Episode 318: Liam O’Donohue, Managing Principal ANZ, Arup, on how AI is set to change the role of the engineer

Engineering has traditionally been understood as a discipline focused on solving technical problems—designing structures, calculating loads, moving people and water, generating and distributing energy, and ensuring the infrastructure around us works safely and efficiently.

But that role is changing.

Engineers are increasingly asked to think beyond individual assets and projects—and instead consider how infrastructure interacts with cities, communities, the environment, technology, energy systems, and an increasingly uncertain future.

At the same time, artificial intelligence is beginning to reshape how design and engineering work is actually done — raising questions about productivity, skills, creativity, professional judgement and what the engineer of the future will look like.

And then there is the question of uncertainty itself.

Liam O’Donohue, Managing Principal for Australia and New Zealand at Arup,explains how you design infrastructure today when tomorrow's technology, climate, demographics, energy systems, and community expectations may look very different.