Two-Fifths of Industry Now Using AI: Insights from the NBS Construction Leaders’ Summit 2025

NBS (powered by Hubexo), the platform for connected construction information, brought together senior figures from across the built environment at the Construction Leaders’ Summit 2025 on 18 September at the Royal College of Physicians, London. The programme addressed some of the industry’s most pressing challenges, including digital transformation, product safety, sustainability, and the opportunities and risks presented by AI.

This year’s summit also featured an exclusive look at the NBS Digital Construction Report 2025 (formerly the BIM Report), the UK’s most comprehensive benchmark for digital transformation in the sector.

Now in its 13th year, the report examines insights from over 550 construction professionals. The findings highlight a sector at a critical tipping point:

• Two in five were using AI tools, over four times the figure from five years ago
• More than half of professionals feared their organisation would be left behind without urgent digital adoption.
• The use of digital tools for sustainability has surged, with almost two-thirds of professionals using them for energy assessment, up from around a third two years ago.

The future of construction, challenges faced and how to best overcome them

The cross-industry event brought together leaders to explore key challenges for the industry and how digital innovation is shaping the future of construction. One of the highlights was a keynote from Anneliese Day K.C., co-author of the Morrell-Day Independent Review, which exposed serious flaws in construction product testing after the Grenfell tragedy and called for urgent reforms to ensure products are safe, reliable, and properly regulated.

Day considered where product safety has now reached and emphasised, “At its core, digital adoption is not just about efficiency but about ensuring professionals have access to reliable product information so they can specify with confidence. Inadequate product data has undermined trust in the sector. Ensuring the availability and accuracy of digital tools represents a crucial step in creating the transparent product information that specifiers deserve.”

Dr Stephen Hamil, Innovation Director at NBS (powered by Hubexo) said, “The rise in Artificial Intelligence defines this year’s findings, as the sector moves rapidly toward adopting new technologies. The question is no longer if these innovations will be embraced, but how quickly they will transform the industry.”

With safety, trust, and sustainability at the top of the agenda, the Summit revealed fresh data on digital transformation and also discussed the roadmap for how the industry can meet its biggest challenges head-on.

Sign up to receive your copy of the NBS Digital Construction Report 2025 here.

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