Skip to content
AI

Case YIT

Digia helped YIT accelerate the utilisation of AI – "We received exactly the help we were looking for in AI development" 

Finland's largest construction company, YIT, won Digia's AI Roadmap competition at the beginning of 2024 and was allowed to accelerate using artificial intelligence in its business. The first concrete AI projects have already got off the ground. "Digia has a good concept for building such a roadmap. It's really hard to think of anything to improve," says Olli Järvi, Chief Data Officer at YIT. 

 

YIT is Finland's largest construction company and one of the largest companies in Finland. YIT employs approximately 4,300 people in eight countries, and the Group's revenue in 2023 was approximately EUR 2.2 billion. The business is divided into three areas: building homes, infrastructure, and public and commercial spaces. 

Olli Järvi, Chief Data Officer, says that YIT extensively uses data analytics in its various businesses. However, the company wanted to enhance the utilisation of data, especially artificial intelligence, and give new impetus to the development work. 

Järvi notes that the degree of digitalisation in the construction industry has traditionally been low. YIT wants to use artificial intelligence to lead the way and develop the digitalisation and efficiency of the entire industry. Digia's AI Roadmap concept helped with this. 

What we did

  • Launching AI in four business-related areas 

What we used

  • AI Roadmap work 
We felt that the AI Roadmap concept was really good. The time investment is quite small in relation to the benefits that the project will bring. We got exactly the help we were looking for in AI development.

Olli Järvi, Chief Data Officer, YIT

The workshops identified 36 applications for artificial intelligence

The practical work of the project began in February 2024. In the AI Roadmap concept developed by Digia, the utilisation of artificial intelligence is promoted with a four-part workshop model. Järvi says that YIT and its various business units, a total of 21 people, were included in the workshops. This turned out to be an excellent solution. 

In the first phase, artificial intelligence technologies and their various uses were discussed.  

"It was great to see how much the personal maturity of some participants in AI increased during the discussions," Järvi says.  

Some participants had little knowledge of artificial intelligence, but their understanding of the technology and its possibilities quickly rose to a new level. 

The second phase focused on brainstorming concrete use cases. Järvi says that the brainstorming was a great success. "We found a total of 36 different AI use cases." 

The project's core team evaluated and then prioritised these blanks. The selection criteria were business benefits, technical feasibility, and the amount of work required for the project. 

The end result was a roadmap for using artificial intelligence, which included the most promising applications and a ready-made plan for moving the projects forward. 

"Cooperation and the whole process with Digia went really well. Digia has a good concept for building such a roadmap. It was really clear, controlled and well controlled," Järvi praises. 

Wide application possibilities of AI in the construction industry

Järvi says that applications for artificial intelligence were sought and found in four areas in particular. 
 
1. Making construction more efficient

Artificial intelligence can improve both work productivity and construction quality. For example, AI can help find useful information and ready-made documents in the ERP system that can be utilised in other projects.

2. Marketing and sales

Artificial intelligence helps to better understand the construction market and the needs of different customer groups. One example is the analysis of free-form customer feedback. It is challenging and laborious as human work, but artificial intelligence can condense feedback and find trends and regularities in it. AI can also make marketing and sales efforts more efficient.

3. Occupational safety and personnel management

The continuous development of occupational safety is important to YIT. For example, artificial intelligence technologies such as machine vision create new opportunities for improving safety.

4. Project and risk management

AI is a powerful tool for tasks such as cost and schedule forecasting and can be used for profitability calculations and problem prediction. AI can be used to streamline project planning and risk management. 

The four AI projects started are only some of the benefits

YIT immediately gained concrete benefits from the project.  

"We have already started four projects. Two of them are in the planning phase, and two have already progressed to implementation," Järvi says. 

In the early stages, the emphasis was on projects quickly bringing business benefits. However, one of the projects is a larger project lasting about a year, in which the benefits of artificial intelligence were found to be particularly significant. 

"Even though we received a lot of AI project blanks, it wasn't necessarily the biggest benefit of the project. After 21 people were involved in the project, they now act as change agents in their own organisations. The snowball effect has clearly taken off. Discussions about the utilisation of artificial intelligence are taking place in different parts of the organisation, which is really great," says Järvi. 

He says that YIT benefited greatly from Digia's joining as an external expert in accelerating the development of artificial intelligence.  

"We must remember that Digia has strong expertise in artificial intelligence. It is quite clear that YIT cannot have as many data scientists or as experienced AI experts as Digia. We benefited a lot from Digia's expertise." 

YIT also appreciated Digia's ready-made concept, which can be used to find applications for artificial intelligence and launch projects quickly. Järvi states that creating a similar concept and its required materials would be very laborious and challenging. Now, steering the project on YIT's side was kept to a minimum. 

"We felt that this kind of concept was really good. In my opinion, the time investment is quite small in relation to the benefits gained from the project," Järvi says. 

"The digitalisation of the construction industry is advancing, opening up huge opportunities. Artificial intelligence is also advancing at a fast pace. Therefore, drawing up a roadmap should not be a one-off project either. The utilisation of artificial intelligence should be developed iteratively every year, for example," Järvi encourages. 

YIT is very pleased with the cooperation with Digia.  

"It's really hard to think of anything to improve. That is perhaps the best thank you that can be given. In my opinion, the whole project was handled really well, and we got exactly the help we were looking for in AI development," says Järvi.