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2 July 2025
Case Studies
BuildPrompt’s AI revolutionises HS2’s document verification
2 July 2025
BuildPrompt and HS2 won the Best Use of AI category at the Digital Construction Awards 2025.
BuildPrompt’s AI solution for HS2 revolutionises infrastructure project documentation verification, transforming a critical but previously unaddressed challenge. By automating the analysis of complex verification and validation matrices (VVM), it has turned a two-week manual process into an operation completed in less than 35 seconds.
HS2’s requirements management team faced a huge documentation challenge: 37,983 requirements spanning 19 areas and 89 modules across 34 major contracts; the team received approximately 20 Single Assurance Packs monthly, each containing verification documentation requiring multiple reviews.
What the judges said
“The measurable benefits and scalability make this the strongest entry in terms of both innovation and impact. The focus on digital handover speaks to many pain points within industry, particularly on such a noteworthy project.”
The manual review process was unsustainable:
- each VVM contained 800-plus rows across 12-plus columns;
- contract guidelines mandated two-week review cycles, consuming 33,860 person-days;
- documents required multiple iterations between HS2 and contractors, causing delays;
- technical debt accumulated as SMEs struggled to process complex files;
- integration risks emerged when compliance issues compounded across assets;
- risk acceptance occurred when reviews were incomplete; and
- cumulative compliance assessment became impossible across numerous contracts.
Previous mitigation attempts using PowerBI and external contractors proved inadequate due to data complexity and inconsistency.
BuildPrompt’s solution combines multiple AI approaches:
- document intelligence to process and understand complex, structured Excel-based VVMs, regardless of formatting inconsistencies;
- natural language processing analyses evidential citations and descriptive text to extract meaning and verify compliance assertions;
- knowledge graph integration maps relationships between requirements, assets, evidence documents, and compliance status;
- classification algorithms identify compliance issues and automatically assign appropriate compliance codes;
- generative AI creates natural language summaries of non-compliance issues and recommended actions.
Other finalists
BuildAudit | BRE Group/Enable My Team/Imperial College/UNIT9/Reusefully
Cost Validation Tool | DMRC
Sweco AI Ecosystem | Sweco UK & Ireland
UK BIM Framework: Ask Morta AI | nima/Morta
The system operates through a custom web platform with a specialised AI workflow. The impact is substantial: an estimated £5.6m in efficiency savings while reducing project risks and technical debt.
The Digital Construction Awards are organised by Digital Construction Week, the Chartered Institute of Building, Construction Management and DC+. To find out more about the Awards and enquire about sponsorship or entering next year’s event, visit digitalconstructionawards.co.uk.
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