By Kevin Berens, Chief Product Officer, Arcoro

AI is on top of everyone’s mind these days, and it’s something many people already use in their daily lives. Companies are also leveraging emerging technology to meet the needs of customers for a variety of applications.

Here at Arcoro, the first step has been incorporating ChatGPT functionality into the time tracking and workforce management tool ExakTime to help administrators quickly and easily create customized notifications for their workers.

Arcoro isn’t alone. Research from Forbes Advisor shows that many companies are already using or plan to use chatbots for instant messaging, emails and product recommendations.

And while ChatGPT and other chatbots are great supportive tools that can save time and increase productivity, they are just the tip of a very large iceberg that represents how AI can change the HR game for construction.

Doing Things Better Versus Doing Them Differently

Enhancing processes and improving efficiency are great goals, and companies are already leveraging AI to achieve them. It’s anticipated that AI will drive down business costs by 37% in 2024.

That’s a strong example of doing things better. But looking down the road for the next three or four years, there are possibilities of AI being truly transformative for HR solutions for the construction industry. It will be possible to do things differently, which will impact both individuals and business users.

From Searching to Asking: How Individuals Interact With Technology

In its 2024 technology report, Accenture highlights the move from people searching for answers with technology to them asking questions and being served personalized answers by the technology.

This is an area where AI can fundamentally change and enhance how nontechnical users navigate and interact with Arcoro’s solutions, underpinning a different kind of interface that is much more dynamic and conversational.

One example relates to what are known as “qualified life events” by HR and benefits professionals. These are experiences like getting married or having a baby that can impact your HR data and your benefits in complex ways. Instead of having to find an HR rep or searching for topics in a benefits guide or intranet, the user would simply enter, “What do I need to do when I have a new baby?” and the system offers up step-by-step instructions and considerations. These AI-enhanced interactions are richer and more personalized.

Conversational AI will also transform the way users interact with HR and workforce technology, enabling workers to interact with apps without having to use a keyboard—a significant advantage in the field.

Consider the possibility of voice-based clock-ins and clock-outs with an app asking what the employee is working on and automatically applying the right job code behind the scenes. Using the AI-powered interface, a worker could request time off, report an incident or give notes on field conditions, all without touching their screen. Transactions would be completed by confirmation with a real-time photo.

And all these transactions could be completed in a worker’s preferred language, using AI’s translation capabilities to enhance the user’s experience and ensure accuracy.

From Data to Insights to Predictive Analytics for Business Users

One of the advantages of using technology for HR and workforce management has always been data. Each bit of information entered and every transaction completed is stored and can then be aggregated and analyzed.

Data use in the construction industry has been growing, often around enhanced management of projects for efficiency and cost control. Business intelligence software enables construction businesses to get insights, optimize results and visual their data.

AI-powered data analysis can process and interpret substantial amounts of information, seeing patterns and relationships beyond the ability of any person. On the HR front, AI will be able to convert HR data into meaningful business intelligence that helps companies better manage their workforce.

This includes predictive analytics that look at disparate data elements to identify potential risks or issues. For example, aggregating hours worked with long shifts and overtime and comparing this with safety incidents can offer insights into the relationship between fatigue and jobsite accidents, and enable a company to make changes before an incident occurs.

While individual companies will be able to use AI to derive relevant insights from their own data, emerging tools will enable companies like Arcoro to capture and scrub data from across an entire customer base of thousands of construction companies. This will give businesses additional comparative insights on categories such as region, job title and company specialty for competitive and other benchmarking.

The Future Is Coming

While not yet ubiquitous, AI tools are rapidly gaining ground in the workplace, and will deliver more impact in the coming years.

AI will help transform HR for construction in two important ways: how end-users interact with the technology and how businesses can derive new value from the data produced to make better decisions about their projects and workforce. Far from the stuff of science fiction, the technology that will make this happen is already being developed.