‘We will see our design industry turned on its head’: Gray Puksand’s Jeames Hanley on generative AI

Renders of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in carnival theme, made with generative AI tool Midjourney.

About 90 per cent of workers at architecture firm Gray Puksand are now using ChatGPT and other generative AI programs to write emails, for documentation purposes and to turn sketches into renders.

The mass adoption of the new technology is set to revolutionise the industry, according to digital practice manager Jeames Hanley, who says if the company didn’t lean in, it might one day find itself being out-competed by smaller firms.

Almost all of Gray Puksand’s 220 local staff had been instructed to use generative AI platforms such as ChatGPT to help with writing, to return briefs, to develop questions for builders and for emails, Mr Hanley said.

Last week, The Australian revealed that property giant Dexus had banned staff from using ChatGPT and other generative AI over security concerns.

“Like many businesses, we are excited by AI’s potential but also acknowledge the technology is still maturing and comes with risk,” a spokesman said.

“These risks include increased cyber security exposure, unknown bias and data management – particularly how models store and handle information.”

The next day, at a Property Council event, technology chiefs from some of Australia’s largest property companies including Charter Hall, Mirvac and Lendlease, legal firm MinterEllison and consultancy Meld Strategies confirmed they were all experimenting with platforms including ChatGPT.

Gray Puksand digital practice manager Jeames Hanley.

Mr Hanley, a speaker at the event who will begin teaching building information management at the University of Sydney later this year, said ChatGPT was only one of the platforms his staff were using.

Staff were also using Midjourney to develop renders and Quillbot to summarise reports. And all of those services were costing the firm less than $100 per month.

“We’ve taken a really liberal approach, so we’ve got I would say between 80 to 90 per cent of our business using ChatGPT, whether it’s for their personal use at home or in the office,” Mr Hanley said.

However, staff had been warned that platforms like ChatGPT can provide incorrect information and anything pulled from generative AI platforms needed to be checked and edited before used if at all, he said.

Cyber security experts had previously warned that many Australian companies would soon ban generative AI outright or develop policies on how to use the technology without compromising company IP or accidentally leaking sensitive information.

While Gray Puksand staff had not yet been given formal guidelines on how to best use generative AI products, they had been instructed to never copy and paste directly from the programs into emails or documents, Mr Hanley said.

“Our partners and managing ­director have said what ChatGPT ­returns when asked queries is a baseline minimum and that staff have to edit and humanise the responses,” he said.

Gray Puksand also shared a different view to most when it came to AI and job losses. Mr Hanley said use of the technology would free staff from working on less important tasks.

“I think about it the other way, that if you’re freeing up architects, you can go and get your business development team to go out and find more work,” he said.

“We never want to turn down work and if we are using AI more in the future, we could then potentially take on more work with less resources.”

The architecture and design industry hadn’t really kept up with technological changes, Mr Hanley said.

“We haven’t really changed the way we work or what we deliver in hundreds of years,” he said.

“I think that the design industry will be turned on its head … using AI not only in the concept stages, but all the way through documentation and delivery of the building.”

Mr Hanley said he wondered whether the architectural industry could change its business model within a generation to open up new workflows and whether the technology could lead to the end of billable hours.

“I think my biggest prediction would be a change in how we are charged for the work we do,” he said.

Quillbot, asked to summarise a story published in The Australian last week, returned this:

“Technology chiefs from some of the largest property companies in Australia have said that banning employees from using generative AI was “completely the wrong move” and that businesses should instead educate employees on the safe use of the technology.

“At a Property Council of Australia event, Charter Hall’s chief information and technology officer Sheridan Ware told a crowd that companies should be teaching their staff how to understand the technology.

“Companies in Australia are increasingly going public with their AI products and integrations in a bid to show that they are up with the times, however, many others are yet to embrace the technology or come out publicly about having done so, with fears large language models such as Chat GPT and Bard are being trained on data they don’t own and that there’s a risk employees could share sensitive ­information which could later resurface.

“Chat GPT is a generative AI technology that is being used by architects, interior designers and other creative industries. The panel of experts from Mirvac, Lendlease, Minter Ellison, Meld Strategies and Gray Puksand agreed that companies should embrace the technology and learn how it could be utilised.”