Turner Construction — the largest general contractor in the U.S. by revenue — is deepening its move into artificial intelligence through a new two-year partnership with OpenAI. The deal, announced during Turner’s 2025 Innovation Summit in Nashville, Tennessee, ensures every employee inside the New York–based firm gains access to Enterprise.
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The company said the collaboration will fast-track adoption of new AI capabilities already emerging on its construction sites. Turner is integrating generative technology into everything from safety monitoring and contract reviews to photo analysis, digital progress tracking, and autonomous drone operations.
Jim Barrett, Turner’s head of global innovation, said the company’s AI deployment strategy is now comprehensive: the contractor is going “wall to wall, floor to ceiling” with ChatGPT. Barrett emphasized that Turner already sees AI touching “literally every function in the company.”
The announcement was timed with Turner’s annual innovation summit, held Oct. 21–23 in Nashville. There, hundreds of employees and industry partners attended workshops led by OpenAI specialists to build hands-on AI skills.
As part of the event, teams participated in Turner’s largest-ever AI agent hackathon, where more than 100 custom AI agents were created. These employee-built tools focused on current field challenges such as:
The company’s vision is that workers themselves will shape the tools they use — not just adopt them.
Barrett said Turner is creating a network of tech mentors across its offices and jobsites:
“We’ll probably have 20 to 30 people that will be dedicated to helping coach our people. We want to make sure that we’re getting everybody up on that learning journey, and that they’re really leveraging the capabilities of ChatGPT and other tools,” Barrett said.
He also highlighted the importance of ensuring accurate results:
Turner has established internal guardrails to prevent hallucinations and ensure compliance, particularly as AI takes on tasks traditionally handled by project managers, legal staff and technical specialists.
Some of the construction tech industry’s traditional software models may soon be challenged. With generative AI enabling staff to rapidly prototype custom solutions, Turner is becoming more selective with third-party vendors.
Barrett explained:
“If we can build something ourselves over a weekend,” he said, “then why would we necessarily pay for someone to build it for us?”
Procurement teams are already designing AI tools to level bids, while estimators are developing agents that quickly scan building specifications and cross-check revisions across drawings.
Barrett noted the landscape continues to evolve rapidly:
“We’re always exploring the different solutions that are out there,” he said. “It’s a constantly changing landscape, and we want to be at the forefront of that.”
Turner has tripled to quadrupled its investment in AI over the last few years. The company believes the current partnership ensures it remains ahead of both competitors and shifting technology standards.
Barrett said the two-year term gives Turner flexibility to adjust, evaluate performance metrics and adopt emerging platforms as the AI market matures. For now, ChatGPT Enterprise remains the company’s preferred enterprise system — but Turner will continue scanning the horizon for competitive advantage.
With more than 10,000 Turner employees now empowered to build and customize AI tools, the company sees this moment as transformational — and one that could redefine efficiency, collaboration and risk management across construction for years to come.
Originally reported by Matthew Thibault in Construction Dive.
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