Black & Veatch

As the energy and infrastructure sectors race to meet the demands of data centers, renewables and electrification, one challenge looms large: workforce capacity. Headlines often focus on power and permitting, but the real bottleneck may be people -- especially the engineers to design it and the craftspeople to build it. At Black & Veatch, we believe artificial intelligence (AI) is not just a tool for automation — it’s a catalyst for empowerment. Merging AI with more than a century of experience, we’re training, retaining and elevating the next generation of builders. 

BV Operations is the execution engine of Black & Veatch, housing more than 8,000 professionals globally spanning project management, engineering design, construction, safety and procurement. Our mission is to ensure our talent pool is not only equipped to deliver today’s critical infrastructure but also staffed up and prepared for tomorrow’s challenges. That means investing in tools, training and technologies — including AI — that help our craftspeople work smarter, safer and faster. 

AI is shifting from a powerful back-office tool to a frontline enabler, as profiled in a recent Forbes article — “Physical AI Building the Energy Infrastructure for Data Centers” — that included comments from Michael Owens, solar innovation lead for Black & Veatch. In the article, Michael discussed how Black & Veatch is using AI on the jobsite to increase speed, efficiency and most importantly boost the safety for our crews.  

Predictive maintenance systems powered by AI help field teams anticipate equipment failures before they happen. Wearable tech integrated with AI can detect safety risks in real time. Generative AI is being used to simplify complex installation instructions, allowing craftspeople to visualize tasks and reduce errors. These tools don’t replace our people — they amplify their capabilities.

Training is a major hurdle and we’re tackling it head-on. Black & Veatch has an active apprenticeship program across seven states that has consistently grown in recent years to help train new craftspeople. On the engineering design side, Our Engineering Technician Accelerator program blends hands-on training with AI-enhanced learning modules. Participants learn drafting tools such as AutoCAD and Revit, while gaining exposure to AI-driven design workflows. It’s a three-to-six-month program that transitions graduates into full-time roles and can also be used to help our existing professionals to build skills in new markets. We’re also using internal platforms such as BV Ask — our generative AI interface—to democratize access to engineering best practices across our teams.

Retention is just as important as recruitment. AI helps us personalize career development. Through platforms like Microsoft Copilot and BV Ask, employees can explore new roles, learn new skills and contribute to projects outside their immediate scope. BV Ask is a proprietary chatbot used inside Black & Veatch by more than 5,000 of our engineers to tap into the collective knowledge of our engineering organization around the world. It’s about giving people agency in their growth. We also use AI to streamline workflows, reducing burnout and allowing our teams to focus on high-value tasks. When people feel empowered and supported, they stay.

The aging out of key talent is also an issue. Recently, we had three senior engineers retire and we lost more than 100 years of deep engineering experience in just 45 days. Through a focus on succession planning, their roles were filled by professionals that they had been developing for many years. These plans continue, as they work to identify opportunities to develop professionals that may be several years from being ready. Succession planning is a key component of our operations organization.

We’re just getting started. The next frontier is integrating AI into every phase of project execution — from design to commissioning. We’re also exploring how AI can help us scale mentorship, match employees with learning paths and forecast workforce needs based on project pipelines. As we continue to lead in sustainable infrastructure, our investment in AI-driven workforce development may prove to be one of our most transformative moves. Black & Veatch has open engineering and project manager roles and opportunities for construction professionals.