Unanet Releases 2026 AEC Inspire Report Revealing AI Adoption Surge While Data Confidence Lags

Key findings from the 2026 AEC Inspire Report:

• AI adoption has accelerated, but data confidence lags. 75% of AEC firms now use AI, up roughly 20 percentage points year-over-year; yet only 29% report high confidence in the underlying data that fuels those AI tools, creating a risk that AI insights could be flawed. The most successful users of AI have strong data governance protocols in place.
• Talent remains AEC firms’ top concern. Despite widespread reports of AI displacing workers, AEC firms identify talent acquisition and retention as their foremost business concern, ahead of economic factors and competition.
• Firms are mostly using AI in Business Development and Marketing functions. The majority of the industry is open to using AI in back-office applications such as proposal writing, forecasting and reporting, and project monitoring.
• Proposal volume is surging but win rates remain flat. Faced with economic uncertainty, many AEC firms have adopted a high-volume pursuit strategy, submitting more proposals in the hope of winning more work. Yet win rates have held steady at approximately 50%, suggesting that volume alone is not a substitute for strategic go/no-go discipline. Most firms have go/no-go processes in place, but only half are formalized with an industry leading tool like ProposalAI AEC.
• Industry optimism hits a two-year low. The share of AEC firms expressing optimism about the industry has declined 20 percentage points over the past two years, falling from 86% in 2023 to 66% in 2025. The drop reflects mounting pressures from economic uncertainty, intensifying competition and an increasingly complex business environment, even as firms continue to grow revenues and hold net profit steady at approximately 16%.
• Client expectations continue to rise. Client demands around timeline, budget and service quality have grown meaningfully over the past twelve months. Encouragingly, the industry reports that it has largely met those elevated expectations, a testament to operational resilience even in challenging conditions.

“It’s become undeniably clear that the pace of change is accelerating, so the question is no longer how quickly or how much firms can grow, but how well they can,” said Akshay Mahajan, Unanet’s Executive Vice President of AEC. “Obtaining sustainable, predictable growth means embracing a broader view of your business and clarifying long-term objectives. For firms that have already taken this step, enhancing data discipline will unlock hidden efficiencies and guide any necessary adjustments.”

While AI is reshaping how firms operate, the findings reveal a widening gap between technology adoption and the underlying data readiness required to make that technology truly effective. The report demonstrates why the most successful AEC firms are implementing the “Four C’s” of strategic alignment including (1) Corporate Growth, (2) Capabilities and Capacity, (3) Capital Outlay, and (4) Clients and Projects. The 2026 Inspire Report provides a comprehensive list of questions to initiate discussions and reveal where more clarity might be needed by AEC firms.

“Strategic decisions should be driven by data. But collecting and using the right data can be hard without knowing what blind spots exist at your organization,” continue Mahajan. “That’s where Unanet offers its greatest value. We enable AEC firms to connect their system of record with both agentic capabilities and human intelligence, so their business has the most insight and analysis possible.”

To download the 2026 AEC Inspire Report, visit https://info.unanet.com/2026-aec-inspire-report.

About Unanet

Unanet is the leader in AI-first ERP and growth software for project-based businesses. Trusted by more than 4,200 government contractor, architecture, engineering, and construction firms, Unanet unifies financials, projects, and pursuits with built-in automation and compliance—all supported by a dedicated customer success team. This empowers leaders to make confident, real-time decisions that drive growth from pipeline to profit. Learn more at unanet.com.