Episode 25: Can AI help Britain build faster?

Episode 25

Overview

Britain faces an urgent challenge to build more homes, yet delivering development projects requires coordination across a fragmented network of planners, developers, consultants, contractors, regulators and technology systems. While artificial intelligence is increasingly used informally by individuals throughout the sector, formal organisational adoption remains surprisingly low.

In this episode of BE Sustainable, host Mike Speight explores whether AI could help reduce delays, improve productivity and accelerate housebuilding, or whether the sector’s fragmented structures, disconnected data and legacy systems will limit its potential impact.

He is joined by Mark Farmer, Chair of the Built Environment Futures Assembly (BEFA); Dermot O’Riordan, co-founder of govtech AI company Xylo; Phil Baily, founder and managing director of Elizabeth Homes and a University of the Built Environment alumnus; and Kamran Choudhury, Head of Innovation at the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB).

The discussion draws on BEFA’s latest report, ‘Mapping the AI landscape in the built environment‘, which highlights a significant gap between widespread experimentation with tools such as ChatGPT and the limited formal adoption of AI across construction and the wider built environment.

The panel explores whether AI can genuinely speed up housing delivery, from planning and design to construction, or whether the biggest obstacles lie elsewhere. They also tackle the thornier questions of trust, accountability and professional judgement: who is responsible when AI gets it wrong, and how can the sector embrace the technology without losing human expertise?

With pressure mounting to build more homes, the discussion asks what needs to change for AI to make a meaningful difference, and whether technology alone can ever speed up the home-building process Britain needs.