Innovative technology is the focus for Trimble Dimensions 2025, with artificial intelligence (AI) very much at the centre. Trimble CEO Rob Painter explained how utilising AI within Trimble’s tools will deliver key gains for users. “I want you to understand the power of compounding. The biggest gains of compounding happen over time.”
Painter said how the benefits of utilising technology will appear over time, at first seeming to be comparatively but multiplying and ending up with significant gains. He continued, “We’re interested in being a platform company, connecting results.”
He explained how interoperability has become crucial now that the use of technology is more widespread. Painter said, “Innovation cannot exist in a silo. We know firms are using mixed fleets.”
Trimble’s AI solutions take the potential of technology further in terms of reducing the need for reworking and boosting productivity. Painter said, “We’ve put dozens of AI solutions into your hand and we’re just getting started.”
The use of AI by several of Trimble’s key customers is already delivering significant results. Utilising AI has the potential to address the growing labour shortage in construction by tackling the more simple and mundane tasks, while allowing human interaction to focus on the more complex and creative tasks at hand. This could help address the traditionally low productivity of the construction sector according to Trimble.
Nor is this technology limited to use by large firms, with Trimble having been keen to offer solutions for the smaller firms also. An example of this is the new Trimble Financials package, which includes AI tools and is a financial accounting system aimed at the small contractor.
Utilising AI could help to close the gap between demand capacity also. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the market for data centre construction. According to Trimble, there is a need for $40 billion worth of construction projects for data centres in the US alone. However, capacity limitations mean that the US construction centre will only be able to deliver $33 billion of those data centre projects in the meantime.
According to John Jacobs, chief information officer at contractor JE Dunn Construction, the use of AI tools on one construction job delivered savings in concrete alone of 22%. This was further assisted by the reduction in fuel needed to transport concrete, resulting in a 27% reduction of carbon emissions for the project, helping meet sustainability requirements.
According to Painter, this highlights how the use of AI within technology can allow the construction industry to deliver meaningful efficiency gains, boost productivity and profitability and even meet climate change reduction targets.
