My Take – AI, RICS and the future of surveying

Speaker: 00:08
Hello and welcome. You’re listening to This Is Surveying, the podcast shining a light on the people, ideas, and stories shaping this incredible profession. I’m Nina Young, founder of Surveyors UK and the Surveying Room, the community bringing surveyors together, breaking down silos, and making surveying visible. So for now, let’s dive into our latest episode. Hello everybody and welcome to the solo episode of This Is Surveying. So it’s early January. I’m recording this on the 10th of Jan, so I think I’m still allowed to say a happy new year to you all. I do hope you all manage to switch off even briefly before everything just suddenly kicks back into life. I want to start this episode with something I wish more people really understood. AI is going to impact your work, whether directly or indirectly, your clients, your employees, and the public. Whether you choose to adopt it or not, it’s not prediction. This is already happening everywhere. 2025 was definitely the year a lot more people noticed AI. And interestingly, it wasn’t because of work. It was more because of everyday life. Parents experienced their children using it for their homework. People started talking about it at home or with friends, and employees realized it was already in tools they were using every single day, often without really thinking about it. Search, emails, shopping ads, messaging. Most people really didn’t decide to use AI. It’s just appeared in everything you already use, like Microsoft, Amazon, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and so on. I think once that penny dropped, it didn’t take long for this to land professionally, including in surveying. And honestly, I was actually glad that shift happened last year because people and especially surveyors started paying attention in a more serious way. And when I say serious, it went from being a little bit of curiosity to more wanting to understand it more and realizing how important this was going to be. I’ve been talking about AI in this space for quite a few years now because I could honestly see where this was all heading. And I’ve never thought it was a full replacement. I didn’t think a Terminator robot is going to turn up on site and replace surveyors. But there is significant change and even more change is coming. It’s not going to slow down. I don’t think a bubble’s going to burst either. If we stopped AI development altogether now and just stopped it where we are, we already have the technology to significantly disrupt our world, even if we stop now, but it’s not going to slow down. I think sometimes the conversation goes wrong because AI is often seen as just a tool to help surveyors do things faster, like reports. And I really don’t see it that way. AI isn’t just speeding things up, making something a bit more efficient. It’s actually changing the whole environment that professionals, such as surveyors, operate in. It’s changing how quickly data can be captured, interpreted, how people form expectations, how the public looks for information, how they decide whether they even need to speak to a professional in the first place. It affects everybody around surveyor and not just the surveyor. It’s affecting every profession built on knowledge, accountancy, legal, medicine, consulting. If your value is primarily I know things, AI changes that overnight, knowledge on its own is no longer the differentiator. What still matters, arguably matters even more, is judgment, insight, context, nuance, and the ability to follow the evidence, the data, and produce insights properly. AI cannot do that on its own. So, a good example, residential surveying. AI doesn’t know that when you went to a property, next door is covered in graffiti because they’ve had an ongoing neighbor dispute. It doesn’t know that you picked up something on site that wasn’t obvious in photos, plans, or recorded anywhere. It doesn’t smell damp. It doesn’t know the wider context, the history, the feel of the place, or human factors that don’t exist neatly in a data set. We’ve had valuation models using AI for years and they have their place, but they’re not on site. They don’t carry authority and they don’t carry responsibility. And that matters. Because if something goes wrong, the public still needs redress. They still need someone accountable. They need someone who can stand behind a professional judgment. An AI tool can help scan a house and possibly flag defects. And this technology is getting better and better. But it cannot be challenged directly. It cannot be questioned and it can’t be held to an account in the way a professional surveyor can. That’s why the physical aspects of many parts of surveying and professional judgment are not going away anytime soon. At the same time, I think AI is changing how people behave. People are literally scanning defects with their phones and they’re asking an AI tool what it is. In the past, they might have searched Google, landing on a surveyor’s website and made contact. That’s not always happening anymore. And I think it’s going to happen less and less and less. Search behavior is changing. Property portals are being disrupted. People are looking for properties via their chat GPT, as opposed to going to a portal. Local search is shifting, and people are getting answers inside AI Tools before they ever reach your website. I recently tested this myself. I used my model of choice, ChatGPT, to look for surveyors in my local area. And it came back in less than 10 seconds with a detailed list of recommended, prioritized surveyors, explanations of why they were suggested, reviews, even a comparison table. Now that’s a huge shift, and that is only going to increase. So this is where professional context really matters. The RSES has published the professional standard called The Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence in Surveying Practice. And this comes into force early March this year. This, of course, is a conduct standard. It’s not necessarily a technical one. It doesn’t tell you which tools to use, it doesn’t tell you how to implement AI, and it doesn’t tell you how to adopt it within your firm. What it does do is set expectations around responsibility, judgment, and professional behavior in a world where AI is already present. This is my interpretation on it, based on what I’m seeing across surveying and other professions. It’s not professional advice, it’s perspective. One concept in this standard really matters, and that’s the area around material impact. It’s not about whether AI was used at all, it’s about whether it influenced the service being delivered. If AI helps tidy wording or format some text, that’s not really material. Good example is the software Grammar, which has AI in it. If AI summarizes information you rely on, shapes how a report is structured, or influences where attention goes, judgment, risk analysis, etc., that is. You still apply judgment, you still sign off the work, but the influence is there and the responsibility doesn’t move. It stays with the surveyor and, of course, the firm. Now, none of this should really feel alien. Surveyors already work with judgment, risk, and certainty, and accountability every day. AI doesn’t change that, but it does change the environment that those decisions sit within. I want to mention something practical I’m doing this month because it links directly to everything I’ve talked about here. On the 28th of January, I’m hosting a two-hour live session on AI with Nick Crawford. Nick is an exceptionally experienced AI trainer, and his approach is practical grounded and accessible. This session is not compliance training, it’s not about standards in particular, you know, how to apply them. It’s about understanding AI itself and actually how you can start using it in a way that helps you. Because the reality is you already have these tools in front of you. Some are built into software you use every day, some are free, and some can help you learn AI itself, not just use it blindly. We’re going to look at how AI can support you personally in your role, in your firm, in your business strategy. And there are loads of applications. This session is giving you a proper starting point. And the reason I’m doing this is simple. Having spoken to so many surveyors over the last few years, they all say the same thing. They don’t know where to start. They want a clear introduction, but practical, not a lecture, but actually how to apply it, how to use it. And I think there is a real gap out there at the moment. As some of you may know, I write about AI and surveying regularly. My newsletter on LinkedIn has over 5,000 subscribers, which only demonstrates the interest and the importance and curiosity about AI and surveying. I’m not an AI trainer, that’s why I’m working with Nick, but together we’re delivering something practical, thoughtful, and affordable. So here we go, quick plug. It’s only £59 plus VAT, and it’s two hours. To be honest, this is heavily subsidized, and I’ve tried to make this as affordable as possible because I think people need to start learning the basics and applications of these tools. Something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. If you can’t attend live, that’s fine. If you register, you’ll still get the recording, the slides, and all the follow-up resources that are included. Anyway, moving on from that. Before I finish, I do want to properly wrap this up because I’m very aware of how people are feeling about AI. I think many people are sick of hearing about it. I know there’s a lot of noise. This is hype, and a lot of strong opinions. And I think AI does polarize opinions. There’s also significant misunderstanding. There’s fear, resistance, and confusion. And all of that is really understandable. We’ve never lived through something like this before. It is the most disruptive technology most of us will see in our working lifetimes and in human history. Five years ago, we weren’t talking about human first or human-generated. We didn’t need to because there wasn’t an alternative. Now there is. And that shift is already visible in how people search, how they form opinions, how they gather information, how they research, and how they decide whether they need a professional in the first place. We are still early in this journey, but the impact is already significant and global. That’s why the responsible use of artificial intelligence in surveying practice standard exists, and why it comes into force in March 2026. It’s about clarity, judgment, and responsibility, not fear. I do want to end on something positive, however. One of the most powerful things about AI isn’t what it does for the biggest organizations, it’s what it’s enabling for small businesses, so practitioners and SMEs. Large organizations tend to move slower. They have layers of approval systems and policies. Smaller businesses, I think, have the advantage here. And that I’m seeing and hearing a lot about. If you understand these tools, use them properly and sensibly, they can give you something that would have been unthinkable a few years ago, literally. A thinking partner, a strategic sounding board, an assistant to help you reflect, plan, decide, audit your work, sense-check your ideas, review your decisions. Not replace you, but to support how you think, challenge how you think, but improve yourself without judgment. That’s where I see the real opportunity, and that’s where I’ve really, really benefited from this. It isn’t just about doing things faster, it’s about doing them better with more confidence, more context, and more clarity. So don’t switch off because you’re tired of the noise and I know it’s tempting. Do stay curious, stay thoughtful. But now it is the time to really start understanding it and using it. Engage with AI, talk about it, discuss it, not because of the hype and not because of fear. Do not avoid it. This technology is shaping the environment we all work and live in. Understanding it is becoming part of being a modern professional. And that’s why this matters. I want to thank you for listening to me talking about AI, which, if you’ve stayed to the end, well, I’m really pleased about that you’ve managed to stay to the end. And I appreciate you listening to me. So next week’s episode, as always, will be a guest episode. And I want to thank all you listeners. I’ve had incredible feedback and comments and interest in the podcast since going live last year. And uh yeah, so everybody, do take care, especially out there at the moment. It’s very cold, very icy. And um I’ll catch you all later. Bye for now. Thank you for listening to this is surveying. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review. It really helps more people discover the podcast and supports the work we’re doing to raise awareness of the profession. You can also join the Surveying Room, the free and independent community from Surveys UK, bringing surveys together, breaking down silos, and of course making surveying visible. Just head over to surveyors UK.com to learn more and join today. All the links discussed in today’s episode are included in the show notes.