While organisations like the Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) have driven innovation and funding for Building Information Modelling (BIM), Stewart describes the current state of digitalisation in Scotland as a “mixed bag”. The primary obstacle, he contends, is not the cost of technology but a critical shortage of skills and time within design teams.

With 40 years of experience in the AEC sector, Stewart offers a pragmatic and experienced perspective on why the promised digital utopia has yet to materialise.

“Now there’s a focus on delivering good data,” Stewart explains, “and that’s where a lot of people are struggling”. He maintains that the industry has become adept at producing drawings, but the shift towards delivering intelligent, usable data for the client requires a different skillset that overstretched teams often lack the capacity to develop.

This gap between expectation and reality has created what Stewart calls the “data time bomb”. Clients are being promised vast amounts of data, but delivery teams, despite signing up to the process, are often unable to provide it to the required standard. “Data is very black and white,” he warns. “You can validate it a lot quicker and more precisely… that will cause a lot of people ending up in court.”

Stewart also observes a cultural “reluctance to engage” on projects. Teams may commit to collaborative digital processes initially, but pressure on timelines and resources often leads them to revert to siloed working methods, keeping information managers “at arm’s length”.

Looking to the future, Stewart sees artificial intelligence (AI) as the latest technology promising to “solve the world”. However, he cautions against viewing it as a replacement for human expertise. “AI should be here to enhance or advise, not replace”, he states, stressing the danger of relying on it without the experience to perform a “sanity check” on its output.

The path forward, according to Stewart, involves a fundamental rethink of what value means. Rather than being sold a dream of “you can have absolutely everything”, the focus should be on efficiency and quality. “I always like to describe BIM as delivering the least amount possible, but to the best possible quality and benefit to everybody”, he says. This requires consultants to understand what clients truly need, and for delivery teams to ask not why they must deliver data, but how they can do it most efficiently.

Having recently stepped down as CEO of Digital Guerrilla, the information management consultancy he founded, Stewart will bring his insights as a seasoned consultant to the summit, urging delegates to take a hard look at their processes and work towards a more meaningful and valuable digital future.

Tickets for the Scottish Construction Summit, delivered by Scottish Construction Now, are available here.