Using AI To Optimise Project Delivery

While the majority of the developed world scrambles to harness artificial intelligence (AI) for various purposes, Africa seems to be standing at the door, yet to jump onto the bandwagon.

As the IMF notes in a July report, the technology’s adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa currently lags well behind every other region. At current levels of preparedness, the fund estimates AI will add just 0.2% to the region’s GDP over the next decade, which it calls “little more than a rounding error”.

This is not to say advances are not being made on the AI front in the region. In February, the African Development Bank (AfDB) and UN Development Programme (UNDP) launched the US$10 billion AI Initiative, a continent-wide programme aimed at accelerating the responsible adoption of AI and inclusive digital economic growth.

Progress is also being made in the construction industry. ConstructAfrica spoke with Tebogo Boshomane, founder and CEO of AxioGlobe, a South African AI-native construction intelligence platform connecting architects, engineers, contractors and building product manufacturers through live building information modelling (BIM) intelligence within the ArchiCAD and Revit software.

AxioGlobe targets the US$13 trillion global construction industry – the largest industry on earth – which still operates on WhatsApp messages, PDF emails and manual coordination, according to Boshomane. The platform is meant to replace the entire information architecture, making every design decision a live, verified, commercially connected event that every party can see and act on simultaneously. While it is designed to run on Google Cloud infrastructure, Claude (Anthropic) and Gemini (Google) are the planned AI engines for the GDL validation engine and manufacturer data processing.

AxioGlobe is currently in the pre-build technical design phase, with the waitlist launched in July. The platform’s current target markets are South Africa, the UAE, the UK and Australia.

Boshomane talked to ConstructAfrica about the idea behind the platform, the market response so far and how AI adoption can transform Africa.

Q: Is your product the first of its kind? What inspired the idea?

AxioGlobe is the first platform to embed live construction intelligence directly inside ArchiCAD and Revit as a dockable intelligence panel, connecting architects, engineers, contractors, manufacturers and the entire supply chain through the live BIM model in real time.

Existing platforms solve parts of the problem. Procore manages projects; Autodesk manages drawings; BIMobject hosts product libraries. None of them connect the specification decision to the supply chain that must fulfil it automatically in real time for every party simultaneously.

The inspiration came from observing a breakdown that happens on every construction project everywhere in the world. A contractor discovers a drawing changed four days after it happened – after work has already started on the wrong version. A manufacturer's products are specified or rejected without them ever being contacted. A variation instruction goes undocumented until the dispute is already in arbitration.

These are not South African problems. They are universal construction industry problems costing the global industry US$31 billion annually.

What made AxioGlobe buildable now – when it was not buildable two years ago – is the emergence of AI models like Claude Sonnet and Gemini 1.5 that can read a 40-page manufacturer technical datasheet and generate valid parametric ArchiCAD code from it automatically.

Q: What has the market response been so far?

AxioGlobe is in the pre-build technical design phase – I want to be honest about that because the construction industry deserves technology partners who tell the truth.

What I can say is that every contractor I have spoken to immediately describes a specific incident where a late drawing notification cost them money. Every manufacturer immediately understands the specification visibility problem. The problem does not need to be explained to anyone who works in construction; it needs to be solved.

The waitlist is live and we are receiving registrations from architects, engineers and contractors across South Africa, the UK and the UAE.

Q: What are the lessons learnt so far with regard to the platform?

Three lessons I would tell any construction technology founder:

First: the problem is bigger than any one customer type. I initially focused on architects and contractors. The deeper I went, the more I understood that the entire supply chain has the same broken information problem from a different angle. AxioGlobe now serves manufacturers, distributors, merchants, specialist suppliers, plant hire companies and fabricators – not just architects.

Second: honesty builds more trust than hype. The decision to be transparent that AxioGlobe is in the pre-build phase has generated more genuine interest than any platform that overpromises.

Third: the technology that makes AxioGlobe possible became available simultaneously in 2024 and 2025. The timing is not coincidental – AxioGlobe is buildable now precisely because AI, WebSocket technology and mature BIM [software development kits] converged.

Q: How crucial will your platform be for Africa? In which other African countries do you plan to deploy?

Africa is building at a pace the world has not seen before – US$330 billion in annual construction spend. New cities, new infrastructure, new commercial developments – all requiring real-time coordination between every party in the construction process.

[In] Phase 1 [of our rollout, we target] South Africa – the most developed BIM market on the continent. Phase 2: Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and Egypt – the four largest construction markets after South Africa, all with growing BIM adoption and significant infrastructure pipelines. Phase 3: the full continent. AxioGlobe is designed to cover building codes and compliance requirements for more than 180 jurisdictions globally.

Building from Polokwane, Limpopo, is deliberate. I want to demonstrate that world-class construction technology can be built from anywhere in Africa.

Q: How do you see Africa's construction landscape evolving over the next decade?

Three shifts I believe are inevitable. [First,] BIM adoption will become mandatory. South Africa is already moving in this direction for public sector projects. Kenya, Nigeria and Egypt will follow.

[Second,] the supply chain will digitalise. African construction supply chains are predominantly analogue – phone calls, WhatsApp messages, paper delivery notes. The next decade will see this change rapidly.

[Third,] local manufacturing will grow. As African governments prioritise local content in construction procurement, manufacturers that can demonstrate their products are specified and installed through verified digital systems will have a significant advantage.

Q: What opportunities do you see emerging as AI adoption accelerates across the continent?

The construction industry is the most underserved sector by AI globally and that makes it the greatest opportunity on the continent. Every other major industry has been transformed by digital intelligence. Finance has algorithmic trading; healthcare has diagnostic AI; agriculture has precision farming. Construction still has WhatsApp.

The AI opportunity in African construction is immediate and specific:

• Specification intelligence – AI notifying the right manufacturer before any human makes a phone call;

• Variation capture – AI generating legally admissible variation notices automatically from client instructions;

• Credit intelligence – AI scoring contractor creditworthiness in real time from platform payment data;

• Fabrication intelligence – AI reading custom element geometry from ArchiCAD and generating complete fabrication briefs for specialist manufacturers.

These are not future capabilities. They are what AxioGlobe is building today using AI models that exist today.

Q: Looking ahead, what indicators would suggest AI is delivering meaningful value to industries, businesses and communities across Africa?

Three indicators specifically in construction:

Reduction in rework costs – If AI-powered drawing change notification reduces the US$31 billion global rework bill by even 10%, that is US$3.1 billion returned to productive use annually. In Africa, that means more buildings completed on budget.

Increase in small manufacturer market reach – If a small South African manufacturer in Polokwane can have their products specified by an architect in Cape Town because their BIM objects are in that architect's ArchiCAD library, that is AI delivering meaningful value to a business that previously had no way to reach that market.

Reduction in construction disputes – When AI generates a timestamped, digitally signed variation record before work proceeds, the dispute never starts. That is AI delivering value to communities by ensuring the infrastructure they were promised actually gets built.

Q: As demand for AI infrastructure accelerates globally, what role do you see African markets playing in the growth of data centres, high performance computing and digital infrastructure?

Africa has significant natural advantages – abundant renewable energy potential, growing submarine cable connectivity, competitive land and labour costs, and governments increasingly motivated to attract digital investment. South Africa is already emerging as the primary African hub for data centre development, with Microsoft, Amazon and Google all making major investments.

But the point often missed is this – the growth of AI infrastructure in Africa is only meaningful if African companies are building the AI-powered products that run on that infrastructure. Not just consuming products built elsewhere.

AxioGlobe is being built from Polokwane, South Africa, running on Google Cloud, powered by Claude and Gemini, to serve the African construction industry and export African intelligence to the world. That is what African participation in the AI economy looks like. Not just data centres on African soil – African companies building AI products that solve African problems.

Click here to visit the platform website.

Top Photo: BIM in construction (Source: Google Gemini)