, you know, that’s typically the front line. 

48:16
Josh DeStefano
So, yeah, I think we’ll see more robotics, higher tech, you know, better connectivity. You know, we’ll solve some of these problems and get beyond them for sure. 

48:28
Erin Khan
Get beyond it. Yeah, beyond the problem. Love it. 

48:32
Josh DeStefano
Onto new problems. There’s always limits to solve. 

48:37
Erin Khan
Nandan, any last thoughts or things for Josh? 

48:42
Nandan Thakar
Lots of food for thought, especially from somebody who is in the innovation team. So we’re, you know, I mean, I think I just. Everyone would. It would be great to reflect on, I think half a dozen, if not 10 different topics we have discussed here. And just hearing Josh’s thoughts in terms of how a large contractor deals with challenges, distilling them into what should be focused on finding a good solution fit, and then the org change management to make sure that the value is derived not as an island, but across the board. Yeah. There’s a lot of ground we have covered, so. No, it’s been amazing from my perspective. Thank you, Josh. 

49:34
Erin Khan
All right, Josh, it’s been great. 

49:35
Josh DeStefano
Thank you. 

49:36
Erin Khan
Yeah. Anything else you want to share with us before we close out the session today? 

49:42
Josh DeStefano
No, just. Thank you for having me. This is a good discussion. It’s really exciting time to be in this space and can’t wait to see what happens in our industry. I think we’re positioned for some really good breakthroughs. 

49:55
Erin Khan
That was such an insightful conversation, Josh. Some of the key takeaways I found valuable were. First, harness the power of reality capture and vim at DPR. Tools like laser scanners and smart helmets are driving more efficient and predictable projects. Second, AI is becoming a game changer by acting as a co pilot. It’s helping teams process data faster and helping you make smarter decisions on the fly. Third, balancing innovation and consistency is key while exploring cutting edge tools. DPR ensures steady growth by leaning on proven best practices. And finally, robotics are reshaping the workforce. These tools are making construction more inclusive, empowering workers of all abilities to contribute in new ways. We are left with so much to think about and I can’t wait to see how these innovations transform the industry. 

50:53
Erin Khan
We appreciate your time insights. Really great having you on. 

50:58
Nandan Thakar
Thank you. 

51:02
Erin Khan
For our listeners. We’re excited to bring you to the leading edge of innovation in construction. Over the course of the show we will be hosting leaders from the industry as they share their experience and insights. Finally, if you’re interested in being a guest on The SureWorx Podcast, don’t be shy. Please send us an email at podcast@sureworx.io that’s podcast@sureworx.io to connect with us. Thanks again and be sure to tune in for our next episode. I’m Erin Khan and this is The SureWorx Podcast.