Kevin Wilson, GM for group IT services at Stefanutti Stocks, shares insights on the transformative impact of AI and highlights the emerging technologies that could drive greater innovation and efficiency in the built environment.
CIO South Africa continues on its quest to uncover the business use case for AI across industries. This time, the community caught up with Kevin Wilson, Stefanutti Stocks’ GM for group IT, who acknowledges AI as the industry's latest buzzword, but notes that overlooked technologies like the Internet of things (IoT) and augmented reality (AR) are already making an impact in construction.
Q: Given your experiences experimenting with AI in the built environment, what specific applications have you found most promising, and how have they contributed to your business objectives?
A: We are quite excited to see how the BIM/CAD packages are looking at integrating AI into their platforms. We are also looking forward to the plant manufacturers using AI to optimise the plant use. These will take time as the current landscape of software and systems is complex and fractured.
Q: Do you view AI as a transformative tool in the construction industry, or do you believe it’s more of a passing trend that has yet to prove its true value?
A: There is no doubt that AI will transform construction. It will transform most industries. We may need to wait a little before it makes its way into construction as our ICT spend is the lowest of any vertical. I am also very aware of the recent changes driven by DeepSeek that show signs of the cost of AI reducing significantly, which bode well for the industries that were going to struggle to afford it.
Q: How do you assess the business case for AI, and what criteria do you use to determine whether an AI solution is worth pursuing?
A: We assess the business case for AI in the very same way we did for cloud or any other new technology. We are very aware of the benefit of good technology and how it can 10x our efficiency. We are also very careful of the risks, including security. We are quite open to accepting risk for reward and therefore would like to be an early adopter in use cases that show promise.
Q: Apart from AI, what emerging technologies do you believe hold greater potential for driving innovation and efficiency within the construction engineering space?
A: Internet of things (IoT), drones and 3D printing are all technologies that we feel will make a larger impact in our vertical. Even ignored technologies like augmented reality (AR) are items we currently use, although they are still only deployed in niche cases. All of these technologies are great at making the physical world digital in different ways and allow us to enhance the way we operate.
Q: What steps should CIOs take to develop a strategy that maximises AI's value, rather than merely jumping on the AI trend or viewing it as a silver bullet?
A: As with all new technologies the first step is to understand what they are and how they work. Applying them to your business needs to be done carefully and the business case gains need to be tested and checked. This technology is quite flexible and so we will see many suggestions to use it in cases where the benefit is either marginal or convoluted. There is always a large peer pressure element to adoption while the hype cycle is running. Start with some experiments and POCs. Scale up what works and quickly shut what doesn’t as the costs may rise rapidly. As this technology will evolve quickly, re-evaluating your solutions regularly will deliver benefits. Find good partners and good allies from amongst your peer industries to compare notes with.
