E09: Dr. Ibrahim Odeh, Columbia University

Ibrahim Odeh is the Chair of Construction Engineering and Management at Columbia University and founding director of GLCM, a program that has grown to 5,000 industry members globally and over a million learners on Coursera. He's spent the last academic year embedded with major AEC firms studying real-world generative AI adoption, with three white papers landing imminently.This is a conversation grounded in research. Ibrahim introduces a framework that cuts through a lot of the noise: the gap between theoretical benefit and observed benefit, what AI could do for your organisation versus what it's actually delivering today. Most companies, including the biggest GCs and engineering firms, are still firmly in the exploratory phase. Their CEOs will tell you that themselves.We get into Turner Construction's approach to enterprise AI rollout, including the SafetyCoach GPT they built and gave away free to the entire industry. We talk about the three pillars of digital transformation and why technology is the smallest part of that equation.Ibrahim also breaks down what the generational shift in the workforce actually means for construction companies. Gen Z are entering the industry as AI natives, not just digital natives, and the GCs winning the talent war are the ones creating cultures that give them the freedom to experiment. Get that wrong and they're gone within 18 months.We close on a note that should give the industry pause. Ibrahim has started to notice a pattern: polished AI-generated content everywhere, but when you get people in a room and take the screen away, the understanding isn't there. We're producing more, reading less, and retaining even less. For an industry that runs on expertise built over decades, that's worth taking seriously.