Exploring Integration of Artificial Intelligence in Construction Bid Automation: A Review Approach

Abstract

This paper explores artificial intelligence (AI) integration in construction bid automation. The literature review suggests that currently, construction firms generally rely extensively on manual processes to produce their technical and commercial bid proposals. The problem with this existing practice in many firms is that it often requires extensive manual inputs and resources to execute most of the activities in the process. However, there is often a relatively short bidding time frame, poor quality information, loss of organisational knowledge from staff turnover, and limitations to human ability. A literature review of 21 purposively selected relevant articles was carried out to explore AI applications, automation strategies, and digitalization efforts within the bidding process and to propose an AI-based theoretical bid automation model. The findings reveal that while AI has been applied to specific tasks such as cost estimation, risk assessment, and document analysis, no unified AI-driven framework exists for automating the bid preparation process in construction sector. The main contribution of the study to current knowledge and practice is the development of a theoretical bid automation model designed to minimize human input in the bid preparation process, which could serve as a blueprint for informing the actual development process of the model/tool. Such a model/tool will be handy in times/seasons when firms have a high volume of bids to prepare within short bidding timeframes, with limited human resources, and it is beneficial to draw on historical information from previous projects.