A new McKinsey analysis suggests artificial intelligence could reshape far more than construction productivity. For contractors across North and South Carolina, the bigger question is who will control the data, workflows, customer relationships—and ultimately the value—of the next construction operating model. For the past several years, much of the construction industry’s conversation around artificial intelligence…
Business
AI Is Becoming Construction’s Next Leadership Test
Artificial intelligence may be the biggest technology story in construction today. But increasingly, I believe we are looking at it through the wrong lens. The most important AI question facing contractors is no longer: What can the technology do? It is: What does leadership need to do differently because the technology exists? That distinction matters….
Building Smarter with AI: What Construction Leaders Need to Know About the Industry’s Next Transformation
Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming a defining competitive force in the construction industry. But while many firms are experimenting with tools, few are approaching AI as a strategic leadership issue. In his new book, Building Smarter with AI, construction strategist and industry leader Brian Gallagher reframes the conversation. Rather than focusing on technology features or…
Cognitive Submission: Why Contractors Can’t Outsource Their Judgment to AI
“Cognitive Submission” describes humans who defer their own reasoning, judgment, and analytical effort to an AI system rather than engaging critically with it. I am as enamored with AI as anyone. In fact, I look forward to the day when I no longer marvel at how it shapes my ideas, documents, spreadsheets, and graphics into…
As Skilled Labor Tightens, More Contractors Are Renting Infrastructure Instead of Owning It
Temporary Wall Systems Explains When Renting Beats Owning, What It Really Costs, and How the Labor Shortage Is Driving the Shift Commercial construction demand keeps climbing while skilled labor gets harder and more expensive to find. Caught between the two, contractors are rethinking what they own and supporting scopes like temporary containment are increasingly the…
Markets
Design-Build Continues to Gain Ground Across Industrial Landscape
Gray, a nationally recognized construction and design firm, has released a new whitepaper examining the growing adoption of design-build delivery and the factors driving its success across industrial projects. The paper summarizes findings from leading industry, academic, and economic experts to evaluate how project delivery methods influence all aspects of a project, from cost and schedule to…
Portal Warehousing Expands Presence to North Carolina
The 70,400-square-foot facility brings Portal’s small warehousing model to the Raleigh-Durham Triangle Portal Warehousing (Portal), a leading, vertically integrated micro-bay industrial platform specializing in small warehousing and co-warehousing solutions, announces its expansion into North Carolina with the opening of a new 70,400-square-foot location just outside of Raleigh at 3200 Gateway Centre Boulevard in Morrisville. Portal’s newest…
ARCO Design/Build Breaks Ground on New OPW Manufacturing Facility in Smithfield, NC
ARCO Design/Build announced that it held a groundbreaking ceremony on July 17 for a new manufacturing facility for OPW in Smithfield, North Carolina. OPW, A Dover Company, manufactures retail fueling equipment, containment, and dispensing products used in retail and commercial fueling applications. Located directly adjacent to OPW’s existing Smithfield operation, the new facility will allow…
Most Americans Say “Not in My Backyard” to AI Data Centers
Redfin’s analysis found that AI data centers have some benefits: In northern Virginia, taxes on data center equipment are likely contributing to a surge in education spending. Meanwhile, individual homeowners’ property-tax rates are declining. More than half (53%) of U.S. residents oppose the construction of an AI data center in their neighborhood, according to a…







