AINS Group is shaping the future of the built environment with AI

AI is profoundly reshaping how buildings and infrastructure are designed and delivered. What sets leaders apart is not having access to AI tools, but knowing how to apply AI to support people doing complex, high-stakes work, where small decisions can have long-lasting consequences.

This is where AINS Group stands out.

As one of Finland’s largest design and engineering companies, AINS Group delivers more than 9,500 projects each year with 1,400 employees and close to €150 million in net sales. At this scale, AI cannot be a side experiment. It must be dependable, understandable, and trusted by experts whose decisions directly affect safety, cost, and the quality of the built environment.

By developing AI solutions, AINS Group is improving productivity and efficiency in its project work. AI helps experts deliver projects more smoothly, reduce errors, and make better decisions earlier in the process. This creates more value for clients and allows the company to grow its business more efficiently.

“We want to empower our experts with the best tools available so they can succeed in an increasingly demanding market,” says Max Levander, Chief Technology Officer at AINS Group. “Our AI investments are not about reducing staff – quite the opposite. We actively welcome new experts who know how to work with AI and help us push our capabilities further.”

This AI journey is the result of close collaboration between expert teams and business leadership, with strategic technology development led by Levander and supported by Vaaka Partners. From this work, three lessons now guide how AINS Group applies AI in practice.

1. Everything starts with fixing your data

Construction and industrial projects generate vast amounts of information: drawings, models, reports, measurements, and photos. Too often, this information is fragmented across systems and documents, making it difficult to find, compare, or reuse when it matters.

AINS Group began by organizing project information so it could be clearly understood and reused by both people and software, under clear data governance, role-based access, and client-specific controls. Sensitive and confidential data is excluded from AI use, while secure summaries and general insights can be shared more broadly, allowing teams to learn from past projects and make better decisions without compromising trust.

“If data is scattered and unclear, AI can’t really help,” Levander says. “First you need to get the basics right.”

2. Solve everyday problems, not abstract technology challenges

With the foundations in place, AINS Group brought AI directly into everyday work. Initial use cases focused on supporting sales, tendering, references, and other preparatory activities around client work. From there, AI has been extended into expert and engineering workflows.

Throughout this work, the emphasis has been on practical questions experts face daily: Is this site suitable for construction? Which option works best under real conditions? How can analysis be faster without sacrificing quality?

AINS Group has built and deployed its own tools and services, including Vibmapper®, Onesite®, and Tower Generator, which experts rely on in customer projects to analyze data, compare options, and reduce manual effort.

The same approach is now being applied to onboarding, access to standards and guidelines, design checking and review, and environmental assessment, supporting quality control. Work that once took days can often be completed in hours, allowing experts to focus on judgment, coordination, and the nuanced decisions no algorithm can make alone.

Only tools whose results experts can understand, explain, and verify are scaled, especially where decisions affect safety, cost, or regulatory compliance.

3. Keep ownership with the experts

At AINS Group, ownership of AI sits with the project teams, supported by shared platforms, policies, and governance. Teams closest to projects identify opportunities, decide when and how tools are used, and take responsibility for adoption. Within a common framework, teams are also encouraged to build their own solutions and to use compliant commercial tools where appropriate.

Shared platforms and frameworks provide consistency and scalability, while allowing AI tools to be adapted within real projects. In practice, AI tools are tested and refined under real constraints such as regulations, schedules, and client requirements. Core capabilities are developed centrally, while the “last mile” is shaped in projects to meet specific client and project needs, enabling faster deployment without fragmenting the tool landscape.

“Our culture is how we stay ahead,” Levander says. “Intelligence stays with the people who use it.”

This approach ensures AI strengthens human expertise rather than replacing it. Results are questioned, reviewed, and validated, and never accepted automatically.

Looking ahead

AINS Group is now entering the next phase by building AI orchestration that connects multiple AI capabilities into end-to-end workflows across the project lifecycle. A concrete example of this is tendering, where AI helps interpret the client’s request, identify relevant reference projects and experts, consider client preferences and environmental targets, and prepare a structured tender draft for expert review, while responsibility and final decisions remain with people. Tendering is just one of several AI-powered workflows already in use across AINS Group, and more are on the way.

Vaaka Partners has played an active role throughout this journey, consistently challenging priorities, pace, and the link between AI development and real business outcomes.

“Vaaka has consistently pushed us to tie AI development to tangible impact,” Levander says. “That external sparring has sharpened our focus.”

The result is a company demonstrating how AI can be applied in the built environment in a concrete, trustworthy way, not as hype, but as a real operating capability that improves how important work gets done.

About AINS Group

AINS Group (A-Insinöörit) is a leading design and consulting firm in Finland, serving the construction and industrial sectors with multidisciplinary expertise. The company provides a comprehensive range of services across six business areas: project and construction management, architectural design, structural engineering, renovation design, industrial and building services engineering, and civil engineering. www.ains.fi