In 1840, Iwakichi KAJIMA set up a small carpentry business in Edo, present-day Tokyo. Seeing the opportunity to revolutionize Japanese carpentry, construction, and building, Kajima built the first "Western-style" buildings in Yokohama. From there, the firm built railways, dams, power plants, and high-rises throughout Japan, Asia, and the world.

But even with this almost 200-year-old history, KAJIMA has never been a "traditional" company. What has forged their success is a progressive approach to technology adoption, always looking for ways to incorporate new technologies to streamline operations.

This approach has now led them to start a partnership with Archetype AI and to bring Physical AI into their projects. Together, KAJIMA and Archetype aim to reduce waste and improve efficiency for construction management processes.

Managing Remote, Complex Construction Projects

The scale and complexity of KAJIMA's construction projects are immense. Thousands of workers, tens of millions of dollars of equipment, and hundreds of millions of dollars in materials mean every job is a massive organizational and engineering feat.

One such project is KAJIMA's five-year effort to widen an aging 100-year-old canal in Niigata, Japan. In the canal's estuary area, the cross-section is insufficient to safely discharge seasonal floodwaters, so improvements were necessary to reduce the risk of flooding to the residential area nearby. This area had originally been affected by flooding before the canal was built. However, after many years, it needed reconstruction.

A project like this presents huge challenges. It is a remote worksite spread over a vast area. Project managers need daily insight into the work, progress, and safety on-site, even when they can't monitor it in person. For example, if a critical piece of equipment breaks down, they must quickly reallocate resources and revise the schedule; or if weather conditions suddenly change, the work plan must be adjusted to ensure worker safety.

Understanding the jobsite so that the necessary action can be taken at the right time is one of the key factors for project success. The inability to do so efficiently contributes to significant cost overruns in large-scale construction projects.

‍ Research from McKinsey reveals that 98% of construction megaprojects exceed their budgets, with average cost increases of 80% above the original value and schedule slippage of 20 months. To address inefficiency that significantly impacts project costs across the industry, KAJIMA aims to transform both their own operations and the industry at large by leveraging cutting-edge technologies to achieve 50% remote management of jobsites. This ambitious vision is becoming possible with Physical AI.

Years of Footage Transformed into Jobsite Insights

Archetype AI has collaborated with KAJIMA to develop a Physical AI pilot that meets their unique needs. As the first construction company in Archetype AI's portfolio, the partnership began with foundational knowledge-building about construction machinery and workflows. "Field personnel face strict demands from clients to thoroughly oversee site operations. Meanwhile, the construction industry is experiencing a decline in workforce, resulting in an increasing workload per employee," explains Shinnosuke Sekihara, Mechanical and Electric Deputy Manager at KAJIMA.

The project's scope was immense — Newton analyzed 11,957 videos, with 662 videos (representing 746 days of footage) specifically used to confirm the construction work hours spent on the project. "It was impossible for humans to find the right video of the targeted drilling operations from 12,000 videos; Newton was able to extract these targeted videos seamlessly in seconds," explains Shinnosuke Sekihara, Mechanical and Electric Deputy Manager at KAJIMA.

The interface also includes an interactive time bar for navigating to specific moments, while simultaneously displaying various critical factors that influence construction progress. "Initially, we were considering asking questions about the videos in a chat format, but due to the wide variety of questions and the ambiguity involved, we realized that having a specialized Lens would be more helpful," shares Shinnosuke Sekihara.

Empowering KAJIMA's Teams with Newton

To help KAJIMA tackle the challenge at hand, the Archetype AI team developed an analytics Lens. Lenses are a new category of AI applications built on Newton that continuously convert raw sensor data into insights tailored to specific use cases. Unlike AI agents designed for automation, Lenses are designed for interpretation — they function like optical lenses, "refracting" raw data from the physical world into actionable insights while keeping humans in control.

Lenses can be customized with natural language instructions and allow users to adjust their "focus" at runtime to direct sensor interpretation toward desired outcomes. Available in three categories (Summarize, Monitor, and Forecast), they help users make sense of past data, monitor present conditions, and predict future events, making Physical AI more accessible and useful in real-world applications.

Here is how the system we built for KAJIMA works:

Newton Semantic Lenses interpret the vast amount of video and weather data in several key ways, allowing project managers to focus on specific aspects of the construction process. A Daily Log Lens visualizes start and end times for different work periods and machine operations, giving managers a detailed view of daily activities and helping them find inefficiencies and understand why productivity varies depending on weather conditions. A Summary Lens offers an aggregate view of the work done over specific date ranges, allowing for broader trend analysis and progress tracking.

Working with KAJIMA, we also introduced video playback with object detection. Project managers can view specific video segments with the AI-detected objects highlighted, providing visual verification of the AI's interpretations for the user.

"In the future, we envision using Newton to analyze not only what work was done in the past but to monitor construction sites in real time, highlighting different factors that affect productivity and contribute to success or failure. That way, Newton can help remote project managers react quickly and make better decisions," says Akihiro Manda, Technology Development Manager at KAJIMA.

Archetype AI and the Future of Construction Industry

With the KAJIMA pilot success, Archetype is continuing to work on solutions for the construction industry. "In the future, we expect that the AI will accumulate feedback from field experts, further expanding its application scope," says Brandon Barbello, co-founder and COO of Archetype AI. "Newton can serve as an important interface for preserving know-how as skilled engineers retire—an ongoing industry challenge."

Archetype AI's Newton model is designed to learn and evolve based on user interaction. As construction teams use the tool and label the causes of work deviations, the system learns from these inputs. This enables the AI to propose explanations when it detects factors that could cause deviations, such as high tides or other environmental conditions. This adaptive learning process enhances the tool's predictive capabilities over time.

Here is how Archetype AI's platform can serve construction companies in the future:

1. Improved project planning and execution. By drawing insights from past work, project managers can manage similar projects more efficiently. We foresee experts using Newton for monitoring excavations in real time to take measures against varying weather conditions and improve work plans as the project unfolds.
2. Enhanced accountability for subcontractors: In the future, project managers will be able to get detailed activity logs and optimize subcontractor management.
3. Preservation of expert knowledge: Newton captures and preserves expertise from veteran construction professionals, ensuring critical insights aren't lost as experienced staff retire.

We strongly believe that Newton's capabilities can be applied across the entire construction sector. Its use cases include, but are not limited to, worker safety monitoring, scenario modeling, and better coordination of equipment, vehicles, and material deliveries — all important factors in reducing the industry's cost overruns and delays.

By turning the vast amounts of sensor data from construction sites into actionable insights, Newton helps experts make better decisions faster, reduce waste, improve safety, and deliver projects on time. As companies face increasing pressure to modernize and improve efficiency, Newton can turn construction's biggest challenges into opportunities for improvement and growth.

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