With labor shortages and chronic overruns plaguing broadband expansion, agentic AI is the new tool for discipline and timely execution
In a recent episode of The Ezra Klein Show, New York Times columnist Ezra Klein said, “I think that period in which we are always talking about the future, I think it’s over now.”
He was speaking in the context of AI. AI models that sound like science fiction in their ability to outperform humans, self-correct and self-improve, and do actual work that is useful and of value — are no longer a forward-looking vision. They’ve arrived under a new name: agentic AI.
Agentic AI heralds a new era of artificial intelligence in which experts believe the tech will finally catch up to its promises.
Motivators of adoption
Unlike traditional AI, agentic AI does not need to be told what to do. It can decide and act on its own. And that has opened a floodgate of opportunities for industries that are typically slow adopters of technology, to automate and optimize manual-heavy time-consuming processes.
Broadband construction management is one of those sectors where adoption has picked up in recent times.
Stephen Rose, CEO of Render Networks, a major player in the space, says there are two major forces behind the transformation. While it is the natural curiosity around AI which gets companies started down the path, the first real catalyst is economic imperatives.
“The problem that you see today in the buildout of networks, 98% of them come in late or over budget or both. So there is a massive economic imperative,” he said.
Alluding to Marc Ganzi’s keynote at Metro Connect USA earlier that day on data center infrastructure, he echoed that labor shortage is a major obstacle — and a big reason to consider AI.
“Those labor shortages mean that you don’t have time and resources to redo things that you can get right the first time; so using AI and automation to ensure that there is a very simple but effective handover,” he said.
Improving accuracy of project execution
Rose, who stepped into the position of CEO a year back, views agentic AI as a game changer that can modernize processes both in the field and in the back office.
“What’s really interesting about the new advancements in AI — and particularly agentic AI — is that…instead of..actually interrogating an entire database at once, you essentially break it down into modules…you atomize it,” he said. “And by atomizing it, you actually then are able to interrogate those different discrete areas and then combine using interesting prompts. You can actually interrogate that data in a dynamic way and then get the types of answers that you’re looking for.”
This he said allows agentic systems to run on relatively low compute. But an even bigger perk is autonomy. “The really interesting thing is you can get the agent to figure out for itself what is the next best action for you. And then you can program it to take that action if you want to — because if you’ve faith in the system and your testing says, every time it gave me an answer that was 98% correct, you’d take the 2% risk if it was something that wasn’t going to be harmful in any way. So that’s a completely different way of being able to use AI.”
This is especially useful for making sense of fragmented data — quality of the soil, satellite imagery, build processes, etc. — coming in from various sources. Using AI’s pattern recognition and trend analysis capabilities, construction firms can move from data to insights much faster. Same goes for invoicing and auditing processes that have zero room for error.
Another use case, he highlighted, where different forms of AI can be used in concert to deliver better results is as-built diagrams. AI tools allows workers to record any adjustments or changes made to the build in real time for maximum precision.
“When you bring those things together, what you end up finding is that the accuracy of your completion process or your closeout process is far greater,” he said.
Asked if AI could expedite the broadband permitting process, Rose said, “It is more about trying to make sure that the ecosystem plays friendly…that is still an area for us to work on together.”
Rose recommends a cohesive and consistent approach for achieving best results, “so you can ensure that you actually have an understanding of the state of the build at any time.”
But could such deep integration mean trouble for construction workers? Rose responded that contrarily, adoption of AI will release humans from the burden of standard supervision work, instead moving them into leadership roles that involve active thinking about the next problem rather than figuring out where the problem is.
“The machine or the AI does the thinking for you. That’s a huge change, and it just means that the work quality goes up and the stress goes down.”
