Experiment 05 / Research concept
Keep project communication connected
Carry the intent, the decision, and the required action through the project.
Construction communication moves through owner meetings, design reviews, bid documents, submittals, RFIs, coordination meetings, field conversations, and commissioning records. Different participants encounter different parts of that information, often at different times.
A decision may be recorded without reaching everyone whose work it affects. A requirement may survive in meeting minutes but disappear from the design. A field solution may be installed correctly while the record drawings and operating instructions remain unchanged.
Contracts establish scope, responsibilities, review procedures, notice requirements, and who can authorize changes.
We’re exploring how AI agents could follow consequential information across those exchanges, investigate gaps and contradictions, and prepare coordinated communication while teams still have time to respond.
The questionCan AI help the right people understand and act on consequential information before a missed handoff creates delay, rework, or an unmet owner requirement?
A principle across the lab
Valid and early signal.
Valid: establish the basis.
Use identifiable, current evidence relevant to the affected work. Keep confirmed facts, reported information, and AI inferences distinguishable. Identify missing or conflicting information.
Early: preserve time to act.
Identify a concern before a decision or commitment becomes difficult or costly to change, with enough time for the team to investigate and respond.
Prepare a useful response.
Explain what changed, the supporting evidence, what remains uncertain, the affected work, and when a response is needed to preserve the available options.
For this experiment, look for missed recipients, conflicting direction, and unresolved contractual or technical responses before the affected work proceeds. A sent message or read receipt does not establish understanding, agreement, or authorization.
01 / From feasibility to operations
Where communication needs to stay connected
Feasibility and owner requirements
What can get lost
Operating needs, priorities, assumptions, and the reasons behind decisions.
What AI could help establish
Which requirements have been agreed, which remain open, and where they need to appear in subsequent work.
Contract formation and administration
What can get lost
Scope boundaries, exclusions, delegated authority, notice requirements, and obligations spread across agreements and amendments.
What AI could help establish
Which contractual requirements affect the issue, who must receive or authorize the response, and which formal steps remain outstanding.
Design and engineering
What can get lost
Changes that affect other disciplines, unresolved review comments, and decisions made outside the formal review.
What AI could help establish
Who is affected, which drawings and specifications need attention, and what requires a coordinated decision.
Estimating, bidding, and award
What can get lost
Qualifications, exclusions, addenda, and differences between the requested scope and the awarded scope.
What AI could help establish
Whether the parties are working from the same scope and which assumptions need resolution before commitment.
Procurement and construction
What can get lost
Submittal conditions, supplier clarifications, field direction, and changes that have not reached every affected trade.
What AI could help establish
What information governs the work, who needs to respond, and whether purchasing or installation plans reflect the decision.
Commissioning and closeout
What can get lost
The connection between intended performance, installed conditions, test results, and outstanding acceptance decisions.
What AI could help establish
Whether the completed systems and turnover information reflect the agreed requirements and authorized changes.
Operations and team transitions
What can get lost
Project history, operating limitations, maintenance responsibilities, and unresolved obligations.
What AI could help establish
What the incoming team needs to know and which records support it.
02 / The experiment
What we would test
Connect conversations to the work they concern.
Link relevant meeting records, correspondence, project documents, and field observations to identifiable requirements, locations, systems, work packages, and decisions.
Agents would assemble the history behind a question so participants can assess the issue without searching through separate records or relying on someone’s recollection.
Access and distribution would follow the project’s information permissions.
Establish what has actually been decided.
Distinguish a suggestion, a working assumption, a recorded decision, an approval, and issued direction.
Identify conflicting statements and check their source, revision, status, and authority. A recent email would not automatically override an issued drawing, and a meeting discussion would not automatically authorize changed work.
Connect each decision to the applicable agreement, scope of services or work, and authorization requirements. Distinguish technical acceptance from authorization to change scope, price, or time. Where contract documents conflict or their meaning is uncertain, prepare the issue for the responsible contract administrator or adviser.
Where the record is unclear, agents prepare a specific clarification for the responsible person.
Identify who needs to know and what changes for them.
Determine which participants and work packages could be affected by a decision or revision.
Prepare communication that explains the consequence for each recipient. A design reviewer may need to resolve a technical question. A fabricator may need revised dimensions. A superintendent may need to adjust planned work. The commissioning provider may need to revise a test procedure.
Each communication would retain the common decision basis and supporting references.
Reduce unnecessary handoffs and repeated explanation.
Examine whether separate questions are parts of the same unresolved issue.
Agents could assemble one coordinated decision brief, gather the relevant discipline input, and identify the judgments needed to resolve it. That could reduce serial exchanges in which each participant receives only part of the problem.
For a person joining the project, agents could prepare a role-specific briefing covering current requirements, relevant decisions, outstanding questions, and upcoming commitments.
Provide valid and early signal.
Look for communication gaps before affected work proceeds.
Examples include a revised requirement absent from a procurement package, conflicting direction issued to different trades, or an unresolved question approaching a fabrication release.
Each finding would identify its evidence, uncertainty, affected work, responsible participants, and the response timing needed to preserve practical options. Agents would prepare the clarification, coordination brief, or proposed record updates for review.
Identify communications that may require formal notice, a change proposal, or another contractual response. Surface the supporting records and applicable requirements early enough for the responsible party to assess and act. An email, meeting minute, or AI-generated summary would not be assumed to satisfy those requirements.
Check understanding and follow-through.
A sent message or read receipt does not establish that its meaning was understood or the required action occurred.
Agents would identify what needs explicit confirmation and compare the resulting response with subsequent project records and available field evidence. Did the supplier acknowledge the revised requirement? Was the drawing updated? Does the installation reflect the authorized change?
Unanswered questions and conflicting responses would remain visible. Silence would not be treated as agreement.
03 / An illustrative scenario
An owner’s operating requirement has not reached every team.
During planning, the owner states that one part of a building must operate on weekends while adjacent areas remain closed.
Later design and procurement records do not clearly establish how that requirement will be met. The controls submission describes a common operating schedule, and the commissioning plan does not include a test of separate weekend operation.
Could the team resolve the gap before installation and programming?
Agents trace the owner’s requirement to its recorded status and compare it with the mechanical design, controls submission, and commissioning plan. They also check whether the requirement is included in the contracted scope or represents a proposed change, so the team can resolve both the technical and commercial implications.
They prepare a coordinated question for the owner, responsible designers, controls contractor, and commissioning provider: Is the requirement confirmed, how is the proposed system intended to satisfy it, and what information or decisions remain outstanding?
Following the authorized decision, agents prepare the affected document updates and track the necessary responses. At closeout, they check whether the acceptance records, operating instructions, and training materials address the agreed requirement.
The team retains a traceable connection from the owner’s intent to the installed system and its operation.
04 / Evidence of value
What would establish value
Did the communication help the responsible people make and carry out the right decision while there was still time to act?
- Less time spent finding context, reconciling records, and repeating explanations.
- Consequential changes reaching affected participants before their work proceeds.
- Earlier resolution of conflicting direction and unclear responsibilities.
- Fewer repeated questions, missed handoffs, and communication-related changes to completed work.
- Better continuity when organizations, personnel, or project phases change.
- Closeout information that reflects authorized decisions and installed conditions.
- A record of missed recipients, unnecessary alerts, and findings that required correction.