Construction Has the Lowest AI Adoption of Any Major Industry
And why that's the biggest opportunity on the tools right now.
McKinsey's 2025 State of AI survey found 88 per cent of organisations now use AI in at least one part of their business. That number alone tells you the "should I use AI" debate is over almost everywhere. Almost. Construction is the exception, and not by a small margin. Global research through 2025 and into 2026, including a Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors report, found close to half of construction firms report no AI use at all, and fewer than two per cent have scaled it across their operations in any meaningful way.
If you are in electrical, plumbing, or any other trade sitting inside that broader construction category, that gap is not a warning sign about your industry falling behind. It is the single clearest first-mover opportunity available to any tradie willing to look at it properly.
Why construction lagged, and why that is about to flip
Trades work is hands-on, physical, and mobile by nature. Most software built over the last decade was designed for desks, not job sites, which meant a lot of digital tools never fit the way tradies actually work. That is a real reason for slow adoption, not laziness or resistance to change. But the tools have caught up. AI that runs from a phone, works from a voice note or a photo, and produces something useful in seconds rather than requiring a desktop and twenty minutes of data entry, removes the exact friction that kept this industry behind everyone else.
What "lowest adoption" actually means for you commercially
When almost half of your competitors have not touched AI at all, and fewer than two in a hundred have scaled it properly, being an early, competent adopter is not a marginal edge. It is a structural one. You are not fighting for a small percentage improvement against competitors already using the same tools you are. You are operating in a category where most of the field has not started the race yet.
That advantage does not last forever. Every sector that has gone through this shift, from finance to marketing to software development itself, moved from "nobody is using this" to "everybody expects this" faster than most people inside the industry predicted. Construction and trades will not be the exception. The question is not whether this gap closes, it is whether you are one of the early operators who benefited from it closing around you, or one of the businesses still explaining to clients why your quote took two days.
Where this shows up first, practically
For most trades businesses, the first real AI use case is not some abstract efficiency gain, it is quoting. It is the single most repetitive, time-consuming, judgment-heavy piece of admin every trade business does constantly, and it is exactly the kind of task modern AI genuinely handles well when built specifically for the trade it is serving. That is precisely why Just Send It AI exists, built from the ground up for Australian electrical work specifically, rather than a generic AI feature bolted onto a job management platform as an afterthought.
Frequently asked questions
Why does construction have lower AI adoption than other industries? Much of the software built for AI adoption over the past decade was designed for desk-based work rather than mobile, on-site trades work, creating friction that slowed uptake in construction specifically compared to office-based industries.
What percentage of businesses currently use AI in some form? McKinsey's 2025 State of AI survey found 88 per cent of organisations use AI in at least one business function, though adoption in construction specifically remains well below this figure.
Is AI adoption in construction expected to increase? Industry patterns from other sectors that have undergone similar shifts suggest adoption typically accelerates quickly once mobile-friendly, purpose-built tools become available, which is the trend now emerging in trades-specific AI software.
Sources: McKinsey & Company, "The State of AI in 2025: Agents, Innovation, and Transformation," November 2025. Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), "AI in Construction 2025" global report.