ICE London
Thursday 17 September 2026 · One Great George Street Institution of Civil Engineers
Bill Guo
Bill Guo FICE CEng MEng
Vice Chair, ICE London · Founder, AutomateX
Anthony Dewar
Anthony Dewar EurIng BEng CEng FICE FRSA
Head of Estate and Architectural Design, Network Rail
Lucy Gardner
Lucy Gardner CEng FICE
Global Rail Skills Network Leader, Arup
Amira Damji
Amira Damji CEng MICE MIStructE
Founder, Additive Sustainability · ICE London AI Working Group

AI and the civil engineer: reimagining roles in infrastructure delivery

ICE London · Rennie Room · 18:30
25%50%80% share of factory power from electric motors, US 188018901900191019201930 1882 · steam, shafts and belts 1909 · still under a quarter 1899 · under 5%, inside the old factory 1905 · build around the motor 1919 · over half 1913 · Ford motor assembly line 1929 · about 80% the 1920s boom 1929 · the Roaring Twenties twenty years installing the motor inside the old factory the factory rebuilt around the motor A faster tool rises to the ceiling set by the workflow around it.
US Census of Manufactures 1929; Paul David, The Dynamo and the Computer, 1990; Warren Devine, From Shafts to Wires, 1983. Pictures: Baines 1835 engraving and Governor Square c.1929 via Wikimedia Commons; Library of Congress.
A mill floor driven by line shafts and belts, engraving after T. Allom, 1835
1882
Factories run on steam, shafts and belts. In New York, Edison switches on the first central power station.
Engraving after T. Allom, Baines, History of the Cotton Manufacture, 1835. Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Factory floor with line shafts and belts, about 1900
1899
The motor is fitted into the old factory. Seventeen years on, under 5% of factory power.
Library of Congress, about 1900
Electric motor beside the steam plant it replaced, 1905
1905
A few firms stop fitting the motor to the factory and build the factory around the motor. People think they are mad.
Library of Congress, 1905
Ford motor assembly line, about 1913
1913
The Ford motor assembly line. The rest follow.
Library of Congress, about 1913
Motor cars and a streetcar in a busy American street, late 1920s
1920s
The Roaring Twenties. Manufacturing rebuilt around the motor, and the boom follows.
Governor Square, Boston, about 1929. Wikimedia Commons, public domain
An opening story · American factories, 1882 to 1929

A similar productivity boom.

1919 to 1929
+46%
output per man-hour
59 → 51
hours in the working week
×5.5
electricians, a trade that barely existed: 50,717 in 1900, about 280,000 by 1930
And some skills carried straight across the era. The people who could lay out the work.
ICEAI and the civil engineer · ICE London · 17 September 2026
A hundred years on

The motor is now AI. The factory is how we deliver infrastructure.

Fit it into the old factory, or rebuild around it?
ICEAI and the civil engineer · ICE London · 17 September 2026
Imperial magazine on my desk: AI, the future is now
Why we are here

Why does 2026 feel different?

Imperial, the magazine for the Imperial community, issue 59, Winter/Spring 2026. On my desk this week.
ICEAI and the civil engineer · ICE London · 17 September 2026
The context

AI capability rose fast and is still rising. Adoption lagged, and is closing the gap.

201420182022 AI capability ChatGPT · Nov 2022 GPT-4o · May 2024 GPT-5 · Aug 2025 2026 models the gap tonight 2026 · tonight infrastructure adoption AI already in rail prediction and monitoring DfT · Jun 2025 GBRX · Apr 2026 ORR · May 2026
Selected milestones; spacing is schematic.
ICEAI and the civil engineer · ICE London · 17 September 2026
The views about AI

The views about AI are polarised.

Overhyped AI will do the engineering. the design, the check, then the sign-off Locked down Keep it away from the railway. public AI tools blocked on every device the civil engineer
Tonight is not about an answer. It is about choosing the question worth asking.
ICEAI and the civil engineer · ICE London · 17 September 2026
Cambridge South station under construction, aerial view
Tonight's question
How is our role
in infrastructure delivery
being reshaped in the era of AI?
ICEAI and the civil engineer · ICE London · 17 September 2026
The professional boundary

The Code keeps the accountability with you. It could also ask what you have handed over.

AI can support
Searching, comparison, drafting, calculation and pattern detection.
Engineers retain
Verification, judgement, disclosure and responsibility for the decision.
ICE Code of Professional Conduct, April 2026: understand the limitations and risks of the technologies you use, disclose their use where relevant, keep that use justified and proportionate, and retain responsibility for professional decisions.
One step further: can you show which parts of your day-to-day work you have identified as safe to hand to AI, and where the boundary sits?
ICE London · AI and the civil engineer · 17 September 2026
Work for the work

Peel the layers and the core is engineering judgement.

engineering judgement
formatting and re-typing
finding the last version
re-entering the same context
chasing comments and approvals
first drafts of things written a hundred times
engineering judgement, and the signature
ICEAI and the civil engineer · ICE London · 17 September 2026
The how

So how do we become AI-enabled?

AI-assisted AI supports the decision acceptance · sign-off · the design choice the engineer owns the judgement AI surfaces context, precedent and risk the engineer decides and signs AI-enabled human and AI, in turn condition reports · review responses · option studies the engineer frames the task prepares the inputs and context AI drafts and analyses the engineer verifies and issues AI-replaced routine, rule-based, checkable formatting · re-typing · finding the last version the document arrives AI extracts and re-types AI checks it against the template filed; the engineer spot-checks Build with increasing proficiency prompting → context engineering → harness engineering → loops Fit the model to the task small models for small tasks, and verify every output Know the boundary hand over the thinking, never the understanding
Our value is the vault. AI is the golden key.
ICEAI and the civil engineer · ICE London · 17 September 2026
One example, last year

55 stations to survey.

site 55walk · photograph · type · climb stations, every one on foot capture 360° drone · 360° camera · laser scan data 7,000 images point clouds · images · reports AI agents agents working characterise · categorise · compare engineers first 3 stations, then iterate competent engineers verify 300 condition reportssame template, defects newly found intelligencefor the next control period 6 months → 2 monthsthe time-consuming part, same engineers
ICEAI and the civil engineer · ICE London · 17 September 2026
ICE Superheroes booklet, civil engineers shaping the world, in my hand at One Great George Street
Before I introduce the speakers

Two centuries of shaping the world.

We lasted because we evolved with our tools, and kept delivering the value society needs.
QR code to automatex.uk/ice.html
A gift to take homeTonight's slides, and the evergreen skills a civil engineer should keep developing. How to ride this wave, with AI as the golden key to the vault of our value.automatex.uk/ice.html
ICEAI and the civil engineer · ICE London · 17 September 2026
Speaker one

Design. Build. Operate. Renew. AI Changes Everything.

Anthony Dewar EurIng BEng CEng FICE FRSA
Head of Estate and Architectural Design · Company Technical Authority for Buildings, Network Rail
Technical and safety leadership for one of Britain's largest and most diverse building portfolios. A recognised voice on the future of railway stations, buildings and the built environment.
Anthony Dewar
ICE London · AI and the civil engineer · 17 September 2026
Speaker two

How AI is shaping Arup’s Global Rail Skills Strategy

Lucy Gardner CEng FICE
Associate Director, Global Rail Skills Network Leader, Arup
A Fellow of the ICE and the Rail Engineering Institution, with 20 years in rail leading multidisciplinary design teams in the UK and Australia. The technical home for Arup's core rail systems disciplines.
Lucy Gardner
ICE London · AI and the civil engineer · 17 September 2026
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