The Rise of AI Co-Pilots in Construction

Construction has always been a business of coordination — between owners and contractors, the field and the office, the trades and the design team. Yet for all the innovation in design and project delivery, the daily reality of a jobsite often looks the same as it did decades ago: crews waiting on information, project managers buried in documents, and superintendents juggling phone calls to resolve basic questions.

A new category of technology is emerging to address these pain points: the AI co-pilot. This technology acts as an assistant to people on the job. This article will examine how an AI co-pilot works alongside construction professionals, providing nearly instant answers to questions and helping to clear the bottlenecks that keep projects from moving forward.

What is an AI co-pilot?

The AI co-pilot (not to be confused with Microsoft's AI product called Copilot®) is an AI-powered assistant. Much like its namesake in aviation, an AI co-pilot is not meant to take over the plane, but to support the pilot — in this case, the builders.

The concept is simple: Co-pilots are AI systems that work alongside construction professionals, answering questions in natural language, surfacing information faster and reducing a lot of the manual friction that slows projects down.

Breaking bottlenecks on the jobsite

Idle time on construction projects is not always due to lack of effort. Often, it’s the result of waiting for information. An open RFI, an unclear spec. or missing documentation can stall an entire crew.

Fresco AI, one of the companies pioneering co-pilot tools for construction, has designed its platform to break these bottlenecks.

By allowing users to ask questions in the same way they think — “What’s the height of the balustrades on Level 3?” — and delivering nearly instantaneous answers, Fresco has used AI to cut information retrieval time by up to 90%.

For superintendents, that translates into three to four hours a week saved; for project managers, as much as five to six hours.

From daily logs to data lakes

Documentation has long been one of the least efficient parts of construction. Daily logs can take more than an hour to complete, often after long days in the field.

Fresco’s approach leverages video and AI transcription to turn a simple recording into a structured log, ready before the superintendent even returns to the trailer. What once consumed hours is reduced to minutes.

This shift does more than improve efficiency: By making it easier to capture accurate data, AI co-pilots help build more complete project records. That in turn supports better decision-making, claims defense and forecasting.

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Tackling the shadow AI problem

Of course, AI adoption in construction is not without challenges.

A growing issue is “shadow AI,” where workers use consumer tools like ChatGPT outside company systems, sometimes uploading sensitive project information despite IT restrictions. Studies suggest that as many as 70–90% of construction employees already use unauthorized AI tools.

Here lies the dual opportunity for construction leaders: enabling the benefits of AI while protecting proprietary data.

Fresco and similar providers address this by designing industry-specific AI with strict data protections, including SOC 2 compliance and customer-segmented information. Rather than banning AI, companies can provide their teams with secure, construction-ready tools.

Competitive advantage in a zero-sum market

Construction is ultimately a zero-sum industry. When a contractor wins a bid, several others lose. Margins are tight, and even a small efficiency gain can make the difference between winning and losing work. AI co-pilots create exactly that kind of edge.

Consider two project managers: one drafting RFIs manually in an hour, the other completing them in ten minutes with AI assistance. The latter can handle six times the volume in the same period, without sacrificing quality.

Across a portfolio of projects, these advantages compound — shorter schedules, lower overhead and stronger bids.

Building for people first

What sets apart the most promising AI tools is not just their technical capabilities but their human-centered design.

Fresco, for example, developed its platform in close collaboration with construction professionals, spending thousands of hours on jobsites. Its interfaces mimic familiar tools — from SMS text messaging to chat-based desktop apps — making even users with little to no AI experience can adopt it without training.

This people-first approach is important in an industry where trust matters and workers are already stretched thin. Instead of forcing new workflows, AI co-pilots meet users where they are, augmenting their existing practices.

The road ahead with AI

AI in construction is not a futuristic concept — it is already reshaping how projects are managed today.

Co-pilots are helping teams capture knowledge and reduce costly downtime. For leaders weighing adoption, the choice is becoming clearer: those who embrace AI will set the pace, while those who hesitate risk being left behind.

The rise of AI co-pilots signals not the replacement of human expertise, but its amplification. For an industry built on collaboration, that may be the most natural evolution of all.

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