More people die in construction than in any other industry, and the number one cause of death on a job site is falling. Autodesk's latest addition to its BIM 360 suite of artificial intelligence (AI) enabled industry tools – Construction IQ – aims to reduce these tragic occurrences. It does this by predicting when falls are likely to happen – as well as any other danger to life, limb, or even just quality of work. Autodesk's data scientists hit upon the solution while looking for applications where the massive amount of data collected on modern-day construction sites could be put to use, thanks to the industry's enthusiastic adoption of mobile tools and sensing devices. "Imagine being a construction manager and having to contend with the fact that every X number of months, someone's going to die on the job – it's unfathomable to most of us in white collar jobs," says Pat Keaney, Autodesk's lead on the Construction IQ project.

Designing a building, developing a constructible model from a design or working out how to go about constructing a complicated model are all tasks that already contain some degree of automation. So when researchers and others in the architectural, engineering and construction world start talking about bringing artificial intelligence into the mix, many say it's already here. But recent advances in generative design, safety analysis and 5D scheduling are only the first hints of what sophisticated algorithms and deep-learning AI can bring to construction. Getting smart algorithms and other AI-derived technologies onto the project team may not be as far-fetched an idea as it once was. But rather than having a computer that takes over the existing job duties of an architect or engineer, those professions may soon have some form of AI-based assistant offering options and providing clarifications all along the way.

Imagine a jobsite tool that only improves with time. Imagine a tool that records each and every change order, every bit of rework and every safety incident. Not only does that tool record it, but it also files it away for future projects. Imagine a tool that learns from the past to improve your company's future. Through artificial intelligence and machine learning, several software providers in the construction industry are building technology to do all of the above.