An AI-Native Tool that is Reshaping Project Reporting with Christian Pallaria

Andrea Ciaffi

Hi Christian, welcome to the Digital Construction Podcast.

Christian Pallaria

Hello, hi guys. Thanks a lot for having me here.

Andrea Ciaffi

Today, we are joined by Christian Pallaria, Digital Transformation Leader at ECOM and founder of YC Plan. We are going to explore how data, AI, and human-centered strategies are reshaping how complex capital projects are delivered. But before we start, Christian, I have an icebreaker for you.

Andrea Ciaffi

What belief about leadership Did you have early in your career that you later realised was wrong?

Christian Pallaria

Yeah, I think, yeah, this is a good question. And it reminds me when I started working when I was like a kid, you know, and I was looking at my boss and I say, ah, one day I'll be like him, like boss style duties, do that.

Christian Pallaria

And then. And then over time, I just realised that it wasn't the right approach. At least it's not anymore now. And it depends on many factors. There are there, you know, there are cultural things. There are generational changes as well. So you need to understand what's the best approach in the right in the right moment.

Christian Pallaria

There is definitely some Sometimes the like the bosses style is still needed. But I would say that the safe environment when everyone can, you know, express ideas and join the real challenge of what you're doing, having the same vision and working together for the for the same.

Christian Pallaria

I would say, I'll come for the same solution and above all, with the same passion. That's the thing that makes a lot of difference. And I would say this is the wrong belief was thinking that the boss's style was the good one. And it's definitely completely the opposite now for me.

Christian Pallaria

At least when I when I deal with with my team, at least in YZ Plan, it's it's we're going to we're going to talk about that later, but this is the environment I'd like to set up with the right culture with people having fun doing something and working together and fighting together to achieve the final the final the final goal, which is, you know, solving problems.

Christian Pallaria

and making people happy.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, that's great. And one of the things I always find interesting is to ask people about their career journey,

Christian Pallaria

Chad.

Andrea Ciaffi

because you started as an engineer, then working more in the digital space and then funding YC Plan. But for those who are less familiar, can you start, can you tell us a bit about your career journey and how did you end up on the digital side of Engineering and construction.

Christian Pallaria

Yeah, yeah. I think the conductor, the connect, the connecting the dots of everything is being passionate about technology. That's that that's always been there for me from uni.

Christian Pallaria

When I was at uni, I founded a company, it was called CFA Studio, and we're doing 3D simulation and 3D like renderings or 3D videos using particular software that are now not a kind of commodity and they are not even so used anymore.

Christian Pallaria

So we were supporting these big construction company to show To show them the product, because before it was it was done and and I founded this with a with a mate there and it was great. We had a we had a couple of years very good.

Christian Pallaria

Then we we failed in 2008 because of the real estate big crunch. We were working with real estate. That was our. for business. And in retrospect, I would say we weren't able to pivoting to other things. We were kind of introducing 3D prototyping, 3D printing in the real estate.

Christian Pallaria

And that was working, but at some point they didn't have money to invest anymore. Our decision was just to close the company before it was too late. So that was the first experience with technology, even before finishing uni. Then I finished uni and started working and I started travelling all over the world.

Christian Pallaria

And particularly in Lima, I introduced BIM technology in a project there for a metro line stations. It was 2010. And from there, always passionate about technology, I created a software to calculate the station of equation time, following an international standard, which is still used by my old company.

Christian Pallaria

And I was proud of that. And then I started playing with computational design tools like Dynamo and Revit, and then I just entered into these particular space. And partly, I was passionate about project management, which is, I think, the connexion with what we do in a plot wise plan.

Christian Pallaria

So I got my certification at PMI, so the PMP certification, and I started doing project management along with my career in digital. But then it was five years ago when I moved to Australia, when I just joined the full digital delivery. So I forgot everything about the design, I'd say.

Christian Pallaria

Still passionate, but my focus was only into digital tools and how to develop tools that can speed up processes internally into enterprises. which is what I'm doing now in my current role at ACOM. And my passion about project management and technology made me thinking about why is it planning?

Christian Pallaria

I came out with this in my journey.

Andrea Ciaffi

And looking back, which career moments most accelerated

Christian Pallaria

Hello.

Andrea Ciaffi

your shift into digital leadership? Is there a specific moment you can do?

Christian Pallaria

Oh, yeah. Yes, definitely. I think when I moved to Australia, I started dealing with massive projects. And that was the big shift, let's say, because until that moment, I was dealing with big projects, but, you know, let's say, 10, 15, 20 people working around that.

Christian Pallaria

And I shipped from that to 50, which was a big difference. And I was lucky. I had a very good team and we were able to deliver a very great product. But that was the big. the big shift, I believe, when you're starting dealing with not only, you know, a few models, but you deal with everything from GIS to BIM models to drawing to metadata population.

Christian Pallaria

Here in Australia, there is a lot, a very high level of requirement about metadata and the workflow, the right BIM workflow. complying with the ISO. So, you know, it was a very big shift. And that helped me a lot to not only reading and study things on books, but also applying that in the real in the real life in a real project.

Christian Pallaria

And there was a there was a massive experience. It was great.

Andrea Ciaffi

And you worked on these large projects, and what did you learn from these mega projects about the real problems that the leaders face?

Christian Pallaria

Oh, yeah, you know, coordination first. It's very hard. Above all,

Andrea Ciaffi

Mm.

Christian Pallaria

if you have a team that is spread across the world, in particular my experience, I had a team that was partially here in Australia, China, India, South Africa, Europe even. And, you know, And the difficulty that comes out with, you know, different time zones, different cultures, and coordination is very, is very, is the key point, right?

Christian Pallaria

And coordination within your team for digital and within the entire team with the other disciplines. In the end, you are creating something that has to be a support for all the other disciplines. So you need to coordinate this with the project manager, with a structural engineer, with a geotechnical engineer, with the role guy.

Christian Pallaria

So it's a big thing. So that's the massive problem that if you. To shoot, if you don't do that properly, you start losing pieces here and there, and I... And the pieces are fragmented. So they are the second point, I'd say, everything's fragmented.

Christian Pallaria

So you got a software to do something, you got another one to do something else, you got all the stuff spread out in a different, in different places. And above all, all these, most of these are unstructured data. Which is the key point of why is it plan?

Christian Pallaria

Like, it's easy to understand the data that is structured in a Power BI platform. You can do your graph, you can understand it very quickly and easy, but when you have a lot of these unstructured data, it comes to be a problem. You're going to spend a lot of time doing that, so that's... I would say that the big problem that we are facing in big projects.

Andrea Ciaffi

And as a part of your job, you probably end up telling people to introduce new ways of digital ways of working. And one of the challenges, I think, is how do you earn trust with the people you work with? So yeah, how do you do that?

Christian Pallaria

I tell you a story. When I moved here and I started this mega project in here, I was impressed because it was like at the beginning, it was like everyone, they didn't care about digital. Everyone was like, I'm focused on my structure. I'm focused on my Road design.

Christian Pallaria

I'm focused on my bridge design. I don't want to deal with digital. Why? I'm focused on my calculation. And for me at the beginning it was like... Have these guys read the specification, the requirement from the client? Because I mean, this is a deliverable.

Christian Pallaria

We can't just go there and say, no, we don't deliver the model. And at the beginning, the beginning, the approach was very soft. So I was just let them talk, you know? And I remember that I was talking with my manager. And I told him, look, I just let them talk.

Christian Pallaria

I can't start fighting because I did in the past in my previous company and that didn't work. And then I say, I need to find another way, another approach. And the approach was try to explain them the why, which was, first of all, the client is requiring it.

Christian Pallaria

But that wasn't really helpful, at least at the beginning. And it was when the client came back, probably in the middle of the project, asking for that. And they start mentioning, look, I sent an e-mail that day, sent another e-mail that day requiring this, this, this, and that.

Christian Pallaria

And they understood that maybe I mean, there was something in the background that I was doing. And so we sit down and we start talking about that. I start explaining the why we were doing that. It was not only because the client is requiring it.

Christian Pallaria

We are doing this because there are other things that we can do with these models afterwards. So when the project will be delivered, this model will be useful for maintenance. be useful for a lot of other things like digital twins. All the things that we are talking about now, and it's pretty normal and everyone knows.

Christian Pallaria

At the time, they were like, what are you talking about? So when I mentioned we could even do a bit of quantity, they were like, no, I mean, we like our Excel, no? And we ended up testing it, doing our bill of quantities in our model.

Christian Pallaria

And we ended up even populating metadata for sustainability. So, you know, when you start having this kind of conversation and you touch the point of the why and people understand why, they may start thinking differently and start saying, okay, Right, cool. This is cool.

Christian Pallaria

So let's try, let's do a POC, let's see how it works. And so let's say the way to introduce these is like the strategy is to talk with their language. If they don't understand these, you don't have to be technical, otherwise they will not understand you.

Christian Pallaria

So if you're talking with a project. project managers talk about numbers. If you're talking with a very specialist, talk about what's the benefit that these things can give you if you do in the proper way. So that helped me a lot in this particular journey.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, communication transparency is really key.

Christian Pallaria

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

But sometimes you find a digital solution that works and you try to scale it to enterprise level on a big project. And we sometimes still see that this digital programmes may fail. But from your point of view, where do you see digital programs?

Andrea Ciaffi

fails even when the technology itself sounds like it looks good.

Christian Pallaria

Yeah. Outside of maybe the the big points is that, like, the the... The high expertise required sometimes for specific tools, because they are difficult to be used. You know, technology is there. Technology is good, and it really solves problems for construction. There is a lot of tools that are doing great things.

Christian Pallaria

But Many times it happens that you need a specialised guy, a specialised person to use that specific tool. And if you don't have it, you need to find it in the market and maybe it costs. So it's very complicated because what would have been seen.

Christian Pallaria

till now is people not being able to use specific tools. And so your role in our particular myself now is my mission is let's make it easier for everyone. And if it's not possible for everyone, for most of them, because if you create something that is too difficult, it will become an elite tool.

Christian Pallaria

And even if it solves a problem, the adoption will be difficult. So I'd say yes,

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah.

Christian Pallaria

even if the technology itself is maybe we need also to think about how difficult, how the learning curve process is, and planning properly the introduction of specific tools within a company, considering the learning curve and the learning process.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, talking about difficulties and their parts, you know, like you're working on projects that are different countries in different geographies, multiple cultures. What's the hardest part of leading this digital change across multiple regions and cultures?

Christian Pallaria

Yeah. Look, I have been working in construction all around the world since I started in 2010. The first experience was Lima, I mentioned before, when I introduced the BIM technology in my previous company. And in every single experience, whether it was South America, whether it was Europe, whether it was Turkey or Russia, here in Australia, the main difficulty is to try to homogenise something for every region.

Christian Pallaria

That's just impossible. You can't do that, right? If you want to create something that will work for everyone, it's just a big challenge and you will never get there because every single region has got specific requirements from from clients, they need a specific tool that can do exactly what they need to do for that particular client.

Christian Pallaria

Even within a region, you may have different clients and different requirements by clients. So sometimes the tool has to be by client or by project, even not, you know, by country or by region.

Christian Pallaria

So There is a lot of difficulties into this, but by experience, I'd say if you are able to create a core robust product that can solve at least 70, 80% of all the problem in every country, and then you just fill the gap of the 20%, with a specific custom tool for that region, you get it.

Christian Pallaria

You definitely can get something from the region. Otherwise, everyone will just push it back because you're giving them something that is not really solving that problem. So that's my experience, again, all around the world.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah.

Christian Pallaria

It's not just an Australian thing. It's not just, you know, an experience that I had here in Australia or in the last years. It's a thing that I have been seeing since I started my career in this space.

Andrea Ciaffi

And you worked in corporate, in large companies like KCOM, but at some point you must have identified a specific gap that led you to fund YC Plan. So can you share with us what specific frustration or gap led you to start this journey?

Christian Pallaria

Yeah, OK. Let's say, first of all, just to reconnect with the last thing I said, is across my career, all around the world, I have been seeing this problem always in every project.

Christian Pallaria

So frustration, fragmented data, Unstructured data that is everywhere, and people need time to to look into that, but what really made me thinking about these and focusing a lot of the about these was the day I was in a... I was in a school, my son's school.

Christian Pallaria

There was a band, a school band concert, and they performed really well. And finally, there was a big applause, and my son's friend stopped crying. And I just didn't realise why. No, it was a great. success. And it just was because his daddy wasn't there.

Christian Pallaria

And I know his dad, he's working in another company, construction company, and he's a project manager. So I just drop a message and say, what happens? I mean, you know, here, why? And he told me, look, I'm stuck in my office looking for one single information that I don't know where he is.

Christian Pallaria

I have been looking into emails, into contracts, RFI, MMM. I really can't find it. And it is not a joke because the project is valued millions. So where you're dealing with millions, you can't really say, OK, just I stop it. I just I need to go to.

Christian Pallaria

to my son's concert band. So that thing made me reflect a lot because they start saying this, I mean, this thing shouldn't happen. If you got a family, you should be there with your son and watching his concert, his first concert. Now, that's a big thing.

Christian Pallaria

You're going to remember that for your life. And so I started thinking about that. And I started saying, AI can solve this easily. Now, if you start building something that connects all the dots, you can solve the problem. And so I started creating a very quick POC, and then we ended up now with a product that is great.

Christian Pallaria

I love it. But again, I don't love the product because what I really love is what I told you before. I love hearing people coming back home earlier and staying with their family. or just going to the beach, whatever you do. I mean, you're young, you don't have family, you just go to the beach, enjoy your life with friends, whatever.

Christian Pallaria

But that's the thing. That's my passion. And every time I go to sleep every day, and every time I wake up every day, I'm thinking about that. And what we're building is something that solves that problem very well.

Christian Pallaria

And again, it's a Jedniuk AI ecosystem which connects all the dots together and grab all the information from every single source, creating a unique source of truth as a big knowledge of the project and can give you insights. can give you answer when you have any question or can pop up warnings even if you don't have a question.

Christian Pallaria

So it's reactive, it's not passive. And that's great. So yeah, we started with this kind of frustration and we are creating something.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, and you mentioned that it's about giving time back to people. So why do you think, why is it,

Christian Pallaria

Claire.

Andrea Ciaffi

why do you think that giving leaders time back is such a powerful value proposition in the market?

Christian Pallaria

Yeah, yeah, for that reason, as I said before, I believe people deserve it. And we're not creating a tool. We started thinking how we can change the way of working. And what's the tool that can do that? So we don't, we didn't start out how the project manager today does this, this, this, and that.

Christian Pallaria

Yes, but then we say, but what if he started doing this, this, this, and that based on a tool that can really solve that problem for him? or her. And above all, we didn't start thinking about the tool itself. We start thinking about AI in the middle, and we start building everything around it, which is different from what we've seen today in current tools.

Christian Pallaria

Like, you know, current tools, they got a co-pilot. They start plugging co-pilot in. and they do something with AI in a workflow that they got in place for years. They've been there for years. They can't really change the tool entirely because it's impossible.

Christian Pallaria

What they can do is plug in an AI kind of co-pilot here and there. They can do something. But the real value you can give now to your clients is If you have your AI here at the core and you start building things around it, and the workflow is not the tool, the workflow is within AI itself.

Christian Pallaria

It's pretty complex to think, but if you think about an ecosystem, if you think about it's an artificial Group of people. The interaction you can have within them is just great, is exactly what happened in normal life. You're just making it artificially. And then your tool can be built around that.

Christian Pallaria

Based on that particular core.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, it's interesting because now we will see new new new products and new tools emerge are like, like why why Ziplan would be AI native, so they are structured and around AI and they'll probably produce a more natural way of communicating with software solutions, where previously, as you said, like we were, it was a human being that needed to

Christian Pallaria

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

adjust to the software with the interface and now probably with AI, we have a huge opportunity in this market to create products that are actually designed for humans a lot more than they used to be before.

Christian Pallaria

Yeah, yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

What made you decide that this problem needed a new company and not just an internal initiative?

Christian Pallaria

Ohh, yeah, right. Um, yeah, whatever lies over time and... is that, I mean, in large company, you can improve tools, you can improve workflows, you can create even kind of internal, let's say, standards, not that everyone can use and adopt. But when the problem requires an alignment across clients, contractors, consultants, multiple platforms, it becomes bigger.

Christian Pallaria

Now, it's a bigger problem. It's not just an internal thing. It can't be in one organisation only. So in my whole career, in my whole career across different projects and geographies, as I mentioned before, South America, Turkey, Europe, Australia, Asia. I have been seeing these, now the same patterns, the same issues and fragmentation of data, decision latency.

Christian Pallaria

So to take a decision, you need to go through multiple documents, read them, maybe you spend like hours. And then after a couple of days, you come in a meeting and you take a decision, but that's maybe too late. And so at some point, it became Kind of clear to me that.

Christian Pallaria

Uh... it was not about improving an internal company system. It was an industry thing. It was an industry, let's say, gap. And if the problem sits, let's say, across the market and across the whole industry, I think the solution has to sit in the market itself.

Christian Pallaria

It can't sit in one organisation only. So I started thinking about that and nothing. I realised that there was a need of a new company and here we are.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, and we want to watch this space to see how your project evolves. There is a lot of, there is a lot of... Many buzzwords around the AI and this agentic system, but can you demystify this for us a little bit more? Like what does decision intelligence, for example, really mean in the construction context?

Christian Pallaria

Yeah. Okay, decision intelligence. As I said before, if you think about recreating A-team artificially, if you think about connecting all these dots together, you just turn the fragmented project data into actionable insights because you are receiving insights in real time. You don't have to spend 2 days to understand where that information in multiple documents and then meet.

Christian Pallaria

You can meet in 30 minutes after having had a, you know, a conversation with our YZ. And that's the first thing. Then I'd say, I feel we need to move from reported what's happened to reporting what will happen. So we need to be able now to think at the future, not just about what is happening now and what happened yesterday, trying to recover stuff.

Christian Pallaria

Now, instead of recovering, we should start thinking about... preventing things to happen. And we help with that. And then connecting, again, all the dots, like connecting cost, schedules, risks, RFI, MMM, everything. Now connecting all the knowledge of a project that should be sitting in the project manager.

Christian Pallaria

brain, but we are human beings. So we can't really keep up with everything. And sometimes we just forget things. And we're not confident because at some point you have a lot of things. And if you also put on top of it all your family stuff, kids, you get crazy.

Christian Pallaria

And when someone comes to you and asks something, you say, usually you say, oh, I think this is the answer, but let me just think about that. I'll give you an answer tomorrow. And maybe tomorrow is too late when you can say, yeah, I think this is the answer.

Christian Pallaria

Give me 30 minutes. I'll come back to you soon. That's it. And you take a decision on time, avoiding all that latency and avoiding all that risk, which is median. in construction that can become millions if you turn that into money. So like ultimately I'd say.

Christian Pallaria

If you want to, what we want to give is like this kind of confidence to project managers, but also to executives to run projects on time, within the budget, and preventing problems rather than solving.

Andrea Ciaffi

So yeah, it's about trust, I guess, but well, previously it was about controlling the projects.

Christian Pallaria

Yeah, definitely. Yes, yes, exactly. This is our, I was logging, let's say, you know, giving back time and giving you your trust, your truth.

Andrea Ciaffi

That's great. And where should leader be cautious when they're trying to use AI into the project environment?

Christian Pallaria

Ah. Ohh. Yeah, this is a good point. I'd say... I mean, AI can help a lot, but we need to understand how to use it, because otherwise it may be dangerous. You can't really rely on it straight away. And that's why we believe we're going to create something that can support project manager, not replace them.

Christian Pallaria

So I'd say when you are using AI, Try to be cautious in like, avoid to deploy AI without clear governance, let's say. You need to be aware of what you're doing, be aware about the tools you are kind of deploying, what they do, what their limitation, what's the power, but also the limits, you know.

Christian Pallaria

Exactly, if you want to do an analogy, we can talk about being, you know, a lot of power, but there is also the cons. And the cons, you need to be aware of that. So when you try to adopt that software, you need to be aware that if you got the skill set to do that, you will be fast.

Christian Pallaria

Otherwise, you will not. And the same thing is analogically here. You need to be aware that AI can solve some problems, but you need to be able to handle that. And then avoid like, you know, black box output if there is no traceability and source data.

Christian Pallaria

And this is a thing that I really care about. Like in YZ Plan, what we're doing is For each insights we give, there is a connexion about the data, where the data is coming from. So like a citation of the documents in the page, so you can control it.

Christian Pallaria

The second thing is the hallucination. When we talk about AI, hallucination is the main term. We definitely want to avoid it. We, in all our tests, we are avoiding that until now, 100%. We prefer much more AI saying, I don't know, I don't have that knowledge, rather than saying something that is kind of interpretation.

Christian Pallaria

And we're solving that problem. That's very important for us. So again, avoiding to adopt tools that are not taking care about these two main important things. You know, there's still that at the end it states, oh, AI is not safe, be careful. Okay, that's okay.

Christian Pallaria

But be aware of what that tool does and how that tool gives you answers. And then I'd say... cultural things. Like when you talk about change management and you introduce something, there is also cultural things that has to be considered. And just do not ignore it, because I have been seeing here these in, like YZ plan, talking with multiple stakeholders.

Christian Pallaria

coming from different parts of the world. And they all have different ideas. They all have different requirements. They care about, like, there is someone that is caring about more about security, someone else that is maybe yes, but not at that level, even if security is the main thing.

Christian Pallaria

Let's say that security is the most important thing at this stage when we use AI, but someone is more focused maybe on, you know, e-mail, others in contracts, others in drawings. So there is a lot of cultural thing that has to be considered as well when you start introducing new tools based on AI.

Christian Pallaria

in your in your in your company, and that's part of the, you know, that's an executive decision. You just you just can't say, "Ah, I would introduce AI, there's a new tool, let's let's do that. " You need to carefully consider all these pieces and try to put them together and and above planning the introduction of the new.

Christian Pallaria

Technology.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, and I'd like to slightly change gear and focus on the challenges that we see in the construction industry. You know, sometimes people talk about the fact that data is fragmented or people have misaligned incentives or about the way we structure our culture or the skilled leadership.

Andrea Ciaffi

There is lots of things going on that could be improved. But from your point of view, what do you see as the biggest systemic challenges in the construction industry today?

Christian Pallaria

Yeah, this is a broad question. Like, we, we, we made need to differentiate a bit, like if it is a construction site, there is some challenges. If there is a, if it is a consultancy project, it's another, it's another, there are other challenges.

Christian Pallaria

If it is, if it is a work sharing, there are others. So, I would say Maybe, okay, the main pattern you know already, it's the fragmented data. Data is everywhere and everyone uses different sources. So in this big project, you may have someone using ProjectWise, but then you have got ACC.

Christian Pallaria

That's another tool that everyone uses because Autodesk is based on that. But then you've got also Bentley. And so if in this big project, you start having Pluality, Bentley and Autodesk, you start having multi-platforms and all this data is just captured. So this is a big challenge.

Christian Pallaria

And I know there is a lot of company that are trying to solve that problem as well, like creating unifying metadata. data in a unique source of truth. And this is, I would say, one of the biggest pains. The second is the adoption and reconnecting to before.

Christian Pallaria

If you don't have the right people, you can buy the software. You can buy also the best software that can unify all the sources from everywhere. But if that software is difficult to be used, difficult to be set up, you need to consider that thing.

Christian Pallaria

And that's another big challenge. Usually, many of these software are complex. Now, they are too sophisticated. And sometimes you got a very powerful thing. But in reality, you're not going to use that properly in the right way that can help you. And so sometimes it may happen that it would be a failure.

Christian Pallaria

Now you just have the software there, but you don't use that as it could. And I would say this is a big, big challenge. that you're facing above all in construction. And I would say mostly on site, because while on the side of consultancy, you got people that maybe are used to technology on site,

Andrea Ciaffi

I would say a four as well.

Christian Pallaria

there's the opposite thing. And you may and you need to. And you need maybe to instruct people and educate them to use technology. So that's another big, big challenge. But I honestly believe if we start focusing on making things simple, this big friction in adoption will become easier and we'll be able to deploy tools to the construction sector easily.

Andrea Ciaffi

And thinking about the future, where do you see the, I know it's hard to predict the future, nobody really can. But I guess, what's your best guess? Like, where do you see, how do you see the digital construction space evolving over the next, say, 5 to 10 years?

Christian Pallaria

Wow. I think the big change, it could be robotics. Because now AI is here and there will be like thousands and thousands of tools that will come and will solve problems and problems. And that's pretty clear.

Christian Pallaria

So I'd say in the short term, definitely AI will become the you know, the commodity, it's already, but in a few years, there will be a lot of tools that will use that robotics. It's coming. There'll be a different, you know, process to make it happening in construction, but that can solve a lot of problems about security and safety.

Christian Pallaria

You know, if you can replace someone with a robot and can be controlled by a human, that's safer. And when it comes to safety, I think it's important to consider that. And again, robotics is still maybe still not happening now. But I got the feeling that that's the second step after AI.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, coupling AI with robotics would be an incredible change for society, not just the construction industry.

Christian Pallaria

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

And what do you think? Yeah, go on.

Christian Pallaria

No, no, I was just thinking. And I believe construction usually comes almost as the last industry to be affected.

Andrea Ciaffi

Chad.

Christian Pallaria

So that's the reason why I think maybe the robots will come first in our home and then in construction sector. But we'll see, it may be different, you know. You never know, because I believe this, you know, joining AI with robotics would be a big change, and it could, if a constructor will see the benefit, it may be the opposite.

Christian Pallaria

You know, he may have these robots going around sites before they are in our...

Andrea Ciaffi

And.

Christian Pallaria

In our home, we don't know.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, I remember many years ago watching demonstrations of our robots could go inside a building and try to save people during a fire. We are not trying to replace firefighters, but that's a very dangerous job to do. So if we could send a robot, so try to

Christian Pallaria

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

avoid risking one human life to save another human life with the risk of losing two lives, that will be a massive improvement. Yeah, hopefully AI can help us with that.

Christian Pallaria

Yeah, well, look, I mean, just because I love technology, so I'm just trying to connect the dots as well on these. And I remember that when I was in Italy, I was at university doing a lesson there, and we're talking about digital twin.

Christian Pallaria

And firefighting was my I mean, one of my idea was, what if we can have a digital twin and the firefighters can see the building before they come there, so they can plan how to react based on how the fire is spreading out inside the building.

Christian Pallaria

And that was helpful for humans. But imagine if a robot without even having to use, you know, AI, too many AI capabilities, but during the travel from the station to the building, can plan exactly what to do. That's it. So you got digital twin connected with

Andrea Ciaffi

And.

Christian Pallaria

robotics, connected with AI. If we start reading Seeing all these has a holistic thing that makes sense. It's that the why I was talking about before starting making sense. They are not spreading out, but they are all connected.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, the fishery is certainly exciting. And when you think about AI,

Christian Pallaria

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

AI is today used to make decision, different decisions. But what do you think, what overall do you think AI will play in general in the future when it comes down to making decisions? Because there is also this problem related to trust. How can AI help us?

Christian Pallaria

Yeah. Yeah, I think, like, um... monitoring costs, schedule, risk, giving warnings, having the option to create scenarios with multiple options that you can, you know, you can analyse and compare before committing capital. But everything has to be traceable. So Every recommendation has to be traceable based on real data, so the risk is the wrong tool can give you wrong answer, and you're gonna...

Christian Pallaria

make it worse. But if you're able to use that properly with the proper tool with traceable data, which is what we're doing in YZ Plant, you can definitely deliver these particular things that can help you in decision making. with confidence about, you know, which is the main thing.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah. And we are close to the end, but just one more question. If you were starting again today as a young engineer, thinking about a young Christian, what would you focus on building first?

Christian Pallaria

He. Okay. Uh-huh. Yeah, I'd say the main thing for me is understanding what's happening, understanding the business. So don't look at the technology. Just forget it. Okay? Put the technology aside. Look at the business, look at the problem, not the solution. The solution will come.

Christian Pallaria

Technology will help. But if you are able to focus on the problems and you understand how the business works and behave, you will be successful and you will find a way to create something cool. Maybe not a thing, don't think in like silos, think in a broader way.

Christian Pallaria

So think about all the disciplines, all the industries. Maybe you're targeting construction, but maybe construction is related to FinTech, construction is related to safety, to other things that maybe are not your real core business. But if you think in Silos, you will just look at that.

Christian Pallaria

If you start looking at outside, you will connect everything together and you will be able to create something cool. But the main thing I believe, like being humble is the first and learn it all. So I take this from Satya Nadella. because I love him and I love the many, many interview that he did.

Christian Pallaria

And in one particularly say, don't be the learn it all, the know it all, but be the learn it all because what you know, you already know it. You don't have to tell others that you know it. That's it. But what you don't know, you have to learn.

Christian Pallaria

And so just focus your mindset into learning something that you don't know to become better and better over time.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yes, great. So thanks, Christian. We are at the end of the episode. If people want to reach out to you, where can they find you?

Christian Pallaria

Oh, LinkedIn. LinkedIn is perfect. Yeah. I'm pretty reactive, so looking forward to that. In particular, honestly, I hope I could transmit my passion about the problem we're trying to solve at YG plan. We are looking for implementing the team.

Christian Pallaria

So if you think that you can help with everything, with your expertise, even if you don't need to be a developer, because there is a lot to do here. This is a multidisciplinary project. So if you love this, if you're passionate, if you think that this is a real problem and you, above all, if you love it, you put your heart.

Christian Pallaria

Reach out to me. I think you're going to have fun.

Andrea Ciaffi

That's great. Christian, thanks for sharing such clear and grounded insights today with us. Thanks for joining us on the Digital Construction Podcast.

Christian Pallaria

Thank you guys. Thanks a lot for having me. It was a big pleasure.