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Global survey reveals 32% of engineers, architects, city planners, and digital leaders in Australia are relying on AI daily, compared to 33% globally.
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AI is viewed overwhelmingly positively; 73% of Australia’s built environment professionals see it as an opportunity, with minimal concerns about job losses.
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Arup is calling more focus and resources to be committed for the development of AI tools that can have the biggest positive impact on people and the planet.
AI is already shaping Australia’s cities and infrastructure, with almost a third (32%) of engineers, architects, city planners, and digital leaders relying on it daily.
Australia’s usage tracked closely to the global daily average of 30% in a new global survey, and 85% of Australian respondents are using the technology at least weekly.
The research, commissioned by global sustainable development consultancy Arup, reveals that professionals in the environment sector are leveraging advanced AI tools that go far beyond chatbots and large language models like ChatGPT. In Australia, around 40% of users are already employing AI for large-scale simulations, machine learning-based data analytics, and science-based AI to tackle complex project work.
Embracing AI: Reshaping Today’s Cities and Built Environment examines the attitudes towards and adoption of AI by those shaping our cities across 10 countries – Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Singapore the UK and the US.
The survey asked engineers, architects, city planners, and digital officers in the built environment how they are using AI. In Australia, the top three reported uses are for design work, developing digital twins, and for experimentation or research and development.
Technical experts in Australia’s built environment professionals have overwhelmingly positive attitudes towards AI, with 73% viewing it as an opportunity – significantly above the global average of 60%. Only 12% perceive it as a risk to jobs.
Arup commissioned the research to show how AI is already changing the way cities and infrastructure are designed. The firm is calling for increased focus on developing AI tools that can help decarbonise the sector and restore nature, while delivering prosperity and resilient infrastructure for a growing global population. In 2024 there was $252 billion of corporate investment in AI.i Arup AI experts argue if just 10% of this investment was used to design AI for major challenges in the built environment, it could help radically transform the sector and improve people’s lives.
Many respondents in Australia believe AI can play a critical role in delivering projects on time and within budget. They also see its potential in addressing climate and nature crises by enabling solutions such as waste reduction, the development of sustainable materials, and the optimisation of renewable energy.
The vast majority of built environment professionals in Australia (94%) believe it is important to have ethical guidelines for AI in the built environment. A majority (61%) also have apprehension about the dominance of global tech companies in AI development – far above the global average of 49%.
Arup is already using AI-powered tools to augment the expertise of technical experts. Its AI-powered tools have modelled nature-based solutions that protect people from heatwaves and floods, including in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. AI is also helping extend the life of critical infrastructure like offshore wind turbines and bridges for decades, significantly reducing cost and carbon emissions.
Will Cavendish, Arup’s Global Head of Digital Services said: “It’s encouraging to see AI being rapidly adopted in Australia’s built environment industry. The technology will be crucial to meeting the challenges the country faces, like delivering major infrastructure projects, tackling rising heat levels and mitigating floods and drought.
“Global investment in AI is enormous, with almost $4 billion USD in Australia alone in the last decade. But it often misses the most impactful areas. We need AI that delivers real-world benefits – from new sustainable materials to renewed global biodiversity. Our industry should focus much more resources on developing these types of AI systems.”
AI in the built environment:
AI for resilient cities
Cities are increasingly facing multiple hazards from extreme weather like severe heatwaves and flooding. Arup’s Terrain tool uses machine learning to interpret satellite mapping and help cities understand how their urban design can aggravate or mitigate the effects of extreme weather. Arup’s UHeat tool uses AI-powered land mapping for rapid modelling of the urban heat island effect at a local level in cities. The technology can rapidly model solutions to show how the strategic deployment of nature and other interventions can help cities reduce the impact of heatwaves – particularly on the most vulnerable. And our Sponge Cities algorithms help understand the natural ability of cities to absorb rainfall by mapping of the amount of “green” and “blue” natural infrastructure in urban centres, going right down to the level of soil types and the effect of vegetation on rainfall runoff. Tools such as these are for supporting cities to design better, more resilient infrastructure that will improve citizens’ lives.
Find out more about the Sponge Cities Snapshot
AI for Smart Watersheds
In Florida, Arup and The Nature Conservancy are applying AI and ML to develop and test a watershed approach that integrates monitoring, forecasting, and automated controls to pilot a ‘smart’ watershed that continuously learns and adapts to changing conditions. This collaboration will establish an innovative framework for using AI and ML technology in water management and aims to demonstrate how emerging technologies can be applied to existing stormwater infrastructure to improve environmental outcomes.
AI for Better Delivery of Major Infrastructure Projects: Fuse.AI
Complex construction projects can often be waylaid by issues with project and document management, costing money and extending timelines. Arup used Large Language Models for the specific purpose of seamless storing and accessing large scale project documentation troves of up to half a million documents. Used as a ‘ProjectGPT’, Fuse.AI significantly speeds up the challenge of simply managing complex projects on a large scale, allowing multiple technical disciplines around the world to collaborate easily. The tool played a crucial role in the concept and reference design for a new light rail line, facilitating real-time data access and collaboration across 250 global team members. A range of tools and techniques helped achieve a 40% carbon reduction on the project compared with the baseline carbon estimates in the design of the new line.
AI for Extending the Life of Existing Assets
In much of the world, critical infrastructure is ageing. But to replace it would be costly and involve significant carbon emissions. Extending the life of this infrastructure, re-use, and re-purposing are vital for cutting embodied carbon and emissions in the built environment. AI is allowing Arup teams to better understand the structural state and lifecycle of these assets. By deploying AI and engineering analysis of subsea structures of offshore wind, our teams can safely validate life extension of 20 to 25 years, considerably cutting embodied emissions. Similar approaches can be taken with complex structures like long span bridges, understanding their structural state, targeting repair where possible and extending life by up to 100 years.
AI for Total Sustainable Digital Design
Traditional design is characterized by a linear flow of siloed activities, often involving time-consuming back and forth iterations. Arup uses AI and digital workflows as part of Total Design to make this process more efficient, impactful and sustainable. For PwC’s Sanya campus in China, nine Arup disciplines worked together, underpinned by automated workflows. Designers and engineers are using powerful generative algorithms to test design alternatives and embed sustainability across processes. At the same time, chaining together digital tools allow different disciplines to work collaboratively and simultaneously. Arup’s Shanghai teams have been pioneering these approaches, seeing 25% carbon reductions in carbon emissions in concept design and saving up to 35 days in the design phase.
Global key findings:
- A third of architects, engineers, city planners, and digital officers in the built environment are using AI every day.
- The survey found strong adoption of AI in emerging economies, with Nigeria leading the countries surveyed at 46% of professionals using AI daily. Brazil also showed strong adoption with 40% of professionals using it every day. The US (42%), Singapore (40%), and China (37%), were the other countries with the strongest levels of AI adoption.
- While reliance on AI was high across all countries, the European countries in the research – the UK (30%), and Germany (27%) – reported the lowest daily use. Indonesia (35%), Australia (32%), India (30%), also had lower reliance on AI compared to elsewhere in the world.
- By country: Nigeria (46%), USA (42%), Singapore (40%), Brazil (41%), China (37%), Indonesia (35%), Australia (32%), India (30%), UK (30%), Germany (27%).
- Accelerating project delivery timelines (25%), helping projects stay under budget (25%), easing decision making processes (26%), and allowing focus on creative work (26%) were the positive ways AI will impact the built environment cited most by respondents.
- Many professionals in the sector are using some of the most advanced AI tools like machine learning-based data analytics (38%), machine learning and data-based predictive analysis (35%). science-based AI (35%), and large scale simulations (34%).
- Waste reduction (30%), developing sustainable materials (29%), urban planning and smart cities (29%) optimising renewable energy, and sustainable building design (29%) were the most cited ways AI could help tackle the climate and nature crises.
- The pursuit of applications more relevant for other sectors (34%), the quality of available data (34%) and concern over AI safety and ethics (34%) were the most cited barriers to further AI adoption.
- 61% think AI is a positive for the built environment sector
- Almost half (49%) of respondents are concerned about the concentration of AI development within a small number of global tech companies.
- 91% support specific ethical guidelines for AI in the built environment
About Arup
Dedicated to sustainable development, Arup is a collective of 18,000 designers, advisors and experts working across 140 countries. Founded to strive for humanity and excellence in everything that we do, we collaborate with our clients and partners, using imagination, technology and rigour to shape a better world.
Methodology
The research was conducted by Opinion Matters, among a sample of 5,000 (500 per country: US, UK, Australia, Nigeria, Germany, China, Singapore, Brazil, India, and Indonesia) Professionals (manager-level and above) in the built environment sector into the use of AI technologies. Respondents split evenly across four main job categories: City/urban planners; Architects; Engineers; Digital officers in the built environment sector. The data was collected between 12.02.25 – 21.02.25.
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