From Data Overload to Data Value in the AEC industry

The construction industry is often described as slow to adapt, but that criticism only tells part of the story. Across the AEC industry, there are skilled practitioners, enthusiastic adopters and genuine champions of change. The bigger issue is not whether the industry is changing, but whether it is changing in ways that solve the right problems.

From drawing boards and typewriters to digital twins and AI, the industry has made huge technological strides. Yet in the rush to adopt new tools, pragmatism can get lost. Too often, the focus shifts to what technology can produce rather than what project teams and operators actually need: information that is useful, concise and fit for purpose.

Across all roles, all projects and industry developments, that appetite for information has only grown. The result is often overcomplicated outputs, expanding requirements and little challenge as to whether all of it is necessary. The real question is not how much data can be produced, but what responsibility the industry has for creating, maintaining and using it well.

Classification systems illustrate the point. Multiple frameworks, constant updates and limited one-to-one mapping have added complexity across projects and teams. As the industry moves further from plain language into coded structures, many end users, clients and even project professionals are left unclear about what the information means or how it should be applied. When a requirement cannot be clearly justified beyond funding or process, it is fair to ask whether it is delivering value at all.

When compliance outpaces usefulness

This becomes most visible when funding requirements prescribe specific deliverables, such as COBie, in the name of standardisation. In principle, standardisation should improve consistency and transferability. In practice, it can overlook the actual needs of the end user, producing large volumes of structured information where a well-organised digital O&M manual may have delivered more value.

The return on investment becomes even harder to defend when mandated outputs do not work cleanly with operational systems. COBie is a clear example. If a schema or IFC export cannot be directly imported into the CAFM platform that will ultimately manage the asset, teams are forced into additional rounds of checking, transforming, mapping and reworking data just to make it usable. That process consumes time, budget and effort across clients, designers and contractors, even when only a fraction of the original data set proves useful. At that point, the issue is no longer compliance; it is inefficiency by design.

A more effective starting point is simple: define the format, structure and level of information that the receiving system can actually use. That alone can reduce overengineering, unnecessary processing and the cost of producing data with little operational purpose.

The hidden cost of poor information discipline

When information management becomes a tick-box exercise, volume starts to masquerade as value. Teams generate, store and preserve vast quantities of duplicated, outdated or redundant information because deleting, challenging or simplifying it, feels harder than keeping it. The consequences are rarely discussed: bloated systems, rising storage demands, weaker trust in data quality and an expanding operational burden for those expected to maintain it. Every industry benefits from periodic review and disposal. The AEC industry should treat data no differently.

The industry does not need more data for its own sake. It needs better judgement about what information is worth creating, keeping and using. 

What a better approach looks like

A better model starts with the full asset lifecycle. With the Golden Thread, BSA Gateway submissions and growing expectations around accountability, the industry needs a stronger line of sight between the information created at each stage and the information required in use. That means thinking earlier about access, maintenance, ownership, capability and long-term management, not simply handover.

That shift is both necessary and uncomfortable. It demands new skills, better coordination and more honest decisions about deliverables, software and responsibility beyond minimum compliance. For too long, the industry has concentrated its effort on design and construction while treating operational information as a downstream issue. If the industry wants safer, more useful and more resilient digital assets, information management has to be shaped around operation, not just delivery.

That will require knowledge and pressure from every part of the ecosystem: insurers, regulators, legislators, designers, clients, operators, software vendors and delivery teams. Without that shared push, the industry will continue to challenge outdated norms in siloes, with limited progress and familiar frustration. The opportunity is not to create more information. It is to create the right information, in the right way, for the people who need it most.