Construction crews quietly kill AI tools they fear will replace them. Burckin Kaplanoglu argues trust matters more than capability, and the firms that figure out who captures value from productivity gains will define the next decade.
Alpha Score of 47 reflects weak overall profile with weak momentum, weak value, strong quality, moderate sentiment.
Construction crews are quietly killing promising artificial intelligence tools. They do not file complaints. They work around the technology until it disappears. Burckin Kaplanoglu, founder of SBK Technologies, has seen this pattern repeat across a career that includes directing the Oracle Industry Lab and running construction at LendLease.
The deciding factor in which technologies survive is trust, not capability, Kaplanoglu said. A system can perform beautifully in a demo and a pilot, then vanish on-site. The distrust has worsened over the past three years as workers hear that AI and robotics will replace humans. When a tool arrives promising to measure every deviation, superintendents see a threat, not a productivity gain. That is self-preservation, not irrational fear.
For a technology to take hold, the people expected to use it need clarity on three things: how it works, what its limitations are so they can trust its output, and, most importantly, what it means for their own careers. Construction leaders handle the first two points and skip the third, Kaplanoglu said. That omission is fatal.
Incentive programs, training sessions and governance policies are not enough to overcome the challenge. Responsible AI in the technology world means data security and preventing unsafe model behavior. Those matter. It also has to mean making sure the people on site have a future. Introduce a technology without that, and they will kill it quietly, every time.
The firms that come out ahead in the transition will not necessarily be the ones with the biggest technology budgets. They will be the ones whose crews trust that the technology showed up to help them build, Kaplanoglu said. Once trust is formed, adoption increases and productivity gains surface. Then a new question follows: who captures that value?
Kaplanoglu said he uses multiple AI tools but still reviews the output, checks references, reads the sources, and forms his own views. On one project, AI let him finish in six hours what would have taken two to three days. That productivity gain went to his client, not to him, because he was billing by the hour, not by the value of the work.
The productivity gain question is especially relevant for companies such as Oracle, which has a strong presence in construction technology through the Oracle Industry Lab. Oracle's Alpha Score is 36 out of 100, a mixed reading that signals execution risk alongside its market position. The company's construction tools rely on the same trust dynamic that Kaplanoglu described. If crews do not trust the software, the investment fails regardless of capability.
Trust gets the technology adopted. Productivity makes it pay off. The only question left is who captures the value. The firms that figure that out first will define the next decade of this industry, Kaplanoglu said.
For a broader look at how trust shapes enterprise AI, read Enterprise AI Will Be Defined By Trust.
Drafted by a large language model from the source reporting linked above, then screened by automated publishing checks. It is not read by a journalist before publication. Some articles cite our Alpha Score. Verify prices and figures against the original source. Educational coverage, not personalized advice.