Construction technology company Buildots has launched the Buildots Intelligence Lab, describing it as the industry’s first AI-powered research hub dedicated to transforming construction management through data-driven decision-making.
The initiative aims to help project managers replace intuition-based decisions with objective insights by analyzing large volumes of construction data collected from projects around the world.
The Intelligence Lab is built around three core objectives: identifying industry trends, developing standardized performance metrics and creating global benchmarks that allow companies to compare results across trades, project types and geographic regions.
Using aggregated and anonymized project data, the lab plans to publish its research, metrics and benchmarking reports free of charge, giving contractors and project owners access to information that has traditionally been difficult to obtain.
Headquartered in Chicago, with offices in London and Tel Aviv, Buildots is also expanding its presence in Canada through a new office in Toronto.
According to Amir Berman, Vice President of Industry Transformation and Head of the Buildots Intelligence Lab, the Canadian team is being built with experienced construction professionals rather than relying solely on software specialists.
Founded in 2018, Buildots developed an AI-powered construction intelligence platform that enables project teams to monitor construction progress at the level of individual building elements. The system is designed to improve schedule performance, identify potential delays earlier, reduce subcontractor disputes and standardize project execution.
The platform combines 360-degree cameras and drone imagery with artificial intelligence that compares site conditions against a project’s Building Information Model (BIM) and construction schedule. The system determines what has actually been built and identifies differences between planned and completed work in near real time.
This allows project managers to detect schedule risks weeks before they would typically appear through conventional reporting while providing detailed productivity data for individual trades.
Because the information is linked to precise project locations, construction teams can also determine exactly when specific work areas are ready for the next trade, helping reduce downtime, unnecessary site visits and workflow interruptions.
Berman said several major Canadian contractors, including Ledcor and Pomerleau, are deploying the Buildots platform across multiple projects, allowing organizations to benchmark performance and apply lessons learned from one project to future developments.
The launch of the Intelligence Lab builds on those years of operational data, bringing together researchers and construction professionals to analyze industry-wide trends using information collected from projects worldwide.
The company is also encouraging contractors, academics and industry analysts to contribute research questions and hypotheses that the lab can validate using statistical analysis and real-world project data.
Buildots believes the initiative comes at a time when the global construction industry is expanding rapidly while continuing to rely on performance benchmarks developed decades ago, before today’s digital technologies became available.
According to the Construction Market Report 2026, the global construction market is expected to reach $17.26 trillion in 2026, with some forecasts projecting growth to $21.73 trillion by 2030, driven by urbanization, infrastructure investment and increasing residential construction.
Among the Intelligence Lab’s first findings is that education projects currently rank lowest for schedule adherence, performing significantly below healthcare and data centre developments.
Across all projects analyzed, only 48% of active construction activities remain on schedule during an average week. The figures fall to 44% for commercial projects and 43% for industrial developments.
The research also identified what the lab describes as a “long tail” effect, showing that the final 20% of a construction activity consumes approximately 27% of the total project duration, suggesting that late-stage delays are a recurring structural challenge rather than isolated events.
Another early finding focuses on the rapidly expanding data centre sector. According to the research, there is typically a 20% to 50% gap between the amount of mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) work scheduled each week and the volume actually completed, highlighting one of the major causes of delays on highly complex facilities.
Although the Intelligence Lab operates under the Buildots brand, the company says its research activities remain independent from its commercial operations to ensure the findings remain objective and transparent.
By making industry benchmarks and performance data freely available, Buildots hopes to help construction companies move toward more evidence-based project management while modernizing decision-making across an industry that has historically relied heavily on experience and intuition.
