Contractors attending a recent Toronto Construction Association technology panel session heard there’s no secret formula for successful tech adoption in Ontario’s construction industry.
Rather, panellists at the mid-May session asserted, excellence in tech implementation ultimately comes down to familiar strategies – great leadership and the pursuit of a strong innovation culture.
Panel moderator Mark Casaletto, the founder of A20 Insights and former president of ConstructConnect Canada, said it’s no longer a matter of deciding to participate in the new technology wave in the sector – it’s come down to “adopt or die.”
“The future is now,” said Casaletto. “There’s nobody really saying, ‘I’m not doing it.’ Everybody wants to do it, but some are doing it really well, and some are not doing it well.”
TCA CEO John Mollenhauer said it has never been more challenging to build in southwestern Ontario.
“When you are looking for ways to overcome a challenge, be cost competitive, meet your clients’ ultimate goals in terms of time, quality, cost, then you have to innovate.
“If you’re not already on the train, it may already be too late,” he said of the technology wave. “This isn’t about ‘it’s coming.’ This is, ‘without it you can’t survive.’”
The TCA Members’ Day panel was billed as The Adoption Gap: Why Some Firms Thrive with Tech While Others Don’t. The panellists included Bryce Jones, vice-president and Toronto area manager at Modern Niagara; Shawn Watts, founder and CEO of Corfix; and Terry Olynyk, founder of BLDscale Consulting.
Casaletto and Mollenhauer offered highlights of the discussion following the session.
Successful leaders in the sector do not prescribe strict tech pathways and solutions, said the moderator.
People ‘freak out’
“Your leaders need to create an environment where there is a certain element of patience, there’s a certain element of allowing for flexibility, for people to be able to make mistakes, adjust and learn,” Casaletto said. “You need to assemble a leadership ideology that allows you to always be in a position where you can adapt, adjust, because no plan goes as planned, that’s life.
“People in our industry, especially, they freak out because time is money. But at the end of the day, you need to create that culture, you need that leadership.”
A 2025 survey of the industry by KPMG and the Canadian Construction Association found 90 per cent of Canadian construction leaders say the industry must adopt advanced tech – AI, BIM, analytics – to meet demand.
Eighty-one per cent said recent tech investments have improved productivity and 53 per cent are actively prioritizing AI-driven tools.
AI was a “lightning rod” at the TCA event, Casaletto said. The consensus, he said, was that would-be users should not be “afraid” of AI, rather they should be experimenting with it, testing it and “playing” with it, and not just in the business, but personally.
“Just get it into your daily rhythm,” said Casaletto. “Get comfortable with it. Don’t be afraid, embrace it.”
AI by itself is not a solution, said Casaletto, it’s an “opportunity” that only works well with clean, structured data. Successful practitioners will nurture an environment where they are confident they can mine good data and enable AI to transform their business.
“It will transform the companies you work with. It’ll transform how you deliver projects,” Casaletto said. “But if you have bad data and unstructured data, using AI could be really dangerous.”
AI already dominates
Mollenhauer said AI already dominates the construction sector, without some users even knowing it – everyone uses software powered by AI.
Recent graduates enter the sector bringing new AI tools, he said, and it’s clear there is no need for new code writing – “AI does it,” he said.
Investments in AI-powered tech provide quick returns and pay “enormous dividends, off-the-charts dividends,” making a “profound difference,” Mollenhauer said.
He said he expected TCA members to be inspired by the opportunities they heard at Members’ Day.
“I think they will go back to their offices and start looking for ways they can become more innovative, ways they can use some of these tools to not get left
behind.”
Looking ahead, Mollenhauer said, there could be more innovation in the next couple of years than there have been in the last 50.
“We’re talking about an era of exponential change,” he remarked.
