2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to improve human productivity in many sectors, including construction. Therefore, preparing students for an AI-embedded future is key for their professional success. Yet, many programs still face challenges in the use and teaching of AI in construction. This work in progress paper starts with a scoping review of 20 papers to identify key challenges on the use of AI-chatbots. We have identified four main themes related to challenges, namely adoption challenges, dehumanization of teaching, ethical concerns and impact on students’ cognitive development. Following, we use a comparative case study of challenges related to the future application of an AI-based conversational agent in three classes across two institutions of higher education – one in North and one in South America. Instructors from these three courses highlight concerns related to the lack of training and clear guidelines, and resources to reliably address academic misconduct due to the use of AI-chatbots. However, some concerns raised on the scoping review were not as pressing, such as dehumanization and impact on cognitive development of students. Instructors remain positive about the use of AI-chatbots to improve construction education, but there is a need to review teaching strategies to adequately embed these experiences. Future research should consider evaluating pilot and full implementation of AI-chatbots in construction education, and findings should be discussed in the community, so that educators are better equipped to use AI for effective student learning.