A number of construction companies are testing technology that aims to save lives and money by predicting when accidents will happen. Obviously, if a prediction flags up potential danger and raises awareness that enables accident prevention, it’s quite a significant step given that construction sites are said to have accident rates far higher than any other industry.

This AI technology is an example of workplace surveillance in which companies share data to improve the system.

By making use of a deep-learning algorithm trained on construction site images and accident records, the system can monitor a new construction site and highlight situations (by tracking and predicting workplace activity) that seem likely to lead to an accident – a worker’s proximity to dangerous machinery, or lack of safety gear, for example – therefore enabling a change in company and worker behaviour.

Given that the construction industry is traditionally plagued by overruns of both time and cost, the use of AI, drones and other advanced technologies is being increasingly adopted to improve productivity all round.

So, the Predictive Analytics Strategic Council has been developed as a way for companies to share data with a view to improving performance as many of them, individually, wouldn’t have enough data to provide the significant amounts needed for deep learning algorithms to improve their models and performance.

And crucially, improve the safety of workers.