How AI Will Transform Civil Engineering

The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology means it is quickly becoming suitable for a wide range of commercial applications, and civil engineering is one of the sectors where it could soon make a big impact. Currently one of the least digitized industries, there is huge scope for AI to transform processes across the entire project life cycle. Such a significant transition may not be entirely smooth, but as the benefits become clear it is surely inevitable - so lets take a look at what the future holds. In order to plan new civil engineering projects, we first have to fully understand the nature of an urban environment and how it is used; a process that normally involves'spatial network analysis'. And as those environments become ever more convoluted, the software tools that perform that analysis are beginning to incorporate AI to handle the complexity; tasks which would have once taken humans days can now be completed in a matter of seconds.