Dustin Stephens, Vice President, Construction and Real Estate, Sage

Artificial intelligence is no longer a futuristic concept; it is a critical component of today’s business landscape. Companies across all industries must adopt AI to remain competitive or risk being left behind. This is especially critical in the construction industry, where businesses face an increasing number of challenges, including a qualified worker shortage, tight margins, increased risk and more complex projects.

Sage’s Vision for AI

Tens of thousands of Sage customers are already benefiting from the transformative power of Sage’s AI solutions and services. AI is unparalleled in its ability to perform research quickly and uncover compelling insights. However, AI is not a replacement for human experience and judgement.

Sage believes AI will play a critical role in elevating the work of humans, freeing them from repetitive administration tasks and enabling them to contribute through higher-value tasks, ultimately increasing productivity.  

Responsible AI

Sage is committed to using AI responsibly, ensuring that it never erodes a customer’s trust in Sage or its products. Sage has created data principles to prioritize customer safety throughout the digital journey, pledging to keep customers informed and empowered, always placing their needs first. Sage involves customers in the development of AI tools and emphasizes that users will only transition their work to technology if they trust it to perform safely and competently.

Transforming Construction Accounting

Construction accounting is one area that has greatly benefited from AI. Construction financial managers and their teams are often immersed in cycles like the monthly close and annual audits, which only provide point-in-time, after-the-fact visibility. This limits them from making confident, real-time decisions. Enter AI.

AI enables continuous accounting, assurance and insights in construction financial management.

Continuous Accounting

With continuous accounting, Sage captures business activity in real time and accounts for it in real time, providing construction firms with up-to-date information on their financial health. However, it is critical that the data generated is trusted and accurate.

Continuous Assurance

Sage pairs continuous accounting with continuous assurance, using AI and other technology to monitor what's happening in the business, looking for exceptions and anomalies, bringing humans in when needed to make critical decisions about that data. This ensures financial integrity and operational efficiency.

Continuous Insights

Sage’s continuous insights move beyond traditional dashboards, using AI to constantly look to the future to provide predictive analytics and forecasting. This gives an understanding of where the business is going and can also alert the right people when something has changed in their forecasts so they can make real-time decisions about how to proceed.

Real-World Application
 

Some Sage customers are already benefiting from AI in the construction accounting space. Sage Intacct Construction offers Outlier Detection for General Ledger which combs through data and scores transactions for the likelihood of an error or conflict. Once it reviews entries, it flags anomalies to help proactively catch errors and identify issues and risks immediately. It lets teams know if an outlier is a coding anomaly or an unusual amount or if multiple outlier conditions are present. Businesses can also customize thresholds and other configuration settings to help control what gets flagged as an anomaly and always have real-time insights into their financial health.

Beyond Financials

Sage has expanded its construction cloud offering to include a comprehensive end-to-end suite that covers preconstruction, financials and operations. As construction businesses move more of their solutions to the cloud, they will increasingly benefit from AI-powered technology. This can provide significant gains across the board as AI automates tedious, time-consuming tasks, reducing errors and streamlining workflows. A few areas where AI can have a significant impact include preconstruction, project management and communication.

AI-Powered Takeoff

Not that long ago, estimators used to work off paper plans with a slide ruler and calculator. Advancements such as spreadsheets and estimating software increased their speed and accuracy but AI has multiplied these gains exponentially. Takeoff solutions that incorporate AI can automatically detect, label and measure project spaces in mere seconds, with precision. Estimators no longer have to choose between speed and accuracy; AI enables estimators to deliver faster and more accurate estimates.

Real-Time Project Management

Tracking project progress manually through spreadsheets and documents can lead to errors or delays. AI-driven solutions provide real-time updates and predictive insights that have the power to reimagine the way projects are managed. AI can continuously monitor project progress, flag potential issues and suggest corrective actions. AI can also optimize tasks such as scheduling and resource allocation. Utilizing AI to take a more proactive approach allows project managers to address problems promptly, ensuring projects remain on schedule and within budget.

Streamlined Communication

Construction businesses have a lot to juggle, and with each project generating a flood of emails and other communications that must be diligently tracked, it can be easy to miss an important update. Generative AI can ease some of this load by providing human-like assistance. AI-powered communication tools can automate routine interactions, generate responses and ensure clear, consistent communication, improving relationships and efficiency. These capabilities reduce the administrative burden on construction professionals, enabling them to concentrate on more strategic aspects of their projects.

The Future of AI in Construction

Sage is committed to driving continuous innovation to meet the evolving needs of the construction industry. However, AI alone won’t drive the future of the industry—construction businesses still need top talent.

Building a strong workforce adept at utilizing AI, combining the power of human expertise and advanced technology, will set construction businesses up for a successful and sustainable future.