As the technology continues to develop at a furious pace, nearly every industry out there is trying to figure out ways to better and more effectively automate as much of their workflow is feasible. The construction industry is certainly no exception to this, and more and more solutions are popping up to achieve this goal. While there are currently a few platforms that asset owners and contractors are utilizing in North America, a new company, Constru, has entered the space and is looking to carve out their space on the continent, and they’ve recently rolled out their computer vision solution.
Constru isn’t a new company in general, but rather just to this market. The company is based in Israel and recently made the move to North America, opening up offices across the country in San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. They recognize they are trying to work their way into a space with existing companies, such as OpenSpace and StructionSite, but are confident in their platform’s ability to stand out among more established names in this market.
Constru self-describes themselves as an AI-powered construction solution that turns captured imagery into insights for better data-driven decision making. The company was founded by experts in the construction and technology fields who were motivated to find better solutions after frustrating experiences with the lack of clear data in the construction industry. The founders also had experience in the autonomous vehicle sector before diving into the construction space. Shalom Bellaish, Constru's co-founder and Chief of Construction notes on the company’s website, “For the past two decades in construction, I have recognized the need for change in adoption of advanced technologies. Now my mission is to make this change happen.”
Constru’s platforms, which are integrated with Oracle’s Primavera P6 as well as Procore, takes data from photogrammetry and other sources and effectively meshes it with data from a BIM application. The software then uses computer vision, the ability for an AI system to look at an image and make insights from that data. It can be used to make strategic decisions during the construction process, parsing the images to do things like suggest next steps and identify possible risks for a project.
The platform can also be integrated with the project schedule to track the status of as many as 280 different tasks, and can also automatically compare images – taken by Constru or the customer – with the BIM model to spot possible differences. For instance, if something that is supposed to be there according to the model is missing from the images, the AI will spot that and alert the user, removing the need for workers to go in and manually perform these checks. All of this can also be done remotely, meaning construction professionals no longer have to spend long days at the job site in order to perform their most important tasks.
This is certainly a market that is ripe for new companies to enter the fray, and it should only continue to grow as both the construction industry in general booms in the coming years and technology becomes more accessible and powerful. In fact, a recent report indicated the global AI in construction market is estimated to reach $2.6 billion by 2030, compared to a $406 valuation in 2019. That’s a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 19 percent over the course of this decade.
Constru is setting itself up to take advantage of this growing market in North America, and they see the gaps they can fill. Senior Project Manager Tomer Iserovitch told For Construction Pros that they see a lack of deep analysis among current competitors in the space, and that their computer vision technology is a separator. He added, “We can get the image-based data, and using these solutions I can sit here in my house and view what is going on at the construction site.”
