Ayo Abbas speaks at WICE Awards Summit 2026
On April 23rd, I had the pleasure of speaking at the WICE Awards Summit in a fireside chat with Cristina Lanz Azcarate. Our session, "Claiming the Strategic Seat at the Digital Table," looked honestly at where the industry is right now, what gets lost when the people with the most sector experience sit on the sidelines of these decisions, and what it actually looks like to step in and influence how these tools get designed, implemented and used. My view is simple: women in the built environment need to be part of the conversation shaping digital transformation. We can't just sit back and let it happen to us. It was a practical conversation for women who are ready to lead.
One of the central arguments I made was about the risk of experienced practitioners disengaging while digital transformation decisions get made without them. The people with the most to contribute are often the ones most likely to step back, and that's a problem the industry can't afford. When AI tools get built and briefed without input from people who've spent decades understanding how projects actually work, you don't get transformation. You get the same structural problems dressed up in a shinier format.
I also pushed back on the idea that industry knowledge should be set aside in favour of starting from scratch. Decades of hard-won experience, the decisions that went wrong, the projects that overran for reasons no dataset has ever captured, that's exactly what should be guiding how these tools get designed and implemented. If the data going in reflects historical inequities, the outputs will too. And if experienced practitioners don't document what they know and get into the rooms where the briefs are being written, that knowledge quietly retires with them. My key message was made abundantly clear this is precisely the moment to step forward, not step back.
Find out more about WICE here and about hiring Ayo Abbas as your next speaker.
Further reading
AI in construction: what happens if we lose the knowledge and can it replace it?
When it comes to AI and critical thinking is it a case of use it and lost it?
Ep 92: AI in marketing: The good, the bad, and the reality
