Construct UK Brings Practical AI Lead Research Debate to UK Construction Week Birmingham

Construct UK hosted and chaired a panel debate at UK Construction Week Birmingham today, focused on how construction businesses can use artificial intelligence to find and win more work. Entitled “Winning Work with AI: Smarter Project Lead Research for Construction”, the session took place at the NEC Birmingham on the main stage.

Leigh Simpson, Co-Director of Construct UK, chaired the debate and was joined by two experts in the field: Angie Wilkes, Managing Director, Construct Virtual and Faisal Amin, Founder, Peak One Partners.

The session began with the problem many sales teams know well: hours lost each week trawling planning portals and tender platforms, only to hand business development managers lists of leads that have already gone cold. The panel explained how forward-thinking firms are now using AI to do that groundwork, from identifying planning applications that match their profile to tracking the architects and specifiers they want to work with and flagging opportunities before competitors see them. The discussion noted that this approach is already well established in markets such as the US and the Middle East, while many UK firms have yet to start.

Panellists walked through what this looks like in practice, including filtering planning data by location, value and keywords, running scheduled weekly scans, and setting alerts when a target architect submits a new scheme. They also covered how manufacturers can use the same methods to see where their product category is being specified.

A central theme was why so many people try AI, get generic results and give up. The panel stressed that specific prompts consistently beat vague ones, and that the real work starts before any data is touched, by defining the ideal customer profile, the right types of project and the company context the AI needs to work from.

The debate then moved from finding leads to starting conversations, and how to use AI for outreach without adding to the flood of generic, machine-written messages in prospects’ inboxes. Panellists discussed personalisation based on research, training AI on a company’s own tone of voice, strong CRM follow-up, and keeping a human firmly involved.

The session closed with each panellist setting out what attendees could do in the next 30, 60 and 90 days, followed by an audience Q&A which was expected to last 15 minutes, but had to be extended to 30 because of the many questions put forward.

Leigh Simpson commented, “Research is where sales teams lose the most time, so it’s the obvious place to start with AI. Our panellists gave the room an honest picture of what works and what doesn’t, and attendees left knowing what they could do next week.”

Construct UK would like to thank UK Construction Week for hosting the session, and all panellists and attendees for their contributions. For organisations looking for support with their sales and marketing, ConstructUK.com has a wealth of resources. Find out more here.

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