Major Challenges in the Construction Industry

In the global economy, currently confronting several challenges, including geopolitical tensions, environmental issues and regulatory complexities, the construction industry is one of its largest ones, embracing 10–12% of the global economy. Therefore, it is important to closely monitor developments in that industry, as well as potential impacts on its clients. So, this paper examines the key developments that the construction industry is currently experiencing, in the time of multiple crises, and presents emerging solutions aimed at lessening their adverse impacts. The main challenges are a severe labour shortage and low productivity. Although progress in certain industries has been significantly influenced by recent advances in artificial intelligence, the construction industry has slowly responded despite experiencing labour shortages and slowly increasing productivity. The paper highlights the importance of considering the aforementioned challenges within the framework of the adoption of artificial intelligence. A literature review was conducted to find out its potentially most beneficial fields of application: (i) increasing the accuracy and speed of design, (ii) assessing and lowering risk, (iii) improving sustainability, and (iv) streamlining project management and administrative duties.