*Sensors are mounted above the driver’s cab to provide visibility to the excavator’s work envelope. | Credit: Bedrock Robotics

From a Dreary Shovel to a Digital Excavator, How AI is Changing the Construction Site

Imagine a huge 130-acre construction site where you need to move 65,000 cubic yards of soil. Monotonous, exhausting work that can last for months. Now imagine that this work is performed by an autonomous excavator, while a human operator, without suffering from boredom and fatigue, is engaged in more complex tasks. This is no longer a fantasy, but a reality that companies like Sundt Construction are experiencing in practice with the help of the Bedrock Robotics startup.

This transition to autonomy is not just an attempt to replace people. This is a response to a deep systemic crisis in the industry. As Dan Green, the project manager at Sundt, aptly noted: "Our main problem is not just to find operators, but to retain experienced specialists when we need months of monotonous excavation work in remote locations. Our best operators are not interested in the routine of mass excavation." It's hard to blame them for that. Interestingly, in the future, companies such as jobtorob.com They could become the very link that helps construction firms not hire operators, but literally "rent" autonomous solutions for specific projects, making the transition to new technologies as smooth as possible.

Without people in the cabin: How does it work?

The technological heart of this breakthrough is the so—called "Bedrock Operator", an artificial intelligence that controls the excavator. The founders of Bedrock, who came from Waymo, applied their experience in creating self-driving cars, but with a completely different approach.

"We didn't write software that would explain to the machine how to work," explained Boris Sofman, co—founder and CEO of Bedrock Robotics. "We have huge amounts of data, and our engineers are thinking about how to manipulate datasets, cost functions, and valuation schemes, how to structure the problem, and manage large—scale models."

Simply put, they did not manually prescribe each step to the machine. Instead, the AI learned from the data, mimicking the work of the best human operators. Sofman draws a parallel with large language models: "Just as a language model generates word tokens... we generate a trajectory for a high-dimensional machine and body. We are effectively learning how to imitate the best operators." This is an important evolutionary leap from programmed robots to learners.

It took the company an astonishingly short time to master the technology. In just 4-5 months Bedrock has gone from initial simulation to integration with the first real machine named "Fred". By November 2024, the company was already testing autonomy at a real facility, constantly improving its models by collecting data from the real world. Today, their technology is adapted for excavators weighing from 20 to 80 tons, which covers a huge fleet of construction equipment.

Not only efficiency, but also safety

The introduction of such technology is not only about performance, but also about security. Working with multi-ton equipment is fraught with risks. Bedrock's partners emphasize this aspect as well.

"Safety is at the core of everything we do, and technology has the potential to further enhance the safety of our facilities,— said Bill Heathcott, executive vice president, Austin Bridge & Road. "Our partnership with Bedrock Robotics has opened the door to autonomous equipment that is a game changer in protecting workers."

The company is actively expanding its range of partners to ensure that its technology meets the full range of construction scenarios. Such heavyweights as Zachry Construction, Sundt Construction, Champion Site Prep, Capitol Aggregates, Austin Bridge & Road, Maverick Constructors and Haydon Companies have already joined the collaborators.

What awaits excavator operators?

This is where our inner skeptic wakes up. It sounds familiar: technology is not created to replace people, but to help. But what will this lead to in practice? James Schwartz's comment eloquently reflects this concern.: "I think it's complete nonsense that there aren't enough people to operate these machines. Engineering operators are among the highest paid in the construction industry. It's a matter of profit and only profit."

It's hard to disagree with him about business motivation. However, the reality may turn out to be more complicated. Instead of total substitution, we can see a transformation of the profession. The operator's task may shift from physically controlling levers to overseeing a fleet of autonomous vehicles, solving non-standard tasks, and managing complex processes that require human intuition and experience. Eventually, someone will have to maintain, repair, and assign tasks to these smart excavators. Perhaps in the future we will see how sites like jobtorob.com They will be looking not so much for operators as for "engineers overseeing autonomous equipment."

The future is already coming

Bedrock Robotics does not stand still. In addition to the project with Sundt, the company has successfully completed autonomous excavation work for the client at the Proto-Town facility in Central Texas. This is the second active deployment of the technology on a real construction site. The company openly declares its path to fully autonomous operations by 2026.

The industry is facing explosive demand for the construction of data centers, domestic manufacturing plants, and energy projects at a time when the number of qualified operators continues to decline. Autonomous excavation technology appears exactly when it is most needed.

One can only wonder whether in a few years the appearance of an autonomous excavator, steadily and accurately loading a dump truck, will become as commonplace as the appearance of its human-controlled counterpart today. Judging by what is already happening on construction sites today, the future of construction will not be for robots to replace humans, but for a symbiosis of human intelligence and machine efficiency. And, perhaps, it is in this partnership that the foundation will be laid for the next great construction projects of mankind.