Two-Thirds of Construction Firms Now Use AI, But Most Are Stuck in Pilot Phase, RICS Survey Finds

Two-thirds of construction professionals worldwide now use AI in some form—but only 19% do so regularly, and nearly half remain out of compliance with the industry's own mandatory responsible-AI standard. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors' 2026 AI in Construction and Commercial Property report, drawn from 3,148 global respondents, documents a profession in early adoption that has not yet solved the harder problem: turning AI pilots into standard practice.

What distinguishes this survey from general AI adoption studies is that it measures compliance with a binding professional requirement, not just self-reported interest. RICS's responsible-AI guidance became mandatory for registered firms in March 2026, meaning non-alignment is now a conduct issue, not just a strategic lag.

The Adoption Numbers and What They Mask

The headline figure—66% of construction professionals using AI, up from 52% in 2025—obscures a meaningful divide between sectors. Commercial property professionals report 29% regular use; construction professionals report 19%. The 10-point gap reflects structural differences in how each sector works:

• Commercial property workflows are document-heavy: lease analysis, valuation, due diligence, and client reporting. Large language models—the AI systems behind tools like ChatGPT and Claude—deliver measurable ROI in these tasks without requiring integration into physical operations.
• Construction workflows involve physical coordination: site conditions, equipment logistics, subcontractor scheduling, materials flow. AI integration here requires connecting software to real-world variables that change daily and resist the neat digitization that document tasks allow.

Privacy and security concerns jumped from 22% to 30% as the top adoption barrier in a single year. That eight-point increase is a maturity signal: the profession has moved past "will AI work?" to "what are we doing with client and project data?"

The Compliance Problem Is Now Active

43% of construction firms are not aligned with the RICS responsible-AI professional standard that took effect in March 2026. The standard requires firms to:

• Document AI use in any client-facing work
• Disclose AI involvement to clients explicitly
• Maintain documented human oversight on AI-generated outputs used in professional services

For a voluntary framework, a 43% non-alignment figure would be unremarkable. For a binding professional requirement with disciplinary enforcement potential, it indicates that implementation timelines were more aspirational than the mandatory language suggested.

The compliance exposure is retroactive. Client contracts signed since March that involved AI-generated deliverables—cost estimates, site assessments, condition reports—may surface professional conduct questions in any subsequent dispute if proper disclosure and oversight weren't documented at the time.

What This Means for Construction Firms

The pilot-to-scale gap is structural. The clear entry points—AI for document review, safety incident reporting, cost estimation, and bid preparation—are already in use among the 19% who have moved to regular deployment. The harder gap is in site operations: real-time construction monitoring, AI-coordinated subcontractor scheduling, and computer vision quality control all require integrating AI with physical workflow in ways that document tasks do not.

For firms still in observation mode, the 14-point adoption increase in a single year suggests the window is closing. Competitors who move to regular AI use in estimating and project management gain speed and margin advantages that compound over project cycles. A contractor who can produce a bid 30% faster with AI assistance responds to more opportunities at the same overhead cost.

For firms not yet aligned with the RICS standard, the priority is clear: audit AI use in client-facing work since March 2026 and confirm it meets documentation, disclosure, and oversight requirements before a client dispute brings the question forward in adversarial circumstances.

The survey also contains a straightforward benchmark for boards and leadership teams: if your construction firm is not in the top 19% using AI regularly, you are already behind the early adopters who are building the cost and speed advantages that will define competitive positioning in the next project cycle.

What to Watch

RICS's 2027 survey will show whether the 43% non-compliance figure narrows as enforcement risk concentrates the mind. The more significant signal will be whether the regular-use gap between construction (19%) and commercial property (29%) begins to close—which will track whether site-specific AI tools built for physical environments, not document workflows, reach commercial maturity and integration with the project management systems contractors already use.

Source: RICS AI in Commercial Property and Construction Report 2026

By Hector Herrera | NexChron