AI will kill the System of Record. Or will it?

On February 03rd 2026, we’re bringing together two of the most outspoken voices in AEC to stop the politeness and start the debate.

Dustin DeVan: The superstar founder who says if your data isn't structured in the cloud, your AI strategy is a fantasy.

KP Reddy: The VC and Futurist who claims "Corporate Software is for Corporate Overlords" and that the future is unstructured, local, and personalized.

This is the ultimate clash of philosophies on how we actually build in the age of AI.

The pace of tech change has outstripped human capability, turning your best people into liabilities. Here's what construction leaders need to understand.

Autodesk's 2025 State of Design and Make report coined a term that should worry every construction executive: the "digital skills gap crisis."

According to Susan Brattberg, co-founder and Chief Customer Officer at Global e-Training, this is the number one priority for CIOs across all industries globally right now. And construction is feeling it acutely.

"It's compounding and becoming more of a crisis," Susan explains. "Technology is changing at as fast a pace as it's ever changed."

At a recent Autodesk University presentation, Susan shared a simple visual that captures the problem: two lines on a graph.

One line represents the rate of technological change. It's accelerating exponentially. The other represents human capability. It's growing linearly.

The gap between them is widening every year.

For years, sending people to a classroom for a week once a year was a reasonable way to keep pace. According to Susan, those days are over. The technology changes too quickly. The workflows shift too often. Every project brings different tools and different requirements.

Three compounding factors make this crisis particularly acute in AEC.

Every new project brings different tech stacks, different workflows, different client requirements. Teams can't learn something once and coast.

Susan describes the cycle: you finish one project, move to the next, and suddenly need different tools and different workflows. "It's a brand new way of working," she notes, "and training and change management comes into that."

The skills that made someone effective on the last project may be insufficient for the next one.

The industry is already struggling to find people. Now those people need to be digitally fluent too.

Susan points to this double bind: there's a digital skills gap crisis layered on top of a talent shortage. Companies aren't just competing for bodies; they're competing for digitally capable talent in a shrinking pool. And when they find that talent, they risk losing it to competitors who invest more in development.

The retention data reinforces this. When compensation is equal, training is the number one factor in job satisfaction. Employees will choose the company that invests in their growth.

ACC, Procore, Revit, plus dozens of point solutions. The average tech stack has exploded.

Susan notes that Revit was the most popular training course for a decade as the industry shifted from CAD to BIM. Now, companies are layering on ACC, Procore, Microsoft tools, and project management platforms on top of that foundation.

Some firms are still getting on board with BIM basics while others have moved to advanced workflows. The gap between leaders and laggards is widening.

Teams need fluency across multiple platforms, often switching between them project to project. Each tool has its own logic, its own interface, its own quirks. Proficiency in one doesn't guarantee competence in another.

Susan describes where the industry sits on the technology adoption curve: the leading edge has adopted BIM and moved on. But there's a large cohort of companies in the late majority who are now being forced to close skills gaps under project pressure.

She knows who they are:

What happens when companies fail to close this gap? Susan hears the same patterns from customers:

According to Susan, customers who close these gaps report ROI figures as high as 10,000 percent. The math works because the baseline cost of the gap is so high: inefficiency, rework, lost bids, and turnover all compound.

Training also affects retention directly. Susan points to survey data showing that when compensation is equal, training is the number one factor in job satisfaction. Employees will choose the company that invests in their professional development. Often, even if it pays less.

The traditional approach to training in construction looked something like this:

This model has broken down for three reasons.

Tech updates faster than training cycles. By the time your annual training comes around, the software has already changed. Workflows have evolved. Project requirements have shifted.

A different generation in the workforce. Susan observes that today's workforce wants everything instant. They don't want to sit in a classroom. They expect on-demand access. This has become a baseline expectation, and companies that can't meet it will struggle to attract younger talent.

Generic training doesn't drive adoption. This is perhaps the most critical insight. According to Susan, specificity is what drives adoption. Learning a tool "out of the box" produces different results than learning how your company uses that tool on a specific project. The latter sticks. The former gets forgotten.

Companies getting ahead of this crisis share a few common approaches.

The shift is from "learn Revit" to "learn how we use Revit on this project with these workflows."

Susan describes companies pursuing granular customization: company-specific, workflow-specific, project-specific, discipline-specific. This includes custom content for onboarding, best practices, and standard operating procedures unique to each organization.

The momentum is significant. According to Susan, companies using this approach have built more custom training in the last year than in the last 10 years combined.

Meeting people where they are, when they need it. The classroom still has value for mentorship and relationship building, but the bulk of skills acquisition is shifting to on-demand formats.

Susan frames it simply: give people instant access, let them learn, let them apply. Reserve the synchronous moments for mentorship and project-specific application.

Leading companies assess prior knowledge and fill only the gaps. Tools can now challenge learners upfront and create custom paths targeting only the areas where they need to upskill.

This prevents the waste of forcing experienced professionals through basics they already know.

And here's a counterintuitive insight: AI is accelerating the need for training. According to Susan, "the number one way to drive adoption of AI is training." AI training is now in the top five most requested courses. The tools are only as valuable as people's ability to use them.

Treating digital skills like any other project KPI. Companies deploy training, track completion, and measure whether people are actually applying what they learned on projects.

Susan describes the shift: companies now deploy exactly what people need to know, track whether they've completed it, and verify they're performing efficiently on projects. The training isn't a checkbox exercise disconnected from work. It's tied directly to project performance.

This also enables role-specific accountability. A firm with 20 project managers to upskill can create a custom track, monitor progress across the cohort, and identify who's keeping pace and who's falling behind.

The result: training becomes a managed process with visible outcomes, not a vague line item in the overhead budget.

At Autodesk University, Susan posed a question to the audience that cuts to the heart of this challenge:

Only one of those is actually within your control.

The digital skills gap is already here. The companies acknowledging it and building systems to close it are pulling ahead. The companies ignoring it are watching their best people become liabilities, one outdated skill set at a time.

Audit your team's digital readiness. The gap is already there. The only question is whether you're measuring it.

Check out the episode with Susan Brattberg here 👇👇👇

A $7B milestone for construction tech

Labour is no longer just a commodity

Grab your free copy