Stop letting "AI" scare you and start demanding better outcomes

For many of North America’s largest transportation organizations, the term AI raises eyebrows. It conjures fears of black boxes, loss of control, or the risk of handing decisions to something “not human.”

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: AI isn’t the problem. Outcomes are:

• Maryland’s Purple Line cost ballooned from $5.6B to $9.5B.
• East Side Access in New York's price tag has nearly doubled, going from $4.3 billion to $8.25 billion.
• Eglinton Crosstown LRT, Toronto, is almost 4 years overdue and ~$4 billion over budget.

Today, most major capital delivery organizations rely heavily on consultants to assess risk and guide decision-making. These consultants are smart, experienced, and often trusted, but they are also expensive, time-consuming, and ultimately human. They bring with them bias, finite memory, and a reliance on judgment shaped by only the projects they have personally seen.

And yet, because consultants are the status quo, their reports are rarely questioned. Bringing in another firm, even if the results are slower, more costly, and no more accurate, feels safer than taking a chance on something new. Familiarity wins out over effectiveness.

But here’s the irony: while organizations hesitate to trust AI, they are perfectly comfortable outsourcing critical decisions to consultants who bring only a fraction of the experience that data can provide.

Now, consider this:

• A consultant might bring 25 years of experience.
• nPlan brings 780,000 completed projects worth of experience, equivalent to 2 million years worth.

That’s not “AI hype.” That’s data you don’t have access to today distilled into clear, actionable insights about your risks, timelines, and opportunities. It’s the equivalent of having the world’s most experienced project professional on your team, 24/7, without the overhead, delay, or partial perspective.

The Questions No One Wants to Ask

If you could:

• Get objective risk and insights in hours, not weeks;
• Eliminate the noise of human bias;
• Pay less than half of what you do today for consultants;
• Access 300x more project experience than any human could possibly bring...

Would you care if it was AI doing the work? Or would you simply welcome the outcomes?

‍The Consultant vs. nPlan Reality

When you peel back the brand names and familiar faces, the differences are stark (and we hear this echoed again and again from project teams):

• Consultants take weeks to deliver reports. nPlan delivers insights in hours.
• Consultants rely on memory and judgment. nPlan never forgets what 780,000 projects have taught it.
• Consultants bring bias, even unintentionally. nPlan delivers objectivity from data.
• Consultants require endless meetings and coordination. nPlan is available 24/7, to anyone on your team.

This isn’t a take on consultants. We work closely with some of the largest consultancies in the world to help them deliver better outcomes for clients. But the question for leaders in capital delivery is: why would you only rely on them when the technology exists that can amplify decision-making with more experience, greater speed, and clearer outcomes?

Stop Debating AI, Start Demanding Results

If the word AI makes you uncomfortable, that’s understandable. Call it something else. Call it experience at scale. Call it objective foresight. 

But don’t dismiss it. While we debate terminology, projects continue to go late, run over budget, and fail to deliver on promises to the public.

‍The challenge I’ll leave you with is this:

• Are you making decisions based on the best available knowledge or just the most familiar process?
• Is your fear of AI bigger than your appetite for better outcomes?

Because in the end, it won’t matter what label you put on it. What matters is whether your projects succeed or fail, and we want you to succeed. 

That’s why we’ve trained (dare I say it) advanced AI on 780,000 projects, representing 2 million years of delivery experience. That’s more than any consultant, team, or agency could ever hope to achieve. We exist to help you make better decisions, faster, and at a lower cost.

The only real question remains: what’s stopping you?

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