The annual Bentley Systems Year in Infrastructure conference brings together global leaders in industries like engineering, construction, design, surveying, and software. The event showcases innovative infrastructure projects from around the world through its Going Digital Awards, and it offers keynote presentations, educational sessions, and networking opportunities that help industry professionals stay current on technology and trends.
And the trend that overwhelmingly dominated the conversation throughout this year’s Amsterdam event was the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence. One keynote presentation focused on the ways AI, open data, and geospatial insights are changing infrastructure planning, delivery, and operations. Another presented survey findings on how engineering firms and owner-operators are deploying the technology. Breakout sessions detailed the ways professionals and teams are using AI on projects from energy to transportation to mining. Also, many of the finalists for the Going Digital Awards showed how their innovative uses of AI cut costs, saved time and resources, and decreased environmental impacts.
To explore the implications of AI integration for the infrastructure sector, Geo Week News sat down with three leaders from Bentley Systems. Through candid conversations, Dustin Parkman, Vice President, Industry Solutions Group, Industry Strategist Alan Esguerra, and Chief Platform Officer Patrick Cozzi offered their views on how artificial intelligence is changing workflows and processes for industry professionals, the overall use of digital tools in infrastructure work, advances in software, and much more.
Addressing recent trends, Esguerra said, “I think the biggest trend that I've seen is that the amount of trust in newer technologies has grown significantly. Five years ago, whenever we talked to people in a lot of these industries, there was a little bit of hesitation with new technologies like reality capture and reality modeling, but now - especially with people learning how to use AI - there are a lot more people that are more open to trying the new thing.”
Remarking on the rapid adoption of evolving technologies, Parkman said, “over the last 15 years, from lidar to photogrammetry processing to reality models and so on, the cost of entry is just kind of falling to the floor, and it’s no longer a real competitive edge or even a novelty. It's table stakes. You have to do it. And that forms a foundation, if you will, for capturing kind of the as built or natural environment, and that's become the norm for engineering workflows now.”
Cozzi, who joined Bentley in 2024 after his 3D geospatial company Cesium was acquired by the firm, also sees the embrace of new technologies like AI as having a tremendous impact, particularly in how software is developed and how infrastructure work is planned and executed. “I think AI lowers the barrier to entry,” he explained. “To me, that's really exciting, because you can start to see the art of the possible.”
Esguerra regards AI as an important tool in streamlining operations and freeing engineers to focus more on complex issues. “I see AI as taking on more mundane work, so we can focus on the higher value stuff,” he stated.
Parkman agreed, remarking that AI is “going to be a tool to help augment the work of engineers, make them more productive and be able to crank out more work than they can today.” He felt that AI would not take on “the super complex, sophisticated work initially,” but rather the “repetitive stuff where engineers and designers don’t really want to spend their time.”
For Bentley Systems, advances in AI along with growing acceptance of new systems are driving their product offerings and leading to enhancements in the ways they work with customers. For example, during the conference, Bentley announced its Infrastructure AI co-innovation initiative, iTwin Engage system, Infrastructure Cloud Connect system, and more. Parkman said that these new offerings are part of an effort to respond to rapidly changing demands.
“These technologies - reality modeling, reality capturing, using drone footage – are now the norm,” he said, “We see a lot of that technology moving faster and becoming a lot more important. So, that's where we're positioning ourselves.”
Looking at AI from a software development perspective, Cozzi reported that Bentley is seeking “to be able to integrate our tech into AI workflows like Cesium itself. You want AI workflows to be able to say, “Oh, I need to use Cesium to solve that solution.’”
Looking ahead, Cozzi said, “I'd be very curious to see where we land on AI. Clearly, the appetite is there. Many folks are experimenting. Some folks are even using it in production. So, we're going to facilitate that conversation.”
