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What are specifiers and designers using AI for?

Justin Stanton

Editor, DC+

9 December 2025

Technical information searches top the list of what specifiers and designers are using AI for, according to research from NBS.

Image of someone typing a prompt into an AI platform. Image: 303143856 | Ai Prompt © Tero Vesalainen | Dreamstime.com — Image: Ai Prompt © Tero Vesalainen | Dreamstime.com

Among a raft of topics, the Digital Construction Report 2025 from NBS reveals the answer to the question: “Which workflows does AI currently assist you with?” Nearly 600 built environment professionals took part in the survey, two-thirds of whom identify as consultants, designers or specifiers.

Nearly three-quarters of the respondents said they used AI for technical information searches. Nearly two-thirds also stated they used it for drafting and reviewing text, and for analysing data. More than half use AI to summarise documents, while nearly half use it for calculations and design generation.

ChatGPT is the most popular AI tool of choice, with nearly 90% of respondents using it. Microsoft Copilot is next, used by more than half. Google Gemini is used by more than a third, while more than a fifth of respondents use company-specific AI tools.

Asked about their attitude to AI, more than half thought it would have a positive impact. About half also expect AI to improve productivity, safety, sustainability and reliability. While nearly half strongly agreed that AI will reduce staff numbers, less than a third strongly disagreed that AI will threaten professions.

Carbon data

The report also delved into carbon data and digital product passports (DPPs). NBS found that digital technologies are increasingly used to calculate various metrics indicating environmental sustainability. Indeed, NBS notes “a dramatic acceleration in these practices”.

Embodied carbon measurement has grown from 40% in the 2023 report to 60.3% in the latest report, while energy demand assessment has increased from 38% to 64.2%. Lifecycle analysis adoption has risen from 32% to 50.4%, while waste calculation has grown to 45.8%. “Perhaps most significantly, only 15.4% of respondents don’t use digital technologies for these assessments,” NBS said.

Furthermore, NBS mused that “information advantage is becoming competitive advantage”. It proposed that the construction industry’s relationship with product data is evolving from reactive information management to proactive data strategy. “In an increasingly complex and demanding construction environment, information quality and accessibility have become as critical as product quality itself. Therefore, as regulatory requirements evolve and client expectations shift toward greater transparency, organisations with robust product data infrastructure will find themselves well-positioned to meet market demands,” NBS said.

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Topics:

AI NBS product data

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