 discusses AI, professional responsibility, generational handover and the public image of construction.){kind=link}
The building sector finds itself at a strategic turning point in this year 2026. The maturity of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and the demand for real multidisciplinary collaboration are redefining the attributions and roles of all professionals in unprecedented ways.
Within the framework of the monographic feature and coral interview The New Professional and Reputational Paradigm of Construction, an in-depth analysis of the new professional role, managing responsibility in the face of algorithms, generational handover, and the urgent challenge of transforming the sector’s public image to attract young talent, Construnews interviews María José Peñalver, Secretary General of the CSCAE.
With generative AI taking over a large part of the design phases, geometric optimization, budgeting, and regulatory calculation in 2026, what do you consider to be the genuinely human competencies that today define a professional’s added value in the sector?
The competencies that define our added value today have not changed; our tools have. Just as 40 years ago we used scientific calculators to help with structural calculations and today we use specific programs, AI helps us process faster, but the concepts are provided by the professional.
AI is just another tool: powerful and useful, but a tool. It generates alternatives and speeds up tasks, but it has no criteria of its own, nor does it answer for what it proposes. Creativity, understood as the capacity to synthesize often contradictory demands (program, site, regulations, budget, climate, sustainability, collective memory) into a coherent idea, remains a human faculty and is the core of our added value. A tool can propose variants based on what already exists, but the intention of the project is defined by the architect.
Added to this is the technical-humanistic training of the architect, which is precisely what allows for the proper use of the tool. Only someone who masters the fundamentals (structure, construction, installations, regulations, construction economics) knows how to correctly pose the problem, detect an incoherent result (a wrong order of magnitude, a solution that works on paper but cannot be built), and assume responsibility for what they sign. And the human dimension (listening to the client, mediating between interests, understanding how people live and work in a space, assessing the social and landscape impact of an intervention) cannot be delegated. In short, the competencies are the usual ones: judgment, creativity, global vision, and responsibility. What has improved are the tools.
AI generates alternatives and speeds up tasks, but it has no criteria of its own, nor does it answer for what it proposes
Data management and predictive analytics through AI are transforming execution management, quality control, and safety. How is the role of the technician and the on-site constructor mutating in this new technological ecosystem?
It allows us to run simulations that provide greater planning and efficiency on site. It requires us to be trained in this field. It also allows us to work remotely, be more efficient, and have more control over the site. Data management (BIM models, reality capture with drones and photogrammetry, sensors, material traceability) and predictive analytics allow for anticipating interferences between installations and structure, adjusting planning, detecting schedule or cost deviations, and objectively documenting quality control and health and safety. The technician dedicates less time to repetitive tasks of data collection and recording, and more to interpreting, deciding, and coordinating.
However, the construction site remains a unique prototype, executed in situ and with changing conditions (terrain, weather, trades, unforeseen events) that no model completely captures. The on-site visit, direct observation, and the technician’s judgment cannot be replaced: remote work is a complement, not a substitute for on-site presence. Furthermore, data only has value if it is interpreted from the knowledge of the project: faced with a deviation, whoever directs the work must know what was intended, why, and what consequences it has for the whole, which requires understanding the project as a unit and not as a sum of parts. That is why continuous training in these technologies is a professional obligation, not an option.
Decisions are still made by professionals. What changes is that we have more powerful analysis tools, which process faster than before.
The line of responsibility does not shift: a tool is not a building agent nor does it answer for anything; the person who uses it and adopts the result answers for it. The framework of the Building Ordering Law (defined agents and liability regime of article 17) remains fully in force: it does not matter if a calculation, a measurement, or a constructive solution comes from a conventional program or an AI system. The designer, the construction director, the execution director, and the constructor are each responsible in their own sphere. The task can be delegated, but not the decision or its responsibility.
Regarding auditing, the result of an AI system should be treated like a collaborator’s draft: (1) check the starting data and hypotheses; (2) contrast it with independent and simplified verifications (orders of magnitude, manual methods, another program); (3) check compliance with the Technical Building Code (CTE) and applicable regulations at the source; (4) reject any result that cannot be explained or justified; (5) maintain traceability of which tool and version was used and who validated the result, and (6) maintain effective human supervision, a principle also included in the European AI Act. This ability to audit is only possessed by someone with solid technical training. The best guarantee against algorithmic errors is a well-trained professional.
A tool is not a building agent nor does it answer for anything; the person who uses it and adopts the result answers for it
How are the more veteran professional profiles coexisting with the new “AI digital natives” within the structures of studios, developers, and construction companies? What training strategies are proving most effective?
Experience is only acquired over time, by practicing the profession, and it is undeniable that new generations bring digital skills suited to the new era. The fusion of both profiles is necessary so as not to lose the wisdom and knowledge of the veterans.
Coexistence works when it is approached as a two-way exchange. Veterans provide judgment, memory of pathologies and past mistakes, knowledge of the real construction site and trades, and a sense of responsibility; young people provide digital fluency and agility with new tools. The risks are symmetrical: that the veteran is left out of the technology, and that the young person trusts what the tool produces without being able to judge it.
In our opinion, the most effective strategies are: mixed teams on real projects, with mentoring and joint review of decisions; early presence of young people on site to contrast the model with what is built; continuous training of veterans in digital tools, often taught by young colleagues themselves; and maintaining the fundamentals (drawing, calculating, reasoning a structure, understanding a construction detail) in initial training before delegating them to the tool. Without that foundation, AI cannot be used with sound judgment; with it, AI multiplies the professional’s capacity. In this regard, professional associations and schools play a relevant role in continuous training.
The climatic and technological complexity of 2026 requires developers, architects, engineers, and constructors to collaborate from the preliminary design phase. What remain the main cultural and management barriers to making this multidisciplinary collaboration seamless?
Today, multidisciplinary collaboration is common. The professional figure who coordinates and integrates all disciplines, which, in the case of building and urban planning, is the architect, is important. One of the main barriers that exist today is economic. The complexity of the work and collaboration requires more human and financial resources.
This barrier has a specific root: early collaboration forces front-loading effort and cost to the conception and preliminary design phases, which are the ones that most condition the final result, and fees and award criteria (especially when the lowest price prevails) do not usually recognize this.
Collaboration should not be confused with fragmentation. Specialization enriches the project, but it is born from a single idea, conceived in a unitary way, to which all contributions are subordinated, integrating coherently. That task of synthesis, which requires creative sensitivity as well as sufficient technical knowledge of all disciplines to converse with each specialist, is what corresponds to the architect. AI and collaborative platforms help share information and detect clashes, but the integration of often contradictory criteria is resolved by a person.
The most important thing is to be able to offer the greatest guarantee to the end user, and that implies that each collaborator must assume their share of responsibility, but there are well-differentiated degrees because the architectural project cannot be “fragmented”; it is a unitary and inseparable whole. Documents prepared by collaborators must be integrated under the coordination of the main designer. Precisely the unitary nature of the project translates into an obligation of documentary coordination and integration.
A complete, coordinated, and well-defined project is, in itself, the best preventive measure against conflict, because it eliminates at the source a large part of the discrepancies that are later debated on site.
Collaborative models are viable if several conditions are met: that the attributions and responsibilities of each agent remain clear; that the technical independence of the designer and the site management is guaranteed, as they cannot be conditioned by a distribution of benefits that stresses the user’s interest. Sharing risk does not mean diluting responsibility: the end user must always have a clear interlocutor and a complete guarantee.
Sharing risk does not mean diluting responsibility: the end user must always have a clear interlocutor and a complete guarantee
Despite digitalization and industrialization, general public perception still links construction with obsolete concepts (low qualification, opacity, negative environmental impact). What is the most serious communication mistake we have made as a sector to have failed to reverse this image?
Before speaking of a “communication mistake,” the atomization of its agents should be pointed out as an obstacle to communicating the sector’s values and its contribution to the country’s socio-economic development. A feature that, unlike other sectors where there is a more unitary discourse and unity of action around specific objectives, such as the automotive industry, weakens us and ends up harming us. This is, however, contradictory because the agents who make up the building value chain have long been clear about the path to take. It is marked by European directives. Therefore, if the path is laid out and linked to the decarbonization of the built environment to mitigate the effects of climate change and respond to the need for affordable, quality housing that exists throughout Europe and, notably, in our country, the firm support of the public authorities for the sector—which should translate into a clear and homogeneous regulatory framework, streamlining of procedures, tax and financial facilities, and training and capacity-building actions—should also include a long-term communication strategy, designed in collaboration with the companies and professionals in the sector. And, of course, for our part, each agent in the sector, individually, must opt for rigor and clarity in the messages we address to citizens, avoiding confusing or contradictory information among ourselves.
Decarbonization and the circular economy are the axis of the sector in 2026. However, the average citizen usually receives these messages with skepticism. How should our environmental commitment be communicated so that it is credible, measurable, and understandable to society?
Any communication action must be supported by facts to be credible. If there are no facts backing a social commitment, the message is empty and this, in the long run, ends up causing reputational damage. The chain, therefore, must always start with an action, which importantly can be monitored and which, moreover, has continuity over time to demonstrate that the entity has a firm and resolute commitment, and be supported by clear, simple, rigorous communication that is also sustained over time. Against opportunism, this is what provides coherence and gives credibility and trust.
We suffer an alarming lack of succession in the trades and a flight of technical talent to other sectors. How can we use the narrative of the “new technological construction” as a magnet to attract new generations?
We pointed it out in a previous answer: there is a lack of a joint communication strategy, led by the Public Administration and in collaboration with the companies and professionals of the sector, with short, medium, and long-term actions, that reverses the negative image of building and serves to attract young and female talent. But, although it can help improve the sector’s image in certain aspects, that strategy should not rely solely on the narrative of advanced construction. Above all, because, being realistic, prefabrication can hardly meet all the needs of the building stock in our country, so focusing exclusively on this narrative would be misleading and a mistake for the sector.
To what extent must all agents in the sector (from development to construction) assume an active role in public dissemination? What channels or formats do you think are missing to truly connect the value of our work with the well-being of ordinary citizens?
Today, a vast majority of companies, institutions, and professionals in the sector have understood the importance of integrating communication into their business or corporate strategy. What is not communicated does not exist, and in a field like building, where household decisions involve substantial investments—whether to build a new home or for a comprehensive renovation, and in the latter case, furthermore, one must take into account, as an obstacle, the poor culture of building maintenance that exists in Spain—the work of dissemination is fundamental so that the population knows the benefits of enjoying quality built environments for their health. And this calls upon all of us, including public authorities and administrations.
Beyond channels or formats, communication must be comprehensive, with messages that are clear, coherent, rigorous, credible, and continuous over time.
Peñalver argues that AI does not shift responsibility: the Building Ordering Law and its article 17 remain in force, and sets out six steps to audit algorithmic results. Peñalver also points to the economic barrier of early collaboration and the sector’s fragmentation, and calls for a communication strategy led by the Administration.