How to Future Proof Your Architecture Career

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Unknown
So we are here in an architectural practice. Now I know when we're studying we're all thinking, we're doing models, we're drawing, we're doing all that stuff.

00:00:11:10 - 00:00:20:18
Unknown
There's a lot of processes that go into architecture and there's a lot of technology, especially in 2026. So I'm here in

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Unknown
London,

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Unknown
headquarters of Benoi. And I'm with Amie, who is heads of tech. Amie, how are you today? You okay? I'm good. Stephen, thank you for having me. And welcome to Benoi. I hope you like the space, and I'm.

00:00:35:17 - 00:00:39:20
Unknown
I'm very happy to kind of get into some interesting conversations today. I love it.

00:00:40:00 - 00:00:48:02
Unknown
for anyone that's not met you before, can you tell me a little bit about yourself and a little bit about what you do now and then we'll we'll we'll go back in time.

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Unknown
Sure.

00:00:48:21 - 00:00:59:09
Unknown
I am by training, an architect. Now I see myself more as a technology lead who understands architecture.

00:00:59:11 - 00:01:18:09
Unknown
Yeah. And I've been I essentially look over our design technology, and I practice nice. Which means everything from, you know, parametric stuff to, doing them, to now more and more focused on building, enterprise AI software.

00:01:18:11 - 00:01:38:19
Unknown
And what's really interesting is, you know, get to work with all teams, across the business, globally, really trying to get them to think about the transformative power of technology and what this means for for what they do. Nice. Okay. So for anyone that wants to go into this kind of role, this podcast is ready for you.

00:01:38:21 - 00:02:01:04
Unknown
So we resume back the clock when you studied architecture. Yeah, you might or you might not have predicted. You've got to where you are now, right? If we win the clock back. So why did you go into architecture in the first place to study? That's an interesting question. So I grew up in, Bombay. Come from a family of doctors.

00:02:01:04 - 00:02:31:17
Unknown
So architecture was a bit left field. Yeah. But for some reason, since I was a little bit younger, I was always interested in, in architecture without really knowing what it meant. And found myself, you know, I moved from Bombay to Bournemouth, which was, you know, think about your friends like difference, to study architecture, and as you, you know, kind of hinted on, could I have predicted, that I'd be doing this today?

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Unknown
No chance. Right. It just started with architecture. Kind of naturally, evolved into my curiosity for technology. Yeah. I actively then started positioning myself in technology. And, you know, fast forward 15 years later, here I am, working as a technology lead at an architecture firm. Right. Got it. You use zoom across the 15 years.

00:02:59:00 - 00:03:18:06
Unknown
But I was studying. We joked that a lot. So when I worked in practice, I used to use my presentation. So I'm. I'm showing my age a little bit here. We it's all changed with Revit. And then but when you were starting with the technology very different today and did you when you were studying did you did you do a lot of computers?

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Unknown
Were you the rebel in the studio or did you have to do a bit hand drawing as well now? Yeah. So I when I was studying, I didn't really know that much about technology. My exposure to technology was quite limited. Went to a very, you know, I would say, quote unquote traditional kind of architectural, training, and at that time, my fascination was, you know, around multidisciplinary design and, trying to be, you know, a lot more kind of design.

00:03:48:17 - 00:04:16:07
Unknown
Yeah. And then my kind of tryst with technology was also very interesting. So after I finished my part one, in Bournemouth, I was working for, a small practice out in Hertfordshire. Yeah. And, you know, I was doing kitchen extensions and, party wall extensions and, you know, all of the glamor stuff. I was like, this is not really why I studied architecture.

00:04:16:10 - 00:04:36:05
Unknown
This isn't really kind of what I want to do. So then I was like, you know what, let's just see where, where this kind of takes me. I ended up applying all over the world, trying to find something that was interesting that took me to Beijing, and to Beijing that. Yeah, halfway around the world again.

00:04:36:08 - 00:05:12:00
Unknown
Yeah. So this was 2013. Arrived in Beijing, originally on a three months kind of internship. And it was there that, when I was assisting an architect who had just come back from the States, we were doing a little, cafe where, it was designed using grasshopper. Yeah. And then we. But the cat files, through grasshopper, you know, assembled everything, built this cafe, which was, I think, very interesting kind of piece of work, at that time.

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Unknown
But to me, that was, that was that was insane, right? The fact that we've gone from a script, setting up a process to design, then to fabricate and then to essentially, you know, be in a space that was, designed by script. I thought that was kind of an moment. Yeah. And since then I was like, okay, this seems very interesting.

00:05:37:00 - 00:05:59:00
Unknown
Then had some other interesting experiences in Beijing. So as I was starting to do, a little bit of, you know, it wasn't called computational design, then it was this grasshopper, with a couple of my friends. We started, tinkering with 3D printers. Yeah. Before we knew it, we were commissioned by this 3D printing company to design and 3D printed dress.

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Unknown
You know, we started 3D printing food, and that kind of very naturally then, you know, got me to think about how I use the skills that I learned through architecture. Yeah. And very different mediums, like, so it was about taking the, the skills, but applying them in very different ways. And that then, you know, has led to a whole kind of career and, and actively positioning myself and being the person who can solve technology problems for other architects.

00:06:30:08 - 00:06:52:01
Unknown
Yeah. So where were you, the guy in the studio? Were you that guy there after that project, you got the grasshopper? They wanted to do something complex with geometry. They were like, right, we need army. We? You like, we like. We need that person in the office. Revit champion and so on. Yeah. So I mean, even before that, that I think happened a little bit later as I was saying.

00:06:52:01 - 00:07:14:13
Unknown
So you know Beijing were doing some cool cool things. Yeah. At that point I started kind of thinking I need to formalize some of this, understanding. Yeah. So that took me to Barcelona. I, I went to Beijing, to Barcelona, to Bombay, to Bonn. Oh, my. Beijing. So you've got you've got a mac with all the BS.

00:07:14:15 - 00:07:43:07
Unknown
Yeah. So Barcelona I went to Iirc, which is the Institute of Chain of Catalonia. There I kind of really honed in on, really formalizing my skills around, you know, grasshopper, really looking at technology and, in a software agnostic manner. So not not being tool dependent, but really thinking about technology. That's when I also, got into programing, I learned how to code.

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Unknown
We were doing robotics, and a lot of this really cool kind of things. At that point, I was, you know, very, kind of aware that I wanted to be in tech. Yeah. So we leave Barcelona, and take a plane to Hong Kong, which is where I then ended up spending the next four years of my life in Hong Kong was where I became, you know, the grasshopper guy I was working for, started working for a small, small but very interesting firm called enzyme.

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Unknown
We were doing all sorts of interesting things with BIM and computation. Started writing, you know, little scripts, little tools. And then at some point, a friend of mine was working at Yuen Studio in Hong Kong, and they were looking for someone who could do BIM and computation. That took me there. So that was my last job where I was, let's say, working as an architectural designer.

00:08:39:08 - 00:09:05:15
Unknown
Yeah. Right. In that job, started off as an architectural designer working on facades, working on bent implementation and things like that. Around the same time, things like rhino inside started, becoming very prominent. Yeah. And then at that time, you know, speaking to my director at the time, I was saying, you know, I think we need to kind of develop a new type of role that doesn't really exist in in the firm.

00:09:05:17 - 00:09:27:20
Unknown
Yeah. Which would be around design, technology, someone who can bridge design and technology. So then we, you know, wrote a new job description, made a new role, and then I kind of transitioned into that role. That's where, you know, I went again, from being, a designer who's working on a project to then zooming out and looking at the office and the studio.

00:09:27:20 - 00:09:48:24
Unknown
Yeah. So it's been interesting always kind of, you know, zooming in and out, developing skills when I'm zoomed in, you know, working on facades, complex, systems and so on, but then zooming out and thinking about what this means, in the larger context, the built environment. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's quite interesting you touched upon that.

00:09:48:24 - 00:10:11:09
Unknown
So coming from a role where you were more job running and doing that stuff and you were there. Yeah. He's the grasshopper guy. You say using that and then go into this separate but very strategic, important role of the head attack. You touched upon it there and it's really interesting. So there's different if we unpack tech, and what that looks like.

00:10:11:15 - 00:10:32:02
Unknown
Yeah. Maybe we can do this together now because there's quite a few components to it, isn't there? So you mentioned BIM okay. And so for anyone and I always get this wrong. So you can tell me is it building information modeling or building information management. It's the model modeling. Yeah okay. So we got them. Yeah. And that's usually Autodesk Revit knowledge.

00:10:32:04 - 00:11:01:07
Unknown
Yeah. And you've got 3D modeling. Yeah. And now you've kind of got this fast interactive 3D game engines. Yeah. That's for your game engines. Around the same time also we're looking at sustainability tech. But how do we enable our designers to, understand the consequences of their design decisions in almost real time? Yeah. Then, as you mentioned, you have video game engines, new ways to visualize things, new ways to build dynamics into the worlds that, that be present.

00:11:01:09 - 00:11:20:22
Unknown
Then on the other side and now the last six months, and I think we'll get into this more is around the I was right. What's happening with that. But that's that's just the tool aspect of it. Yeah. Right. I think what's important to understand is implementation of technology is maybe 30% tools. 7% people. Right, right.

00:11:20:22 - 00:11:46:00
Unknown
So talking to teams, getting them an understanding of why we need to use the right tools, what that unlocks for them, building and structure so that when we're hiring people, we're vetting them in, in an interesting ways, talking to business leaders, talking to them about, you know, what technology means for their clients, for their projects.

00:11:46:02 - 00:12:15:17
Unknown
So it's around, you know, building a culture or an ecosystem where technology enables better decision making. So tooling is one part. But then how do we upskill people? How do we ensure, that we are on the cutting edge, that we're able to, democratize a lot of this technology so that it doesn't stick with the three grasshopper champions or the five BIM people, but scales across 300 people as we as we do at Benoi humans.

00:12:15:17 - 00:12:38:07
Unknown
So the the tricky and wonderful parts of that. Right. When you and you touched upon as well early you are an interesting time where you were entering the role, but you also formulating the job description because, yeah, this role, there's been different versions of it in the past though. So different companies have different cultures, different workflows.

00:12:38:09 - 00:13:00:08
Unknown
So there's an element you jump into the role. Yeah. And I've had to do it yourself. And I'm sure you've had a few challenges along the way. To get people to change certain processes, to scale them up, maybe to learn new things. Yeah. Do you have any advice on that? Have you learned to feel there, or tricks along the way to get someone who's used to one thing to do another?

00:13:00:10 - 00:13:22:04
Unknown
Yeah. And, you know, also talking about the role and writing the job description. I mean, funnily enough, the last three jobs I've worked at didn't exist until we defined you. Are they needed to be. You're at the bleeding edge of tech and the role itself. Yeah. I mean, because at least for me, it was things that I was interested in and things that I thought made a difference but didn't exist.

00:13:22:10 - 00:13:46:11
Unknown
Right. So first is formalizing identifying, what what the role needs to be, what you can do with the role. But then again, I, I always come back to people, because the key to unlocking any sort of transformation is how you bring the people along with you, but they've really got to bind to the vision of the why and the what?

00:13:46:13 - 00:14:28:23
Unknown
Why? If evolution is necessary. And then, you know, I think it helps that I've come from being a soldier working on those deadlines, models freezing, models crashing, a lot of that. So I can talk to a lot of people in in terms that makes sense to them. Yeah. So I think to anyone who's trying to do technology, and I would say any kind of industry where technology is, is going through, a wave of, implementation, it's about, being as, connected to people as possible, talking to them in, in a way that makes sense to them.

00:14:28:23 - 00:14:53:07
Unknown
Yeah. Understanding where their challenges might lie. Yeah. And really building, the tooling now, implementing the tools and building the messaging around, you know, how this makes your day to day better. Yeah. And what might this mean for you in five years time? And what might this mean for a business in five years time?

00:14:53:09 - 00:15:15:10
Unknown
If we make the right decisions right now. And what I find is, you know, the the resistance to change often comes from your competencies, but you might be really, really, really good at something. Yeah. And if there's someone new who is coming and saying, hey, let's try to do things differently, there is a natural kind of resistance.

00:15:15:10 - 00:15:37:11
Unknown
Yeah. Right. But what I found, at least at Benoi, is, having the infrastructure. Yeah. So that when things go wrong. Yeah, we have the ability to solve those problems. Yeah. That helps a lot. So, I mean, you know, moving from software A to software B, the question is always if something goes wrong, I know how to fix that in software.

00:15:37:11 - 00:16:03:03
Unknown
A, I don't know how to fix it in software B right. So if we've got the right, support structure and the right infrastructure to be able to solve those problems, often before they exist or as they then start to exist, that gives everyone a lot of confidence, in doing this. I mean, interestingly, when I joined Benoi, also, as I was saying, the role didn't really exist, but I was given a fantastic platform.

00:16:03:05 - 00:16:28:13
Unknown
Yeah. And know for the first few months I was kind of, doing my secondments in different teams, understanding, you know, how they work, where the frictions, might be and how they're using technology and then setting up very strategically, workflows, processes, that can help them solve those problems and then, you know, working with them through it.

00:16:28:13 - 00:16:56:15
Unknown
And, and a lot of this is around, you know, social positioning. So, you know, work socials, bar nights, lunchtime conversations, CRM, I, I always try to talk to people about, you know, what we're trying to do and what what this enables for them. Yeah. Now, I mean, it's fascinating to see. So when I was in practice last time was in practice, it was a bit more, it was just coming in.

00:16:56:15 - 00:17:30:03
Unknown
So maybe I'd like to, talk about the recent one, which is I before that, so loosely in the UK from memory and the big overhaul from going from CAD to rebellion. Well, BIM and Reddit's the predominant player was around 2014, 2015. Right. Is that more mature now as in most blogged practices are using and. Yeah. And and how would you describe what they missed for the benefit of the users if they're not in practice yet or they're about to go into em?

00:17:30:05 - 00:18:06:20
Unknown
Yeah. So I think things are very mature. Fundamentally, BIM is about building smart information into 3D models, right? Right. So, if you look at CAD, where drawing lines, that mean something? Yeah. Whereas in BIM you're essentially, creating three dimensional information. You have a lot of information packed within then. Right. And then this 3D models that are smart, that have a lot of this data, can be used to, you know, look at casting to be learned, to look at, are you delivering coordinated information?

00:18:06:23 - 00:18:32:24
Unknown
Yeah. To look at, you know, sustainability tech, to look at how we might automate going from 2D to, from 3D to 2D. Yeah. Right. So fundamentally to me, the, the first principles of BIM is about building smart information. Right. That then has a huge supply chain aspect to it. Right? It can be used in all sorts of different ways.

00:18:32:24 - 00:18:59:19
Unknown
Yeah. I think the maturity comes from a few, different vectors, moving together. First coming from, you know, you've had firms that have championed this that have kind of, taken a step forward. Then you have the regulation space, right? UK bim frameworks, ISO standards, and a lot of this standardize what things need to look like, how things need to behave.

00:18:59:21 - 00:19:27:17
Unknown
Yeah. How do you sequence things? And then, you know, at the top level, markets like markets, developers understand that, if we've got fully coordinated, fully resolved as much as possible information before you go to site, that has a huge difference in, you know, how much, project budgets over on and so on.

00:19:27:17 - 00:19:52:09
Unknown
Yeah. So I think these three vectors kind of coming together have meant that BIM has matured to a point now, where BIM is only a competitive differentiator if you're at it. Right. If you're good at it, that that is kind of, the, the non now the plateau. Yeah. Yeah. But if you're shit at it, then your, your online community.

00:19:52:09 - 00:20:15:18
Unknown
I was in back in the day when, where there was resistance to go to BIM for a while wasn't there. And I get it for smaller practices. But when you're doing the scale of the projects. Yeah. Such as these, I don't think it's possible with. And I can see these beautiful forms. Yeah. Now I'm not going to take it the models because I said the I usually drop them and all this stuff, but these look like beautiful 3D forms.

00:20:15:20 - 00:20:37:19
Unknown
And I'll overlay some pictures at the end, but like, these look really cool. So there's the BIM aspect to the design. But then you touched upon grasshopper, Rhino, all that cool stuff. So in architecture then you have that tech which enables design. Yeah. And can save hundreds of thousands of hours and all this cool stuff. Yeah.

00:20:37:24 - 00:20:57:02
Unknown
How is that changed over the years then? Or is it some of it? Is it the core at the core of Grasshopper Rhinos? It's still the same as the ten years I now know. Is it changed as well? I think grasshopper and Rhino have had a very interesting journey as well, where the community has really, driven what, grasshoppers today.

00:20:57:02 - 00:21:23:05
Unknown
Yeah. Like, so McNeal have built a really good product. Yeah, and ran on grasshopper. But they did a really good job in building a community around grasshopper. Where grasshopper now excels is, you know, you have all of these plugins that can do structural calculations, are wind calculations are, you know, when it comes to facades, you can, write little scripts that will do a hundred facade variations.

00:21:23:05 - 00:21:39:14
Unknown
We have we then have the ability to, you know, look at how the sun hits a specific part of the building. Yeah. What that means for, you know, someone being inside that building is going to be too hard. Is it going to be too cold? How do we end work with with those? With those as design parameters?

00:21:39:16 - 00:22:04:00
Unknown
How do we think about, you know, the embodied carbon and, the operational carbon? So it's grasshopper is allowing us to get to a lot of these answers faster than it's ever been possible before, right? In a way that's distributed and decentralized. Right. So traditionally, for a firm to be able to do carbon calculations.

00:22:04:00 - 00:22:28:15
Unknown
Yeah, you would need to go out to a, consultant and, you know, they'll do their math and then they'll come back to you and tell you, you know, these many kilowatt hours. Sorry. This this is the carbon impact of the thing. But when I say decentralized and distributed, we start to see, you know, a lot of, academics, we see a lot of firms starting to.

00:22:28:17 - 00:22:55:16
Unknown
But they're thinking in some of these tools. Yeah. Which means us as designers of space, we have the ability to kind of tap into their expertise and really leverage it to, again, answer those questions, in a much more tactile manner. Right. So I think the other key, thing that I think has also been a really interesting play here is the integration.

00:22:55:22 - 00:23:35:15
Unknown
Right? So again, Rhino inside Revit for me has been a big, driver for my career because it was about integrating the fluid design of Rhino, with, you know, the world of complexity and accuracy off of them. Yeah. Right. Being able to connect your design workflows to your delivery workflows, suddenly means that you're able to design faster, you're able to design for longer, you're able to ask those expensive questions off your design ideas, and then at the same time, look at much faster documentation of information, production of sheets, coordination of information, and so on.

00:23:35:15 - 00:24:05:09
Unknown
So I think, I would say between 2014 and, you know, 2024, 2025, the integration of a lot of these tools into singular workflows, has enabled a lot of firms to to really speed up their design processes, to really broaden their, that exploration of the design solution space while making it faster for you to be able to, you know, create drawings and schedules on sheets.

00:24:05:11 - 00:24:26:16
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. Now it's really good to talk about those, because those are the kind of things where I visualize an architect working on and, and your help of the menu row that the elephant in the room in 2026, which has been talked about probably. I mean, it's been around however, in the last two, three years, everyone talks about artificial intelligence, finance.

00:24:26:18 - 00:24:48:02
Unknown
And now I kind of see that weaving into everything. And there's a few conversations about AI. This is not what I use AI for. My phone ChatGPT is there's a conversation about what a student might use, but the not AI and yourself. This is a proper architectural practice with 100 200 people. You're doing commercial buildings. You're doing design.

00:24:48:07 - 00:25:15:20
Unknown
Yeah. How have we started seeing AI permeate into your day job then? And what you do now and everything around it in the practice? Yes, 100%. I think it's it's a it's too powerful a technology to ignore. Yeah. And you know, like, with a lot of friends and a lot of people, kind of, journey into I started, you know, with Midjourney back in 2023.

00:25:15:20 - 00:25:35:17
Unknown
Yeah. Being able to do look and feel images very quick, but in a, in a very sandbox environment, we then, you know, evolved to come for UI and a lot of that. But yeah, all of this was always in a sandbox. You know, we've always had concerns around IP and data protection and things like that.

00:25:35:19 - 00:26:03:14
Unknown
So our experimentation and I, I would say between 2023 and mid 2025 was much more sandbox, right? We tried to understand what this means in, in all sorts of different ways. But it's more hacky and more, you know, trying to do a few things, where it started to change, back in 2025 is, like I said, you know, we've had an eye on this.

00:26:03:20 - 00:26:28:15
Unknown
We've been talking to the board about, kind of what's coming, where it's going. Over the last year, a whole series of workshops, stakeholder engagements, talking to the board, talking to directors, talking to associates, talking to assistants, talking to architects, senior architects, interior designers, landscape architects, to really try and define what the use cases are for us.

00:26:28:15 - 00:26:55:04
Unknown
Yeah, right. Once we started, figuring out what are the use cases that we think are going to, make a difference to how we do our design work for the next 5 or 6 years? Then we started doing a lot of AI infrastructure work. Right. So having an AI policy in place, then we started setting up a software evaluation framework, around, you know, 10,000 new tools coming out every year.

00:26:55:10 - 00:27:20:18
Unknown
How do we evaluate where where something where not to use something? Yeah. Two, I would say middle of 20, 25, we kind of arrive to a conclusion that a lot of this is going to be enterprise built software. Right? Our own software that leverages our own data. We have, you know, we sit on years of experience and data and projects and so on.

00:27:20:20 - 00:27:40:17
Unknown
So a general purpose tool like a GPT isn't good enough, for us to be able to use an, in an enterprise setting. Same thing with things like Midjourney and stable diffusion and things like that. So we would very quickly kind of arrive to, a, an AI rollout strategy. And then we started building, tools.

00:27:40:19 - 00:28:02:03
Unknown
We started building platforms. My role kind of transitioned from, you know, being a lot more involved on BIM and computation to over the last couple months, 80% of my time is focused on AI, building the tools along with our IT team. I mean, this has also been a very interesting kind of dynamic that's emerged.

00:28:02:03 - 00:28:21:08
Unknown
We have, kind of an AI working group, which is myself. Then, our head of it, and our, one of our senior leaders from it, who builds a lot of applications for the business. And between the three of us, we started kind of, you know, really thinking about what enterprise I need to look like.

00:28:21:14 - 00:28:45:24
Unknown
And I think we've kind of come to, an interesting place where we've just, in 2026, started rolling out some of these tools. Now teams are really starting to use them. Use usage is going, ramping up like crazy. You know, we went from early 2025 where we had maybe 2 or 3 people, 4 or 5 people trying this to now a lot more people using it on a daily basis.

00:28:45:24 - 00:29:07:24
Unknown
And a lot of that has been about, again, integration. And then also one one key thing that we've, thought about is we don't want to bring we don't want to take our people to AI, we want to bring AI to our teams. Yeah. But, in a much more secure manner with a lot more, fidelity and, and what our AI tools can do.

00:29:07:24 - 00:29:30:23
Unknown
Yeah. Even the AI technology, though, is moving at such a fast pace. You touched upon Midjourney. I was playing around. I couldn't do faces two years ago now. It was all this kind of conceptual look at, Yeah. And now it's it's changed already, so, so fast. At the time of recording this, it's February 2026. Get it out in March.

00:29:30:23 - 00:29:54:09
Unknown
But in between then there will be new releases. Yeah. Well, yesterday, Google just released, Gemini 3.1 Pro, which is again a game changer, saying now I love it. I'm on Gemini and we use and even in my business, which is not design related, we use AI on Zapier and plug ins and everything. Because it's not just the design with AI.

00:29:54:09 - 00:30:20:06
Unknown
Isn't that it can it can radically optimize the back end. Yeah. You mentioned earlier, you sit in on this repository of knowledge in Benoi. Yeah. So there's AI enabling design, but is it also about making efficiencies and productivity and optimizing and the business intelligence? I want to understand, so I mean, we're looking at this in a, in a much more kind of holistic manner.

00:30:20:06 - 00:30:55:07
Unknown
Yeah. You know, going from, the like an internal ChatGPT here, that's got access to, you know, HR data, our intranet, a lot of, project data for you to be able to ask questions off of this data. Yeah, leading to smarter decision making. We're building kind of automation pipelines on top of that to, to look at how we do bids and, you know, when we're going out to get a new project to, first line of response for business questions for teams.

00:30:55:07 - 00:31:18:03
Unknown
How many holidays do I have left? How much, you know, how do I name my rabbit families. To also then now, on the visualization side, being able to, you know, take a sketch and articulate it at the speed of thought into much more resolved ideas, to be able to tell much better stories of the space and place that that where we're designing.

00:31:18:04 - 00:32:04:15
Unknown
But to kind of come back to this. Right. If you look at BIM computation a lot that and again, this is my kind of personal take at anytime this tech, not, technologies like this out of large firms would maybe affect 25, 30, 40, 50% of the people. AI is so foundational and so transformative that it's affecting everyone from, you know, design directors and partners to architectural assistants, to the air team, to the finance team, to the commercial teams, to, you know, our operational data to, the board, the CEO, the CFO, it's such a seismic kind of shift in, and what this allows us to do.

00:32:04:22 - 00:32:33:03
Unknown
Yeah. That it's never really been possible for us to even kind of, understand, you know what, what the effects of this are and how how this changes the day to day of what we do, and and we're already starting to see that. And I think we're still at a Renaissance stage. Right. I has been hot for the last couple of years, but I think the models are only just going from toys to tools, right?

00:32:33:03 - 00:32:58:15
Unknown
Yeah. I would say even six months ago, a lot of these, large language models, the visualization diffusion models, multimodal models were more toys. Yeah. And the last couple of months, they're really value capture tools, right? They're helping us with efficiencies. They're helping us with deliverables. They're helping us with, articulation of ideas faster than it's ever been possible before.

00:32:58:15 - 00:33:28:24
Unknown
And that's where I think building our own tooling. Yeah, helps us not to go to the average, which the general purpose tools will take you to. But, you know, answering questions that leverage eight years of our experience. All of the regions that we work in, the hospitality, intelligence that we have, the retail intelligence that we have to be able to ask questions like, you know, an in an at Key Hotel.

00:33:29:01 - 00:33:57:16
Unknown
What are the corridor widths, what efficiencies should we be working towards? A lot of this is leveraging data that we've got, to be able to answer these questions that start driving design decisions, start driving commercial decisions. And then being able to visualize and, and articulate these and made these where, you know, going from project images to project renders, sorry, project, trailers.

00:33:57:16 - 00:34:30:14
Unknown
Yeah. I think, you know, what we're seeing on the floors is this kind of renaissance of creativity. Everyone's using it in slightly nuanced ways, but is doing very interesting things with it. People are finding new ways to kind of tell their stories. I mean, you know, one of our, design principles, Simon B, who's been in the business, I think for, you know, 35 years, I was working on a project with him recently, and he's, you know, one of our most prolific kind of, intelligence in design.

00:34:30:16 - 00:34:51:20
Unknown
And he does these incredibly beautiful sketches. Yeah. And the first time, I was, you know, I took some of his sketches and, started to visualize them in interesting ways and then animate them, to see the reaction from him, was, you know, priceless. And, and he's someone who's kind of now championing this across teams.

00:34:51:20 - 00:35:08:21
Unknown
And we're seeing this from a lot of our design principles and, and, design leadership teams, they're finding, you know, all sorts of interesting ways to work with technology. But then, like I said, we're bringing technology to them in ways that make sense. Then they have the ability to, you know, use the tools that we make from their phones.

00:35:08:23 - 00:35:40:00
Unknown
Yeah. From, you know, very in very simple ways. Matt isn't there. I it's it's crazy. Yeah. But it's also so dynamic. Yeah. I, I'm more of an optimist. But we touched upon earlier, you educating people, doing all this stuff. One thing I always go back to. So when I was a part one back then, baby in, in professional world, I remember spending ages doing Photoshop, doing collages.

00:35:40:02 - 00:35:59:18
Unknown
And now you can do that in Photoshop and go, I want a few more clouds. It's the it's the dark. Yeah. Put more people here. Yeah. And it will do it in. So on one hand I am positive about it. It can enable us to do stuff. But as humans, sometimes we get nervous about being replaced.

00:35:59:18 - 00:36:17:18
Unknown
So, you know, if I'm not doing the collage, then what would my role be? How do you feel about that sentiment? Do you think then roles will change and evolve, or do you think that some roles will be lost or will gain some roles as well? I think a little bit of everything right there will be an evolution, but very interesting.

00:36:17:18 - 00:36:50:07
Unknown
I was, I was reading a paper, not, just over the weekend where it had this interesting statistic where 60% of Americans right now in 2018 were working in jobs that, when defined in 1945, pasta. But that didn't exist 20 years ago. My role didn't exist in, in France, ten years ago now then the and then, you know, we as humans, we have kind of found ways to evolve with this.

00:36:50:09 - 00:37:15:10
Unknown
What's different? This time is, you know, you take from 1940 to 2018, that's a 68 year period. Right now. It's very hard to tell where the industry is going to be in 2032. Yeah, right. And five, six years, how might roles evolve? I would also then, you know, come back and question, is it what's the value of you doing a collage on Photoshop?

00:37:15:15 - 00:37:38:24
Unknown
Isn't the value in your lived experience and the ideas that you bring to the table rather than, and the labor that you are providing, used to go on forever sometimes, isn't there? Yeah, yeah. And I think that's where I see, some interesting kind of, you know, moves happening is we're coming back to what your core value proposition is.

00:37:38:24 - 00:38:07:24
Unknown
Yeah. Right. I think our value proposition is, designing the built environment. Right. Negotiating with clients, negotiating with governments, talking to some consultants, putting together a building, talking to people who are going to use the buildings, bring some of their ideas into the design process. I think that's the value of the built environment professionals. I don't think the value is you doing, you being able to do a Photoshop, forever.

00:38:08:01 - 00:38:33:08
Unknown
Forever or, do a drawing forever. Or, you know, do, rendering on Enscape. I don't think that's where the value is now. And I think there's also an interesting parallel where we've seen this level of automation play out in different industries. So again, if you go back to the 60s, if you were, someone who is an accountant or someone who was working in logistics.

00:38:33:08 - 00:39:02:01
Unknown
Yeah. Both of these industries had automation in different ways. Right. In an accountant in accounting, what happened was we automated the the kind of easy and boring, which meant, yes, you needed a few less accountants, but they were much better valued. Or the value that they provided was a lot more. Whereas in logistics, we we automated the complexity.

00:39:02:01 - 00:39:28:17
Unknown
So now you need more people on the shop floor, but what their job is, is scanning barcodes and and the, the, the algorithms are doing everything else. Right. So it's about us being very cognizant of where do we rely on automation. Yeah. What is it that we want to automate? But I think the core tenets of being an architect or an interior designer or landscape architect or an urban designer isn't the ability to create a good image.

00:39:28:17 - 00:39:50:00
Unknown
It's the ability to create a vision from a whole set of different parameters. And I think that's where you need emotional intelligence. You need the ability to negotiate. You need the ability to tell the stories. I think I can help us tell those stories faster. Can help us set out those negotiation, tactics and a lot of that.

00:39:50:00 - 00:40:16:02
Unknown
But it's still you who is kind of defining what you need to do. And I think, in my opinion, that's, that's a much better place for us to exist than, than doing the, the Photoshop or. I mean, it's not fun is at all like just I remember the old days of counting the area schedules, you doing all this stuff, whereas that's the kind of thing really I think I should be doing to allow.

00:40:16:04 - 00:40:41:08
Unknown
Yeah. Designer to design. Do you? We touched upon even then. It's been 2 or 3 years max since the early mid journeys, which were quite cool and novel, but now it's like a whole different level. Do you have a rough prediction where you see things going in 4 or 5 years, like a trajectory or a feeling of where we're going to, or is it just too early to tell at the moment?

00:40:41:10 - 00:41:06:08
Unknown
I mean, look, I think there will be parts of the job that become, that become commoditized in some ways. Right? So again, I think with what's happening with AI visuals, there is a commoditization, meaning most people now are going to be able to produce competent enough visuals because the inherent technology allows us to do that.

00:41:06:09 - 00:41:39:20
Unknown
Yeah, right. But I would also argue that it is a bit soulless. Right. And yeah, so I think where things it's very hard to kind of predict exactly what's going to happen. But I think, you know, a lot of, the repetitive and the mundane, will find automated, right, drawing production, producing 10,000 sheets. I mean, to deliver a building like, or a complex like this, you know, across different, different disciplines and things.

00:41:39:20 - 00:42:04:06
Unknown
You might be producing 10,000 pieces of documents that need to be taken on site to build something. You might need all sorts of interesting ways to visualize things. You might need all sorts of ways to do carbon calculations, to do, sustainability calculations and so on. I think a lot of that will become a lot easier, through automation and through the use of AI.

00:42:04:07 - 00:42:37:14
Unknown
Yeah. But then I think we will see ourselves more as the orchestrator orchestrators of these workflows. So understanding, you know, the, the emotional side of putting together, building, to coming to design, how we, you know, visualize things, how then we document things. A lot of that might be, automated, but then the onus will be even larger on us to, to be verifying the drawings that go out, to be checking what's going out.

00:42:37:16 - 00:43:08:13
Unknown
But I think, you know, we should see a lot of, the very resource intensive parts of things, get much easier to do. And what that might mean is that, you know, what we're doing on a day to day basis is more strategy, more design. And not, you know, renders and documentation. So I think the high level tasks, will always need humans in the loop.

00:43:08:18 - 00:43:36:02
Unknown
Yeah. I think it also comes back to professional indemnity, ensure ability a lot that, you know, that's a big part of what architectural services provide. Yeah. But the, the actual working of how these things get done, in my opinion, will be, helped with a lot of AI workflows. Yeah. I think, I think it's an exciting time.

00:43:36:02 - 00:43:57:03
Unknown
I went into, the last thing I want to touch on the AI. And before we move on to, something is a bit more broad. Is AI with students, AI with students? Yes, it must be I, I don't know if I was studying architecture again, it'd be tempted to whack out the AI doing your projects and all this stuff.

00:43:57:05 - 00:44:14:13
Unknown
Do you think? Do you have any advice on someone like that? From what I got from what you said is, is human. That is direct to that. Do you think that's going to be more important than ever when it can be very tempting to. I mean, let's think about what you can use. AI is is the info right, and stuff, visualizing.

00:44:14:18 - 00:44:36:16
Unknown
Yeah. And the design. Yeah. I read tempted. Right. Yeah, yeah. But I mean also if you, if you zoom out, I think academia needs to connect more to the industry. Yeah. So in the university you could ban ChatGPT and Gemini, but in practice when these people come in, they're going to have to use it. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

00:44:36:18 - 00:44:59:08
Unknown
And we you know, a lot of companies will really start putting this in their requirements for in a job description on what they hire for. So I don't think we should shy away from it. I think what we do needs to evolve it. It should again, it should be more strategic. It should be more about the idea then, how you articulate it.

00:44:59:08 - 00:45:21:02
Unknown
I think the value of the human in the loop in this process is, you know, your lived experience, the places that you've been to, the as an organization, the eight years of experience that we draw up on, the regions that we've worked. And that is not going to be, and how you use them to make decisions isn't going to be replaced by AI.

00:45:21:03 - 00:45:44:06
Unknown
Yeah. So I think if I was a student, I would try and really kind of first think about what is it that really drives me. Yeah, I would double down on where my curiosity leads me. It could, you know, you could become a generalist. You could become a specialist. But it is very hard. You know, if I was starting year one of a seven year program.

00:45:44:06 - 00:46:07:01
Unknown
Yeah. I just told you, seven years from now, I don't know what what the industry is going to look like. We'll see. Isn't that right? It's changing so fast. Yeah, but if there is something that that drives you, that moves you, that maybe your experience, is going to help you do better? I don't think that you should have kind of shy away from that.

00:46:07:03 - 00:46:33:12
Unknown
I think it's always going to be about working to your strengths. Again, I think what what will happen is create, you know, creation might get commoditized, but creativity will be where the value is placed. Yeah. Fat. You know, pack a little bit more advice for me now. So back in the day when you were doing that, it's kind of a brave shift really from mainstream architectures, kind of the focus.

00:46:33:14 - 00:46:55:16
Unknown
That's what people expect you to do. You made that decision to do a supportive and strategic role, tech enabled in the Arctic to be the best they can. Now I see a little bit more of these roles. Like you have a formal type of stuff. Do you have any advice for people who passionate like yourself on this and want to make that switch over?

00:46:55:16 - 00:47:17:01
Unknown
Because it's not like this, a certificate that goes, congrats, you're now attack leads. Now how do you start making that switch over? Do you have any advice? Yeah. So I think, I always come back to kind of curiosity, I think you have to be very true to yourself. Yeah, right. Can't put yourself in a box where you don't belong.

00:47:17:03 - 00:47:39:18
Unknown
And that's been a struggle of my career quite a lot. Right. It's easier to explain at a dinner party that I'm an architect. Who does this than. Oh, I do this very esoteric thing that enables designers to do better. And so we'll go. Wow. Yeah. So double down on your curiosity, but then also really think about positioning.

00:47:39:18 - 00:48:02:22
Unknown
Yeah. And how you positioning yourself, to kind of solve the problem before a lot of people know what the problem is. Right. So like don't put yourself in boxes, you know, for me it's, you know, so I've had job offers. Where do you want to be been manager or do you want to be x y z.

00:48:02:22 - 00:48:24:11
Unknown
But if you don't fit into those boxes it's okay to not be in those boxes. Yeah. And I think this is my advice to anyone in this time is get comfortable with ambiguity. Yeah, right. The roles that you probably want don't exist yet. You might have to write the job description, to get to those roles.

00:48:24:13 - 00:48:43:11
Unknown
And then even when you get to those roles, there's going to be a lot of ambiguity, right? There's going to be a lot of uncertainty around what your day to day looks like. It could get very abstract. It could get very technical. It could get very esoteric. But I think, you know, if you are very curious about something.

00:48:43:11 - 00:49:05:10
Unknown
Yeah, naturally, you end up spending your evenings and weekends, on, on a lot of this. Right? So my, my thing has always been, make your weekend into your job. Right. Well, and so the things when I was working as an architectural assistant, the things that I would do on the weekends are now things that I do on a day to day job.

00:49:05:16 - 00:49:27:06
Unknown
But, so I think. Yeah. It's, it's a very, you know, dynamic time, there is a lot of uncertainty, a lot of ambiguity. But I think to do anything new, it's always going to be on. You can have two ways of looking at it. It's either uncharted waters or it's blue water. Yeah. Right.

00:49:27:11 - 00:49:48:21
Unknown
Now I found that. And if we flip this script slightly, let's pretend now you have a role on your team because I explore then come to everything. Yeah. So what kind of thing would you look for if you were expanding your team now? So on this good hat, if anyone's thinking about applying. Yeah. What kind of things stand out for you?

00:49:48:21 - 00:50:12:05
Unknown
I have a personal qualities or things that you would see in someone's experience or portfolio. Yeah. So, I mean, already, you know, coming to Benoi, we started with nothing. Now we have a team of 6 or 7 people globally. Typically when I'm hiring, I look for, a few things. One is, definitely your, social abilities.

00:50:12:08 - 00:50:31:07
Unknown
Because what I find is that especially when you're doing something super technical, you've got to have great people skills. Otherwise you just end up, you know, in one corner, sitting on your computer doing your thing that no one knows about. Yeah, right. You're that guy in the corner. Yeah. Which which? No one talks there. No one knows what's going on.

00:50:31:08 - 00:50:53:14
Unknown
And you could be, you know, doing the most groundbreaking work. But if you can't scale that, then, I think it becomes challenging. Yeah. Right. So social skills are definitely one. Second is I like to work with people who are tool agnostic. Right. So what does that mean? Agnostic? Meaning you're not a BIM specialist.

00:50:53:14 - 00:51:14:15
Unknown
You're not a grasshopper specialist. You're not a, Unreal Engine specialist. I got you, you're someone who can wear a lot of hats, who thinks about technology in a more holistic manner, like, like aiming for the goal. We will do what we need. 100 000, right. I only know real everything is not a rabbit problem. Sorry, that's not my forte.

00:51:14:18 - 00:51:36:00
Unknown
Know. They're like, come on, we need to design an output that's never been done 100%. So again, I think with the ambiguity. The tool agnostic feature. What what you get is you when you when we're looking at complex problems, the solutions often involve you weaving different software together. Right. So you can't just be in that wheelhouse.

00:51:36:02 - 00:51:59:10
Unknown
You have to be a little bit more. You've got to think systems rather than think rabbit families or a grasshopper script. So then. Right. So be a systems thinker. And typically what I love, with people in my team is, curiosity. So they'll figure out, hey, there's a new tool. I'm going to spend a couple days figuring this out.

00:51:59:12 - 00:52:20:15
Unknown
And then three days later, I see them teaching other people how to use these tools. Right. So the ability to very quickly learn by getting your hands dirty going into the tool, spending, time understanding what this means, and then very quickly being able to teach it to other people, having the scale. And again, that comes back to the people skills.

00:52:20:15 - 00:52:49:04
Unknown
Right? I think even for me, most softwares I've learned is because I had to teach them, and I find that to be a, a really interesting way to kind of become an expert in something you learn by doing as well as and I'm, I mean, and it changes so much. So I mean, maybe someone's stumbled upon this video or podcast because they really like the topic and they might know a little bit about the night.

00:52:49:04 - 00:53:06:21
Unknown
They might know a lot. They might not know anything just yet. So you've talked about you've built up this team, you have a bit of a culture. Yeah. Which is great. I mean, I know it it's very welcoming and all that cool stuff. But how would you describe the Benoi environment for anyone that's not familiar with the knowing?

00:53:06:23 - 00:53:29:18
Unknown
So Benoi, we are a global design firm. We are very actively global. You know, we've had kind of offices all over the world. We are multi-disciplinary. We're integrated. So within within this building, at various on various floors, you'll find various teams. We have an architecture team, we have an urban design team.

00:53:29:18 - 00:53:56:00
Unknown
We have an entire design team. We have a landscape architecture team. We have a graphic, graphic design, branded environments team. And very interestingly, we have a strategic strategy team, right. Who's whose day job is crunching data on developing insights for real estate. So integrated design services, really international culture. We love being contextual. We don't have a style.

00:53:56:01 - 00:54:28:20
Unknown
We our style is to deliver great buildings where communities thrive. You know, I try to deliver a built environment for the communities. And within that, what what that means is, you know, we want you to be authentically yourself. We want you to be the authentic version of yourself, because we work and, you know, very kind of varied markets from the Middle East, Southeast Asia to India to Central Asia to the UK, Europe, North America.

00:54:28:22 - 00:55:08:02
Unknown
So kind of that authenticity in your lived experience, who you are? Is key. Because we want you to be that, as we're kind of talking about. Sorry. There we go. Wave attracting energy conscious, environmentally sustainable process as well. Yeah. Yeah. And, where I think people excel here is when they are very curious, they, you know, we, we have the infrastructure to enable a lot of this design technology team, enabling teams, do a lot of interesting work.

00:55:08:04 - 00:55:37:21
Unknown
And, yeah, a global studio, with kind of local intelligence and so quite exciting. I was going to ask as well, in particular, because it's not just about me on the podcast asking you any questions, but them before we end. I mean, people should get in contact with Brunei, all that good stuff as well. Is there any burning things that you wanted to ask me in particular, or wanted to bring up any important thoughts we want to pick my brains on?

00:55:38:00 - 00:56:07:02
Unknown
Yeah, so I would I'd be very curious. You obviously talk to a whole. Yeah, different, you know, group of people. What are some of the macro trends that you see, that are at play right now? You know, how are people kind of feeling about AI or where the industry is going? Yeah, I think it's really my thoughts are it's driven by the passion of the field and the embracing being embraced by the company and large.

00:56:07:04 - 00:56:32:01
Unknown
I'm still quite amazed. I mean, I think of what you're saying, even the conversations are ahead of the curve. I think that every business because even my business, the architecture, social, the opportunity of AI at the back end, not even design, even anything is insane. Yeah. Data entry, doing all this stuff so I think is quite exciting.

00:56:32:03 - 00:56:56:01
Unknown
But I'm still amazed how little it is used in business. You said something which I thought was really interesting earlier about building enterprise pieces of AI software. Now, what I took from that you terms from wrong is that you were on about building something in-house, protected everything so people don't realize you can just if you put files into ChatGPT, it sucks it up and learns from it and then that's gone.

00:56:56:01 - 00:57:19:22
Unknown
So even me, I prefer the user interface as ChatGPT, but we use Copilot and it's actually built on ChatGPT. I don't like the interface as much, but the reason why that's quite important is because all your information is protected in that in, in within the tenant. That's that it would. So I think people aren't using it enough.

00:57:19:24 - 00:57:44:09
Unknown
And it's amazing. And probably the stuff that you're doing is radically ahead of the industry. But I think that even people use it a little bit as I had a more mouth. I don't know, I think out there, it's not like I think you're ahead and the other thing that's interesting, I'd love to get your perspective because you are there are a few people like yourself in the architecture industry in London, and there's like, you got the Rhino meetups.

00:57:44:09 - 00:58:04:08
Unknown
Yeah. And you got maybe you got an AI meetup, but these are 30 to 40 passionate people like yourself that is leaving it, but that's it. I so I have a mix. I don't think it's. Yeah. That head out there as you think. And I don't think people will use AI for many years, but I think they will get left behind.

00:58:04:10 - 00:58:25:10
Unknown
Well, I don't know, I don't know. He isn't that. We'll see. But I think what, what you kind of touched on there, there's a few kind of interesting ideas there. I see a lot of people using ChatGPT as a therapist. As a friend. Oh, you know, someone to talk to, ask questions off.

00:58:25:10 - 00:58:54:22
Unknown
Hey, this didn't quite work out today. What do I do? Right? So people are naturally getting themselves used to, this technology. Yeah. Where I think enterprise AI, why even the need to build enterprise AI, is, for me, large language models in general are trained to go to the average. Right. And the least common denominator is something that everyone can agree upon, something that's acceptable to everyone.

00:58:54:24 - 00:59:17:12
Unknown
And, you know, they're built to be a little bit addictive. Sycophantic. I know what you mean. Right? Wow, Steve, that's so good that they'll never end a conversation with you. Right? But when we're building an enterprise AI, we want the ability of, you know, the cloud or, the ChatGPT models, but we want them to behave slightly differently.

00:59:17:14 - 00:59:39:02
Unknown
We want them to not hallucinate as much. Yeah. When we're asking, how do I know in my Revit families, I'm not asking you about how everyone names you're derived from these. I'm asking you how I benoi, because we usually haven't found that important because the hallucinations used to be off the chain. Yeah, yeah. And I think with AI, it's I view it like a fantastic assistant.

00:59:39:02 - 01:00:03:24
Unknown
But you really need to double check things 100%. Yeah. You can't take it at face value. No. Especially if you're making decisions with it. Yeah. If you are, making decisions about, you know, how to position yourself in a beard or things like that. Eventually, if it's your, if it's your name on the email, then it doesn't matter if the AI is written it, it's it's coming from you.

01:00:03:24 - 01:00:22:11
Unknown
Yeah, right. And that's where I think enterprise AI, is, in my opinion, going to be the future of how a lot of businesses look at it. Because we take these general models and then we build layers around them off. You know, how we want them to behave. So a little bit of personality and things like that.

01:00:22:13 - 01:00:48:22
Unknown
We also build integrations into, you know, your HR data, your finance data, your CRM data. And then we, leverage our internal data sets so that when we're asking questions off our assistant, the answers are going to be a lot more, a lot less hallucinatory. But then also very interestingly, we're setting up benchmarks and evaluations for these models, right?

01:00:48:23 - 01:01:09:15
Unknown
So when we're building a new, when we're, releasing a new version of Benoi assistant, we have our internal evaluation frameworks. So we give it a PDF, ask a question and look at what the answers are. Do the same tasks by humans, compare what the difference is and then use that to then think about, you know, does the back end need to be different.

01:01:09:15 - 01:01:36:17
Unknown
So on the same on the visualization side, when we when we're using AI Visualizers, again, that we've built, I always tell teams, start off with your sketches or your models, don't don't let I be in the driver's seat as great as a copilot or in the passenger seat. It'll help you go a lot faster. But if you let I go to the driver's seat, it's going to end up as very generic, very average output.

01:01:36:19 - 01:02:12:08
Unknown
I learned the hard way. I have a website. All this stuff go. Yeah. You have been great. That's fine. I did the post and then you get someone's name wrong and you're like now I look bad. Yeah I got em. Maybe the last thing I can say is so I didn't get in hot water but I had a very yeah divisive post I army where I said I believe that the perfect use of AI is to help with the first draft of the cover in that, now online, I think some people misinterpreted that me as saying, you just fill out a cabinet and forget it.

01:02:12:10 - 01:02:39:14
Unknown
No, I think you said the first draft, right? First draft now, but there was immediately this reaction of or defending the traditional way I can that you, you need to write it by hand. Takes the point out I can see that. Yeah, but in a commercial world, yeah. If you're, you're reading and signing off on the first second draft and then you add the human touch to the end, I personally think that's okay.

01:02:39:17 - 01:03:01:12
Unknown
Yeah. What's your feeling on that relationship with. No. You should do it properly first. Yeah. Do we use it well properly. You can't get away from that. It has to be proper whether you've done it by yourself or you've done it, using an AI to help you with that. Because fundamentally, accountability still lies with the person who's sending that email.

01:03:01:12 - 01:03:36:02
Unknown
Yeah. Sending that cover letter. Right. But I don't think we can stay away from it for too long now just because the efficiency gains, to be had are, are incredible, right? If you can have the thorough put off 5 or 6 people if you use AI in the right way. Yeah. Right. And then when you're thinking about this in a commercial setting, you know, in an environment where projects are getting tighter, margins are getting tighter, you need the ability to kind of move at scale.

01:03:36:02 - 01:04:07:12
Unknown
Yeah, move faster. And also, the reality is, at least in the construction industry, we haven't really seen productivity gains, compared to manufacturing or a lot of other industries that have enabled a lot of automation. So we need to be more productive as an industry. I think I can help you with, like I said, the first draft, the second draft, but then if you build, you know, intelligence into these AI systems, they can kind of give you their favorites.

01:04:07:17 - 01:04:37:14
Unknown
They'll get you to the 90%. Yeah. And then you can go, yeah, great. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Maybe. Well, yes, I would think so. It is still your, you know, it's still you who's, who's sending that email or sending that cover letter. So the accountability still lies with you. But I mean, you know, if you think about this effort, I think it's also a great kind of democratization exercise.

01:04:37:14 - 01:04:56:14
Unknown
Right. If English wasn't my first language, which it isn't. Maybe it's a little bit harder for me to write a cover letter. Maybe if I have learning difficulties, maybe it's a little bit harder for me to do certain things if it can help me, get on the same playing field. Because I know the value that I can bring.

01:04:56:16 - 01:05:16:05
Unknown
And it's not that cover letter. It's what that cover letter will get me, which is that interview and the conversation we have. That's what's going to drive, you know, the hiring decision. Nothing else. Okay. Yeah, I'm. I'm okay with that. The last thing I want to write about, I, is I think people need to use it a lot to learn.

01:05:16:05 - 01:05:41:24
Unknown
As in, I've seen bad outputs. I've seen the difference between fast think and CRO on jam that talked about. Yeah, a research paper using different eyes, how many sources you should do. And, and I think that's made me better using the AI so that I can see if there's a garbage output. Yeah. So on that notion, truly, I think people should have to use it so they know what garbage I output is.

01:05:42:04 - 01:06:02:10
Unknown
Yeah. And your, your using your kind of editorial, capacity there. Right. So I, I totally agree with you, I think, I don't think it, I mean, it is foundational technology. That can help you in a lot of ways, but at the same time, it's a tool. Yeah. Right. It's not, it's a very powerful tool.

01:06:02:13 - 01:06:31:16
Unknown
Yeah. But it's still a tool. And, you know, you as an actor, using a tool to do something. I don't see it any different than using the word count feature. Slightly different, but, you know, I know you mean, it's part of the process. It's part of the process. Right. So I think eventually, you know, how we how this kind of comes into the day to day of what we do, which I think a lot of it already has.

01:06:31:16 - 01:06:57:12
Unknown
I mean, the amount of LinkedIn posts that you see right now that I generated, the comments that you see that I generated, we are starting to see a lot of AI slop, which isn't great. But, you know, people are using AI in all sorts of interesting ways as well. Obviously we have to we also cognizant that this is, you know, a challenging sustainability problem.

01:06:57:12 - 01:07:15:17
Unknown
But our. Yeah, I also believe that, you know, without AI we haven't been much better at it. Yeah. So can we use AI then to to do that better. That's something that well even while we were talking the lights went off. Yeah. But I joke around. But that's because we're sustainably conscious. But maybe that's something that we unpack together.

01:07:15:17 - 01:07:42:09
Unknown
I mean, I mean, data center is a very fast, secure sector for an architect to work. And yeah, I don't see it going any other way. I think the horse has bolted. Right. Yeah, yeah. I don't think there is closing of the Pandora's box anymore. No. But at the same time, my view on this is what are you using this to do when, the construction industry still accountable for 70% of global carbon emissions?

01:07:42:09 - 01:08:08:20
Unknown
Yeah, right. Can we use AI to really solve or address those problems? Right. So it's about in finance they they call it capital efficiency. But how much money are you putting in versus what its output is. If and I, I'm a big believer in this, that we can use AI to ask those important questions that deliver better buildings, that I think have a much, much bigger impact.

01:08:08:21 - 01:08:37:01
Unknown
Yeah. Than, you know, not doing it, because, again, the reality is, you know, without AI, without technology, humans haven't been that much better, at, you know, doing things sustainably or, really pushing, through sophisticated solutions that, that meaningfully address these problems. So I think if I helps us unlock a lot of this, I think that's good.

01:08:37:01 - 01:09:08:20
Unknown
And we have already seen that play out in, in different spheres. Right. So, if you think about the alpha, AlphaFold, from Google that solved the protein folding problem, that unlocked a whole new series of biotech research, new RNA therapeutics, new ways of doing, therapies in, you know, very challenging diseases that would not have been possible.

01:09:08:22 - 01:09:36:17
Unknown
Yeah. Without I got it right. So for me, it's about using or wielding or channeling AI to solve the right problems. Because I think, you know, I mean, our brains great at computation, but I think a lot of these solutions are breaking down silos. Right? So in a business setting, HR will have a lot of information, financial team will have a lot of information.

01:09:36:17 - 01:09:59:19
Unknown
Commercial team will have a lot of information. But breaking down these silos I think requires the technology layer on. Suddenly with our benign assistant, we can ask questions that tap into HR data and finance data and commercial data to give you an answer that would traditionally take, you know, you calling 5 or 6 people and maybe getting an answer in a couple of weeks or quite.

01:09:59:21 - 01:10:20:21
Unknown
I'm quite excited about eight, I think. Is it Mozart should be excited about it. So if people were excited about either they were excited about the tax base potentially working with you. They want to learn a bit more about benign. How can they get in contact with you? I think I'm very easy to reach out to. Yeah.

01:10:20:21 - 01:10:40:20
Unknown
I, I don't give you a personal, I, I don't know if there's anyone out there any way to. I'm joking. No, I typically the best way to reach me is through LinkedIn. Yeah. I'm also very kind of active within the tech community here. Yeah. So events, conferences, things like that. I like to think I'm very approachable.

01:10:40:22 - 01:11:01:08
Unknown
So you can just come on and chat with me. Always happy to talk. But, yeah. Easiest way to to get to me is, is probably through LinkedIn. Brilliant. Well, I really appreciate you inviting me in here and so on that. Now, I just want to say thank you for everyone who's watched this. If you want to connect with me, you can find them on LinkedIn.

01:11:01:10 - 01:11:18:17
Unknown
You can also find Benali at the Nikon P and a y.com. It's dot com and there it is.com. Frank, I've made that mistake before I go down the road and it's a codec. But get in touch and let's see as well. Maybe in a year or two we'll look back and there'll be a million new things.

01:11:18:17 - 01:11:26:07
Unknown
But until then, thank you very much, everyone. Thank you. Thank you Steven. Thank you. Cool. Cheers. There we go. Thank