The Day I Realised We're Already Living in the Future (We Just Haven't Noticed Yet)

I'll be honest - I've been banging on about AI in project delivery for months now, and I was starting to wonder if I was just another tech evangelist shouting into the void. Then four pieces of evidence landed on my desk this week that made me realise something profound: this isn't coming anymore. It's here. We're just not paying attention.

Let me walk you through what I discovered, because frankly, it's changed how I think about the future of our profession.

When Government Gets Radical (And We Should Probably Pay Attention)

It started with the UK's Strategic Defence Review (full document here). Defence Secretary John Healey put it bluntly: "Drones now kill more people than traditional artillery in the war in Ukraine and whoever gets new technology into the hands of their armed forces the quickest will win."

Three-month procurement timelines. For an organisation that historically takes years to buy a paperclip.

But here's what got me thinking: they're not just talking about buying tech faster. They're mandating "tempo dominance" - "the simple maxim that the side that learns and adapts fastest, wins." They want "a Digital Targeting Web [that] will enhance the UK armed forces' ability to sense, operate and decide across domains."

And then I read the UK's new 10-Year Infrastructure Strategy (here), and suddenly the defence review wasn't an outlier - it was part of a pattern.

The Strategy talks about £725 billion of infrastructure investment over the next decade, but buried in those details is something remarkable: they're betting the entire programme on AI and data analytics. Not as nice-to-haves. As fundamentals.

"NISTA will lead the development of the government's national infrastructure spatial tool" using "AI, to identify local infrastructure needs and constraints" and "provide granular modelling outputs and insights to strengthen the local evidence base for place-based infrastructure investment decisions."

£2 billion allocated to "deliver the AI Opportunities Action Plan." Creation of "AI Growth Zones with enhanced access to power and support for planning approvals."

Here's what struck me: if the notoriously cautious defence establishment and the equally cautious infrastructure department can both pivot this dramatically toward AI-enhanced decision-making, perhaps our quarterly review cycles aren't quite as immutable as we thought.

The Platform That's Quietly Revolutionising Everything

While we've all been obsessing over ChatGPT, something rather brilliant has been happening with UK infrastructure planning. It's called DAFNI - the Data & Analytics Facility for National Infrastructure (explore it here) - and it's doing exactly what both the defence and infrastructure strategies are calling for.

DAFNI is creating "connected digital twins across infrastructure and services to demonstrate how connected data and greater access to the right information can improve climate adaptation and resilience."

But here's what's clever: they're not just modeling individual systems. They're modeling cascade effects: "flooding may cause the loss of power, which could then impact communications infrastructure." The kind of systems thinking that the defence review calls "digital warfighters" and the Infrastructure Strategy positions as essential for "tempo dominance."

The platform "brings together research areas including engineering, data sciences, environmental science, health sciences and social sciences" to solve interconnected challenges. Not siloed departments having separate meetings about separate problems - actual integration.

Sound familiar? It should. Because this is exactly what the Infrastructure Strategy means when it talks about its new "Infrastructure Pipeline digital portal" providing "comprehensive information on publicly funded and financed economic and major social infrastructure projects" updated "at least every six months."

And it's exactly what the defence review means when it talks about breaking down "barriers between individual Services, between the military and the private sector and between the Armed Forces and wider society."

The lesson is becoming clear: the future belongs to those who can see the whole system, not just their bit of it.

When Concrete Testing Becomes the Future of Transparency

Which brings me to Malaysia, where they've just launched the world's first AI-powered robotic concrete testing system (full story here). Before you glaze over, let me tell you why this connects to everything else.

"From sample casting to fracture analysis, every step is automated and logged, eliminating blind spots and human error that often compromise structural safety."

Thomas Yap, CEO of MyCRS, explains: "Construction stakeholders – from developers and contractors to engineers and regulators – deserve real-time access and assurance on the quality of their core materials. This system empowers them to actively engage, not passively rely on a report."

Real-time access. Complete transparency. No more "we'll have the results next week." No more quality disputes based on incomplete data.

The system uses "robotic testing platform integrated with computer vision models, IoT-based chain-of-custody tracking and cloud-based analytics" to ensure "each test is conducted under strict protocol, verified by tamper-evident data and viewable in real time by all authorised parties."

Now think about this in the context of what we've just discussed. The defence review talks about "sensing, operating and deciding across domains" in real-time. The Infrastructure Strategy calls for "tempo dominance" and decision-making "measured in months, not years." DAFNI demonstrates how connected systems can model complex interdependencies instantly.

And here's Malaysia showing us the practical reality: complete transparency and traceability, in real-time, for something as mundane as concrete testing.

This isn't about efficiency anymore. It's about creating a level of visibility and responsiveness that fundamentally changes how we operate.

The Pattern That Changes Everything

These four pieces of evidence aren't separate stories. They're parts of the same transformation, happening simultaneously across different sectors and geographies.

• Speed as Strategy: Whether it's defence procurement in three months, infrastructure decisions in "months not years," or real-time concrete analysis, the organisations winning today are compressing decision cycles from months to weeks, weeks to days.

• Systems Over Silos: The defence review breaks down barriers between services. The Infrastructure Strategy integrates economic and social infrastructure for the first time. DAFNI connects multiple disciplines. Malaysia's system gives all stakeholders simultaneous access to the same data.

• AI as Infrastructure: This isn't about adding AI features to existing processes. It's about rebuilding processes around AI capabilities. The UK is investing £2 billion in sovereign compute capacity. Defence is creating "digital warfighters." Infrastructure planning is being reimagined around spatial AI tools.

• Transparency as Default: No more "we think we're on track." No more waiting for reports. No more information asymmetries. Real-time data, accessible to all authorized parties, becomes the baseline expectation.

The Questions That Keep You Up at Night

Looking at this pattern - from Whitehall to Kuala Lumpur - reveals an uncomfortable gap between what's possible and what most organisations are actually doing.

The Infrastructure Strategy talks about "innovation and procurement measured in months, not years" and explicitly calls for "tempo dominance." The defence review describes a future where "the side that learns and adapts fastest, wins."

Yet across the industry, teams are still relying on status meetings when government is building AI-powered dashboards that analyze patterns across thousands of similar projects in real-time.

Why are you still making decisions based on incomplete data when Malaysia is demonstrating complete transparency for concrete testing, and the UK is investing billions in AI systems that provide "granular modelling outputs and insights" instantly?

Why is "we'll know next week" still an acceptable answer in your organisation when the evidence is clear that real-time visibility isn't just possible - it's becoming the standard?

What You Might Consider Doing About It

The organisations getting ahead of this transformation aren't trying to revolutionise everything at once (because that way lies madness). They're starting with one repetitive process in your workflow and asking: "What if AI could spot patterns you're missing?"

The results, from what industry reports show, are both humbling and exciting.

More importantly, these leaders are pushing back harder when stakeholders give "we'll know next week" answers. The evidence is clear: the tools exist for you to know now.

Government is investing billions in them. Malaysia is demonstrating them in practice. The organisations winning tomorrow are deploying them today.

Most critically, they're learning to ask better questions. As the defence review puts it, success comes from "the simple maxim that the side that learns and adapts fastest, wins." AI is brilliant at providing answers, but it's only as good as the questions you pose.

The Uncomfortable Truth

These aren't outliers or early experiments. They're previews of how project delivery is evolving, and the transformation is happening whether we're ready or not.

The organisations mastering this - whether it's the UK military, infrastructure departments, or Malaysian construction companies - won't just be more efficient. They'll be operating in a different league entirely. They'll anticipate problems, adapt in real-time, and deliver outcomes that seemed impossible just a few years ago.

The Infrastructure Strategy makes this explicit: "Infrastructure – social and economic – will deliver the government's missions to drive growth and raise living standards in every part of the UK" through AI-enabled "tempo dominance" and real-time decision-making.

The question isn't whether this is the future. The question is whether we're going to embrace it thoughtfully or be surprised by it.

What's Next

The next challenge is diving deeper into the practical tools actually worth investigating (spoiler: it's not all about ChatGPT). Plus, developing frameworks for evaluating AI solutions that won't waste budgets or time.

But mostly, it's about learning from each other's experiences. Are you seeing this pattern in your sector? What's working? What's been a complete waste of time?

Because honestly, we're all figuring this out together, and the best insights always come from the community.

Have thoughts on AI in project delivery? The successes, the failures, and everything in between are what advance this profession - when we're honest about what we're learning.

Links:

• UK Strategic Defence Review 2025

• UK Infrastructure: A 10 Year Strategy

• DAFNI - Data & Analytics Facility for National Infrastructure

• Malaysia's AI-Powered Concrete Testing System