SPECIALIST INSIGHT
What are some of the most significant trends you’ re seeing in your industry at the moment?
The construction industry is being pushed to evolve faster than ever before. Over the past five years, we’ ve faced relentless challenges including rising interest rates, supply chain issues, labour shortages and a growing affordable housing crisis. These pressures are forcing change in an industry that historically hasn’ t moved quickly.
What we’ re seeing now is a real inflection point. Builders are leaning hard into innovation, looking to tech not as a luxury, but as a necessity.
Builders are leaning hard into innovation, looking to tech not as a luxury, but as a necessity.
From AI-powered planning and permitting tools to modular construction and materials tracking, the most significant trend is the shift toward speed and scalability. With housing demand outpacing supply, the companies that embrace smarter, faster ways to build are the ones that will meet the moment.
Are there any aspects of the industry you find frustrating or that you think need to change?
One of the most frustrating aspects of the industry is just how slow it’ s been to embrace change. Construction is one of the last major industries to digitise, and in many ways, we’ re still building the same way we did 100 years ago. That kind of inertia doesn’ t just slow progress. It drives up costs, drags out timelines and limits our ability to meet urgent needs like affordable housing.
We have the tools to solve so many of these inefficiencies, like AI, new building materials, real-time project tracking, but adoption is still inconsistent.
Patrick E. Murphy, Chief Investment Officer at Coastal Construction, brings a unique blend of political experience, technological innovation and hands-on industry knowledge to one of Florida’ s largest and most influential building firms. A former US Congressman and current leader in AI-driven construction solutions, Murphy is helping shape the future of the built environment through his work with Coastal Construction, Togal. AI and CodeComply. AI. With Coastal delivering over US $ 1.5 billion of projects this year alone, and as a top 100 General Contractor in the US, Murphy’ s vision is rooted in driving efficiency, embracing technology and solving critical challenges like the affordable housing crisis.
What needs to change is the mindset. We have to stop thinking of innovation as risky and start recognising that not innovating is the bigger risk. If we want to build faster, smarter and more sustainably, the industry has to get comfortable rethinking the way things have always been done.
What’ s a common misconception you think people have about your industry, and how would you address it?
A common misconception about the construction industry is that it’ s outdated and slow to innovate; that it’ s not an exciting place to be.
But the truth is, we’ re in the middle of a massive transformation. We’ re bringing technology into the built world in ways that are solving real pain points, everything from permitting delays to labour shortages, and helping people get into homes faster and more affordably.
Another myth is that construction is only for people with years of specialised training or physical strength. That’ s changing, too. At Coastal, we’ re investing in new technologies like RENCO – a sustainable building system made from recycled materials that stacks like life-sized LEGO bricks. It’ s colour-coded, easy to assemble with minimal training and rated to withstand Category 5 hurricanes, pests, fire and flooding.
This kind of innovation opens the door for a more diverse, techsavvy workforce: men and women who might not have considered construction before. We’ re not just building differently. We’ re changing who gets to build and how they do it.
How is Artificial Intelligence influencing your business and the sector as a whole?
At Coastal Construction, we’ re using Artificial Intelligence to tackle some of the most time-consuming and costly bottlenecks in the building process, starting with estimating and preconstruction. Tools like Togal. AI, which we’ ve rolled out across multiple divisions, allow us to generate construction estimates in minutes rather than days. In our first year of using it, we saved more than 10,000 hours of labour, cutting more than US $ 1 million in costs.
By eliminating the tedious, time-consuming work, Togal. AI frees up our estimators to focus on higher-value tasks, like turning around more bids, pursuing bigger opportunities and ultimately winning more business. In construction, where speed and accuracy are everything, that edge can make or break a project.
We’ re also using AI to address one of the biggest frustrations in construction: permitting delays. More than 80 % of US developers say long wait times for permits are driving up costs and slowing the delivery of much-needed housing.
That’ s why we invested in the company CodeComply. ai – the first AI platform designed to automate code compliance for building
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