As the construction industry simultaneously grapples with a tightening labor market and the increasing complexity of large-scale projects, Trimble executives at CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2026 laid out a roadmap for navigating these challenges through a strategy of "connected scale.”
At a media session during the show, Rob Painter, President and CEO, Mark Schwartz, Senior Vice President AECO Software, and Ron Bisio, Senior Vice President Field Systems, explained the impact of connecting data, people, and workflows.
The most pressing challenge cited by the panel is the persistent shortage of skilled labor. To bridge the gap, technology acts as a "force multiplier," they said, allowing fewer people to accomplish more with higher precision.
Artificial intelligence, which can automate repetitive or highly technical tasks, plays a large part in increasing efficiency. Painter sees Trimble well-positioned to incorporate the changing face of AI.
"We have hardware and software elements, and we're able to connect those like railroad tracks, which is the perfect ground plane for AI, what's going to happen with agentic AI, how data is moved around,” he said.
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In some trades like mechanical and electrical, AI can speed takeoff by up to 60 percent by automating the data collection, Painter said.
“One of our customers is able to demonstrate millions of dollars of labor savings by applying AI to this process,” he said.
In addition, “The force multiplier on top of that is building it into workflows,” Painter said. “We can link an asphalt profile to the work that actually needs to get done, send those work orders out, be able to capture the asphalt condition when that work is done, [and] feed it back into a system of records.”
AI is also being deployed to remove friction — delays, errors, and manual data entry — that often bogs down construction projects.
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For instance, after scanners, vehicle-mounted mobile mapping systems, or other technologies capture point clouds, “We’ve deployed machine learning — AI — to actually go from reality capture right through to making actionable data of that,” Bisio said.
Another focus area has been making sure the right versions of design files get to the machines performing the work.
“You can imagine dozers out there doing a bunch of work without the right design,” Bisio said. “AI can help check and verify that each dozer has the right design file, has the current design file — and that keeps the project moving.”
As projects grow in complexity, managing the flow of data from initial design through construction to final handover becomes vital.
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“The amount of data created during the production of an infrastructure project is massive, and having that data available to multiple stakeholders simultaneously is really important for coordination,” Schwartz said. “Imagine a project in middle school where you have three people independently working on the same project at three different places, but [they] couldn't talk and couldn't see what the other person was doing. It would be almost impossible to create a seamless use of time.”
To help keep the digital thread unbroken, Trimble has been moving toward an open ecosystem, with data available to various stakeholders and integrations.
“Over the last couple years, [Bisio’s] team and my team have worked tirelessly together to have it be one seamless platform to execute — no matter what type of project use, no matter what hardware you're using, no matter what software you're using — so all that data is available for all of the stakeholders to access and work on together to get a seamless result on time and on budget,” Schwartz said.
Technology like machine control also contributes to task precision. The sweet spot, Bisio said, is productivity combined with accuracy to eliminate rework.
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Going forward, “We need to attract more people into the industry, and technology is a way to do that,” Painter said.
The panel stressed the importance of outreach. Trimble is investing in the future workforce through several key initiatives:
- Higher education — including Trimble Technology Labs within universities, community college sponsorships, and working with unions so that, as people learn the trades, they also learn the technology
- ACE Mentor program — providing scholarships, mentorship, and technology support to students
- K-12 — exposing younger students to the evolving, tech-heavy roles in modern construction
By combining advanced, AI-driven tools with a robust educational pipeline, the industry can transform infrastructure challenges into opportunities for growth, efficiency, and sustainability.
“Better, faster, safer, cheaper, and greener — that’s the customer outcome for adopting technology,” Painter said.
