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CAREERTIP: Construction Professionals should start treating AI like a new colleague

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Artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t going away and construction professionals need to embrace it and start working with it as if it were a new colleague. Across all industries, including construction, the adoption of AI is rapidly gaining momentum. This is because technology has finally advanced to the point where it can handle the complex and unstructured data involved in construction projects. Experts predict that AI will continue to develop into what they call "composite AI." Construction professionals, however, have some concerns about adopting AI. These concerns include: Regulatory Framework: Construction professionals must ensure that they comply with all applicable laws and regulations. They must also protect themselves, as AI can be programmed with specific guidelines to produce desired outputs. Ethics : There are important legal and ethical issues to consider when using AI. For example, who is liable if something goes wrong? Who is responsible if a disaster occurs as
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PROFILE: My journey to Professional Registration - Mpilo Khumalo

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Professional Engineering Technologist (PrTechEng) Mpilo Khumalo recommends Professional Registration to hardhatPROFESSIONALS because he believes it feeds into many other important skills required for a successful career in the hardhatINDUSTRY.


Professional registration always seemed to me to be a daunting task, both in terms of the report and the interview. When talking to colleagues, it sounded impossible due to the negative stories I heard. However, my views changed when I started the journey, as I realized that the report and interview merely provide me with a platform to articulate my competence and engineering acumen, which develops naturally over the years if I work conscientiously. The journey has also allowed me to experience a positive change in terms of opportunities and level of responsibility.

I have observed that mentorship is a serious problem in our industry. I was fortunate to have employers who supported me, even though they were busy. I understood that if I kept knocking on their door, they would eventually make time to help me for 30 minutes or an hour. At the end of the day, it is my career, and I have to approach people or ask for help. No one else is or should be more concerned about my career than me.

Despite the challenges, I would encourage hardhatPROFESSIONALS to pursue this journey. Something good happens to you during the process that you are not aware of while it is happening. For example, your articulation of engineering problems, methods of analysis, and solutions improves significantly, which then feeds into your report writing, presentation, and general interview skills, among many other things.

I would also advise any hardhatPROFESSIONALS embarking on this journey to work diligently, consult mentors (internal and external), and try their best to attend at least one CPD training per year, even at their own cost, because I know some employers do not have the funds. Again, it is your career, and you need to drive it..


Mpilo Khumalo is a Professional Engineering Technologist (PrTech Eng) with just over a decade of experience in the civil engineering industry. He has had the pleasure of working for both construction and consulting firms, but has spent the majority of his career in the consulting space.

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