Buying the technology is the easy part

October 29, 2026

The good news is already here

Construction is built on people and more and more of those people now have artificial intelligence (AI) tools at their fingertips. For organisations investing in this technology, the early signs are encouraging.

Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2026 research found that, among US employees whose organisations have implemented AI, 65% say it has improved their productivity and efficiency. That is a strong start. People are trying the tools, and most of them are finding them useful.

The same research shows that only around 12% strongly agree AI has actually transformed how work gets done. So the productivity gains are showing up for individuals, but the bigger shift, in how teams work together, make decisions and deliver, is still to come.

That gap isn’t a reason for concern. It’s an opportunity. And Gallup’s data points very clearly to who can close it.

Leaders make the difference

The single biggest factor Gallup found was management. Employees whose manager actively supports their team’s use of AI are 8.7 times more likely to say it has transformed their work, and 7.4 times more likely to say it gives them more opportunities to do what they do best every day. Today, fewer than one in three employees strongly agree they get that support.

Look at that through a positive lens. The most powerful lever for getting real value from AI isn’t a bigger budget or a newer platform. It’s something every construction business already has: its leaders.

This won’t surprise anyone who has worked on a well-run project. A new piece of kit only earns its keep when the supervisor shows the team how it fits into the way they work, explains why it matters and gives people room to get comfortable with it. Software is no different.

In our book, Cracking Culture, we describe culture as a suitcase word: it holds a lot of things inside, and only becomes useful when we unpack it. AI is much the same. When a tool arrives without anyone unpacking what it means for each team, each role and each project, people are left to work it out alone. Some will. Many simply won’t have the time or the confidence.

Technology also lands inside a culture, not alongside it. Because in construction, culture is not a soft metric. It is a leading indicator of safety, retention, productivity and project success. How a team takes to AI is simply culture in action.

6 ways leaders can turn AI into real change

The encouraging thing about manager support is that much of it costs nothing but time and attention. Here’s where we’d start, from project teams to leadership.

  • 1. Connect it to purpose.
    For work to feel meaningful, people need to understand how they fit into the bigger picture. The same goes for new technology. Rather than “head office has bought a new system”, explain what it frees your team up to do: more time with clients, more time on site, more headspace for the problem-solving they’re best at.

  • 2. Say what needs doing, not how.
    In Cracking Culture, we talk about measuring output rather than input, and describing what needs to be done rather than how it should be done. That approach brings autonomy and innovation. Give your teams a clear outcome, a faster weekly report, a cleaner handover pack and let them find the best way to use AI to get there.

  • 3. Treat people like adults.
    The people in our businesses are in relationships, raise young people, vote, have mortgages and make big life decisions. They can be trusted to experiment. Yes, they’ll get it wrong sometimes, but who doesn’t? Make it clear that trying something new and learning from it is exactly what you want to see.

  • 4. Make it part of everyday work.
    Values only become real when our behaviour reinforces them almost all of the time, and new ways of working are just the same. Gallup found that building AI into existing workflows is one of the strongest drivers of regular use. Talk about it in team meetings, project reviews and one-to-ones, so it becomes part of how you work rather than an extra job on the side.

  • 5. Appreciate and recognise.
    We draw a distinction between appreciation (valuing someone for who they are) and recognition (valuing what they’ve achieved). Both matter here. Appreciate the curiosity of the person who’s willing to try, and recognise the site manager who found a smarter way to pull together a progress report. Share those wins so others can learn from them.

  • 6. Support the supporters.
    Managers can only champion what they feel confident with. Give them the time, training and space to explore the tools themselves before asking them to lead others. That’s how you build capable, accountable and human-centred leaders who bring their teams with them.

Tools matter, and people make them work

None of this is to say the technology doesn’t matter. It absolutely does. In Cracking Culture, we share the story of a team moving into its first proper office in London Bridge in 2009, only to find that a supplier error meant no working internet for at least three weeks, and a mobile signal so poor it was hard to get through a full conversation with a customer. It was a stark reminder of how much the right tools shape the way people feel about their work. Getting the kit in place is an important first step.

But it is the first step. The value comes from what happens next, and that’s where leadership and culture come in.

Peter Drucker famously said that culture eats strategy for breakfast. We’d tweak that slightly: cultural strategy eats other strategies for breakfast. Culture can be as purposefully curated as any other strategy, and an AI strategy is no exception. The businesses that see AI genuinely change how work gets done will be the ones that treat adoption as a people project, with their managers leading the way.

And here’s the really positive part. If fewer than one in three employees currently feel that active support from their manager, then most organisations have a real chance to unlock the full potential of their people, without buying anything new. The investment has already been made. Now it’s about helping your leaders bring it to life.

We believe better cultures build better projects. Because when people thrive, projects perform. And when managers are confident and supported to champion new ways of working, technology stops being another system to log into and starts becoming a genuine advantage, where engagement and delivery outcomes move in the same direction.

So, how are your managers supporting their teams with AI? What’s worked well in your business so far? We’d love to hear and if you’d like to explore how The Condor Collective can help your leaders build happier cultures that perform, let’s talk.

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