Is AI taking Architecture or Engineering Jobs away or creating more Job Opportunities?
Each time we open the floor to questions at one of our AMA sessions, we know someone is going to ask the $5 million question.
“Is AI going to take away our jobs?”
Everyone wants us to reassure them with the answer no. But to be honest, the real answer isn’t that straightforward. It depends on an individual’s tasks and how they are automated.
As we work with companies to proactively approach AI disruption, we are seeing the effects of AI on the AEC industry firsthand. Some of these effects include taking tasks off designers’ and architects’ plates, and there is the possibility that some roles might be eliminated. At the same time, AI brings new opportunities to AEC professionals.
Here are three ways that we see AI is currently affecting the AEC industry in terms of jobs:
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1. Augmenting Human Capabilities
People often think all AI automations are the same, and that the AI will take over a project from start to finish. Often, people hear the word automate and assume that means human intervention will not be required. This leap can then quickly lead to employees assuming that AI is replacing the need for humans. However, the most effective uses of AI typically involve both humans and AI tools — working together.
Instead of starting each project from scratch, some engineers and architects are using AI as an assistant or intern to take over specific tasks. For example, you can use AI to generate a menu of early design options based on all the past project data to help jump–start your projects. By using AI along with your human creativity and capabilities, you can create better designs in a shorter amount of time.
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2. Empowering Better Client Relationships
When architects and designers work alongside AI tools throughout the process, they often free up significant amounts of time. For example, AI can generate the rendering for a building, so the designer doesn’t have to fully design a building with a CAD tool. While AI is, technically, taking over the design portion of the process, the argument that AI eliminates a position overlooks the critical fact that these particular tasks are time–consuming and tedious.
By using AI tools for historically manual processes, designers and architects have more time to focus on high–level tasks that require the human touch. For example, when you use AI for renderings, you can spend more time serving your clients by generating many more — or better — renderings for them. AEC companies that utilize AI are more able to focus on their clients and their specific needs, which creates better solid relationships.
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3. Creating new Jobs for the AEC Industry
We’ve navigated through technology replacing some tasks and then creating new jobs in the AEC industry. While earning our undergraduate degrees, we spent many late nights working on projects with pens in hand to draft our drawings. However, by the time we graduated, AEC companies were using CAD technology, and we actually rarely used our manual drawing skills in the workforce.
We soon realized that there were many new jobs available due to CAD, such as CAD designers, CAD drafters, CAD technicians, CAD programmers, and 3D designers. The same shift happened a few years later when building information modeling (BIM) automated many jobs created during the CAD era. New opportunities to work as BIM manager, BIM coordinator, and BIM technician became available as some CAD positions faded out.
Now that process is repeating, as AI automates certain design tasks. However, AI is creating new job opportunities as well. If you browse job sites, you now see companies looking to fill positions such as AI ethics officer, data automation officer, AI product manager, AI security analyst, AI integration specialist, and AI strategy consultant.
Moving into the AI Era
Change is not new to the AEC industry. We’ve been at the start of a new era with technology several times. We successfully moved from creating designs by hand to using CAD to create 2D or 3D models of projects in a digital format. Then we moved to using BIM to create spatial relationships and metadata of each building component. At each shift, architects and designers learned new skills and developed new processes for creating the best possible buildings for their clients.
Now it’s time to do it again. Just like during previous transitions, architects and designers will find a need for their skills on the other side. But organizations need to approach this new era with a growth mindset. By proactively offering upskilling and reskilling, your teams can quickly acquire the skills needed to successfully navigate the AI era.
We got into the industry to design and build projects that thrill our clients, and AI makes that even more possible than BIM did. By learning new skills and being open to new roles made possible by AI, designers and architects can find and embrace new opportunities to serve their clients better.
At YegaTech, we help architecture, engineering, and construction companies educate executives and employees about AI and create AI strategy, AI governance, and execution plans to be proactive rather than reactive to AI disruption.
