Discover key insights from Renzo Taal, CEO of Thinkproject, on digitalization, AI agents, and the future of asset lifecycle management
Written by :
Clémence Bouffard
April 28, 2026
With only 0.2% of all construction assets digitized, a fraction of comparable industries, construction sits at a critical inflection point. The question is no longer whether AI and digitalization will reshape the sector, but how fast, and who will lead it.
In this new episode of our Insights from Tech Leaders series, Elie Abdallah sits down with Renzo Taal, CEO of Thinkproject, to explore what the agentic era means for one of the world's most complex and asset-intensive industries.
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🎧 Listen to the podcast
As Elie Abdallah's analysis of the AECO segment highlights, construction and real estate remain among the least digitalized industries, and that gap is precisely where the opportunity lies. For Renzo, this is not a source of discouragement, it is a source of conviction.
Construction serves some of the world's most critical infrastructure: nuclear power stations, tunnels, roads, airports, energy grids. These assets require accuracy, compliance, and zero tolerance for mistakes. And yet the data underpinning them remains largely unstructured, dispersed, or entirely absent.
As Renzo puts it:
"Not only are we behind as an industry, we're actually not going fast enough."
This gap represents both the challenge and the opportunity. Thousands of assets in cities around the world have no digital record. The wave of digitalization has barely started.
Thinkproject's journey is a useful lens for understanding where construction software is heading.
The company began as a collection of best-in-class applications, contract management, Common Data Environment (CDE), asset management, born in different geographies and subsequently integrated. Over time, the architecture shifted from a house of brands to what Renzo describes as a branded house: a unified platform where applications converge, data flows freely, and AI can be deployed at scale.
This transition was not reactive. Thinkproject started building toward the agentic era three years ago, long before it became an industry talking point.
"We started this journey a long time ago, not on a roadmap, not a proof of concept, not a belief, not a promise, but an actual functioning enterprise platform, deeply embedded with AI capabilities."
Today, 50% of Thinkproject's code is AI-generated. Every department uses agentic capabilities. And the company is growing at more than twice the industry average.
Rather than treating AI as a single capability, Renzo describes a layered approach to deployment, one that reflects the different maturity levels of customers and use cases.
The first level is AI search: the ability to query across all data types, 3D models, contracts, structured documents, through a single integrated layer. What previously took hours can now be done in seconds.
The second level is pre-configured agents: purpose-built automation for recurring tasks such as collision detection, compliance checks, or design change analysis. These agents run continuously, freeing teams from manual review cycles.
The third level is thinkproject IQ: bespoke agentic engagements where the company works with clients to define a problem, design a solution, and deploy custom agents to solve it. Pricing shifts from user seats to outcomes and construction volume.
"They're going to come to you and ask you to solve a problem. And they're going to pay you for solving that problem."
This outcome-based model marks a fundamental shift in how enterprise software will be purchased and delivered.
One of the most forward-looking threads in the conversation concerns data sovereignty, a topic that is becoming increasingly central in construction, particularly for public sector and critical infrastructure clients.
Thinkproject's position as a European-born platform, deeply embedded in local regulatory frameworks across France, Germany, the UK, and beyond, gives it a structural advantage that is difficult to replicate.
But Renzo is careful not to lean on this advantage alone:
"We try to be the choice because of innovation, because we're ahead, because we have embraced and entered the agentic era."
The company's ambition is to be what he describes as a "global enterprise construction company with local reach", comparable in positioning to what HSBC built in banking. Global scale, but with the depth and compliance awareness of a local partner.
Perhaps the most memorable framework in the conversation is Renzo's taxonomy of how software companies will navigate the current transition.
"If at one second you think you've got the holy grail of the solution, that's the day you're going to be in category one or two."
The antidote, in Renzo's view, is a beginner's mind and an institutional willingness to crash-test assumptions every year.
Looking ahead, Renzo sees a construction industry that will digitalize in ways that go well beyond software alone. Robotics, camera systems, on-site sensors capturing real-time data, the physical and digital worlds will increasingly converge. Sustainability software is already reshaping the built environment from a carbon perspective, and the next wave will go further still.
Labour shortages will accelerate automation. Asset owners will demand compliance management at scale. And the software companies that win will be those that can translate complex, high-stakes problems into reliable, outcome-driven solutions.
The industrial revolution analogy is deliberate:
"This is not happening, it happens. It's a critical inflection point."
For Thinkproject, that inflection point is already underway.
About the series
This interview is part of our Insights from Tech Leaders series, where we speak with leading operators and industry experts across global software markets.
At Dedale Intelligence, we support investors and corporates in navigating complex technology markets and building conviction in fast-evolving environments.
About Thinkproject
Thinkproject is a European leader in construction intelligence software, serving asset owners and general contractors across the full asset lifecycle, from planning and construction through to handover, management, and operations. The company's platform integrates contract management, Common Data Environment (CDE), BIM, and asset management capabilities, and is used by some of the world's largest infrastructure owners across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia.
For more information, visit: www.thinkproject.com
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