There is much to applaud in the government’s plan to turbocharge the integration of artificial intelligence into the UK economy, with ministers championing the technology’s potential to transform everything from healthcare to the planning system to fixing potholes. Construction should also be hugely excited about the AI revolution – not least because the technology could help boost the industry’s woeful levels of productivity, which have been such a long-standing problem and are linked to many of the other issues construction faces, such as a lack of investment in skills and innovation.

It is often said that construction is one of the few industries that allowed the industrial revolution to pass it by. Just look at housebuilding, where in many ways homes are still being built as they were 100 years ago: with contractors laying bricks in muddy fields. 

There is an increasing risk now that construction will fail to reap the benefits of the technological revolution – and in particular AI. This is because construction remains dominated by a business model that sees a main contractor managing an ever-growing chain of smaller suppliers.