From Windsor Castle to the QS Coal Face: Two Reports Tackling AI's Role in Project Delivery

The APM Windsor Summit and AI4QS publications offer project professionals genuine substance amid the AI noise. Here is what you need to know.

Amid the flood of AI commentary, two recent publications stand out for actually engaging with how project professionals can use this technology effectively. The Association for Project Management's Windsor Summit Series and the AI4QS report from the quantity surveying community offer complementary perspectives worth understanding.

Most AI guidance available to project professionals comes from technology vendors or general business consultants. Neither group fully understands the contractual frameworks, risk profiles, and professional obligations that define built environment work. These reports are different because they emerge from practitioners grappling with real implementation challenges.

The Windsor Summit: Bridging the Boardroom Gap

The Windsor Project Summit brought together chief executives and senior leaders at St. George's House, Windsor Castle. The setting may sound rarefied, but the papers emerging from these discussions tackle practical challenges facing project professionals navigating AI transformation.

The event served as a high-level platform for thought-provoking discussions on the future of the project profession, addressing technological transformation, leadership alignment, and future-proofing strategies. The resulting white papers capture insights, debates, and key takeaways from expert-led panels and discussions.

The most recent paper, "AI in the Boardroom," addresses a fundamental disconnect. Between 2023 and 2025, AI use in projects nearly doubled, with 70% of UK project professionals now reporting their organisation uses AI for delivering transformations.

What’s more, 92% of C-suite leaders say their company deploys AI in some capacity. Yet adoption is not always resulting in desired outcomes:

• 31% of leaders whose business uses AI say it is having no impact or a negative impact on productivity

• 56% say it is having no impact or a negative impact on their bottom line

  
  

Sound familiar? The APM papers provide frameworks for navigating this gap between executive AI enthusiasm and operational reality.

What Makes These Papers Different

The Windsor Summit series covers four interconnected themes that build on each other:

C-Suite Recognition explores why, despite projects now consuming 80% of organisational resources compared to 20% three decades ago, the profession still struggles for recognition at the executive level.

The Harvard Business Review data on this resource flip is striking, yet board-level understanding of project management remains limited. This recognition gap matters because it affects budget allocation, strategic involvement and professional development investment.

• Future-Proofing Strategies examines how organisations build resilience into plans to handle unexpected disruption and the role culture and leadership play. The paper draws on real examples of organisations that navigated uncertainty successfully and those that did not.

  
  

• Strategic Planning and Transformation shares insights on sustainability, people, and the intersection of AI with project delivery. The focus on three interconnected elements, sustainability, workforce development and technology, reflects the complexity of modern project environments.

  
  

• AI in the Boardroom directly addresses how businesses can gain value from AI while improving project delivery and maintaining the human element. This paper tackles the question most project professionals are asking: how do we use AI effectively without losing the professional judgement that defines quality delivery?

We see these papers as valuable ammunition for conversations with leadership about AI transformation. They demonstrate how the profession is actively shaping its future rather than simply responding to change.

"Despite this massive disruption, there is still a lack of understanding and lack of recognition at C-Suite/senior executive level for the project profession. This is important because of the significant role that projects and project professionals play in driving growth and transformation." — APM Windsor Summit Series

AI4QS: The Quantity Surveying Perspective

The AI for Quantity Surveying Practice report takes a different approach, focusing on a specific professional discipline and its relationship with AI.

Produced through extensive collaboration and data collection from industry leaders and academics, the report addresses themes including leadership, cost intelligence, education, sustainability and barriers to adoption.

The collaborative methodology is worth noting. By bringing together academics researching AI applications with practitioners implementing them, the report bridges the gap between theoretical possibility and operational reality.

This is not speculation about what AI might do for quantity surveying. It is analysis of what AI is actually doing and what barriers prevent broader adoption.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has been tracking this evolution closely. RICS emphasises that AI can help with natural language processing and extracting data from documents, capabilities that are reshaping how quantity surveyors handle tender analysis and cost estimation.

Andrew Knight, RICS's Global Data and Tech lead, has noted that given AI's pervasiveness across sectors, it is only a matter of time before it shapes the construction and quantity surveying world.

For project professionals beyond the QS function, this report offers valuable lessons about how AI is reshaping cost management and commercial practices across projects.

The emphasis on barriers to adoption is particularly useful, acknowledging real organisational and cultural challenges that transcend technical capabilities.

Key Themes From the AI4QS Work

The report examines AI's impact on cost intelligence, exploring how machine learning and data analytics are changing how quantity surveyors estimate, analyse and report costs.

The educational implications receive significant attention, addressing how professional training must evolve to prepare practitioners for AI augmented practice.

Sustainability integration features prominently, reflecting the growing importance of embodied carbon and lifecycle costing in quantity surveying work. The report considers how AI tools can enhance sustainability analysis while acknowledging current limitations.

The AI4QS report stands out for its practical emphasis on responsible AI in quantity surveying.

Key Significance

• Prioritizes governance and ethics in AI adoption, addressing construction's historical lag behind sectors like finance and healthcare.

• Uses collaborative methods involving industry leaders and academics to set standards for ethical tech integration.

• Shows how professional communities can drive change collectively while upholding quality, competence, and accountability.

Why These Reports Matter

Both publications share a common strength: they are grounded in practitioner experience rather than vendor marketing or theoretical frameworks.

The Windsor Summit draws on expert-led discussions with senior leaders navigating real AI implementations. The AI4QS report brings together academics and practitioners working at the intersection of quantity surveying and artificial intelligence.

This type of sector-specific research provides the detailed understanding necessary for meaningful AI integration. Generic AI guidance rarely accounts for the contractual frameworks, risk profiles and professional obligations that define built environment work.

As Property Week recently observed, AI is unlikely to replace a quantity surveyor as a project's central process manager, the gatekeeper who ensures that what is promised is delivered at the agreed price.

However, AI may make their digital workflow more manageable. The publication notes that quantity surveyors who understand and use AI effectively are likely to outpace those who do not and that coding may become a necessary skill for the profession within the next decade.

The timing is also significant. With the PwC survey showing 56% of CEOs seeing no return on AI investment, project professionals need evidence-based guidance on what actually works.

Theoretical frameworks and vendor promises are not sufficient. Practitioner insights from real implementations are essential.

Putting Research Into Practice

The value of these publications lies not in reading them but in using them. Project managers can deploy these insights to bridge the gap between boardroom expectations and delivery realities.

When executives ask why AI is not transforming project outcomes, these papers provide evidence-based frameworks for responding.

The APM papers are available through their website to registered users. The AI4QS report has been shared through industry channels and LinkedIn. Reading them together provides a comprehensive picture of where AI meets project delivery, from strategic boardroom conversations to operational quantity surveying practice.

For organisations developing AI strategies, these reports offer templates for structured thinking. For individual practitioners, they provide professional development material that goes beyond generic AI literacy training.

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All content reflects our personal views and is not intended as professional advice or to represent any organisation.