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“We’ve gone from six bookshelves of paper to having everything right at our fingertips… now with HammerTech’s new AI suite, that efficiency is going even further – it’s honestly mind-boggling where the future could go!”
As one of Australia’s leading contractors, the 1,700-strong team at Kane Constructions has built a reputation for technical excellence and a relentless focus on safety, delivering hospitals, schools, aged care, defence, and large-scale residential projects country-wide.
Today, the Australian contractor is applying that same mindset to the next frontier already reshaping construction: Artificial Intelligence - and specifically, AI in construction safety.
Build Australia sat down with Sal Palay, Head of Safety Systems to dive into AI and the benefits his team is seeing from HammerTech Intelligence.
Field-ready and purpose-built for construction, this suite of AI-driven capabilities strips away manual data entry, instantly recognises key details, and delivers cleaner, more usable safety information for site teams.
As an early adopter, Kane is helping shape how AI can transform site safety in practice, not just in theory.
For Sal, the impact is clear: less admin, faster insights, and more time to focus on what really matters.
Q: How is your company generally thinking about AI right now? Is it a part of your corporate strategy?
A: We’re embracing it and looking to take it even further. We see the potential, and we want to explore how it can make us more efficient and ultimately better at what we do.
Q: Why are you excited about HammerTech Intelligence? What do you like most about it?
A: It just makes things so much more efficient. You can take a photo, and it automatically populates the observation fields. It means less time to get more work done. And honestly, not one person has said the SDS feature got it wrong – it’s been bang on perfect.
Q: How are your teams using HammerTech Intelligence?
A: We’re using all current active features of HammerTech Intelligence. For observations, you take a photo, and it picks up key details, even things in the background. That’s amazing.
Of course, the user still needs to verify the data, but that level of automation is something we’ve never had before. For SDS, you simply upload the data sheet, and HammerTech Intelligence does the rest.
It’s simply made us more efficient.
Q: What are some standout benefits you’re seeing so far?
A: People who are time poor tend to use short descriptions for observations, and the recipient often doesn’t understand the context. Now the observation is described so much clearer – and it’s instantaneous!
We’ve never had anything like this before, and it didn’t take much effort for people to start using it. Before informing the business of these new features, I had a staff member call me to say: ‘I found this thing called HammerTech Intelligence and I tried it, it was amazing'.
Q: How has the adoption of HammerTech Intelligence been for Kane?
A: I sent out a note letting the team know they could take photos for observations and start uploading safety data sheets. Not one person called to ask how to do it. That’s a big deal. This was a significant system change, but it required literally no training.
Q: Where do you see AI having the most impact when it comes to safety workflows?
A: We’ve gone from six bookshelves of paper to having everything right at our fingertips in HammerTech. Now that efficiency is going even further with HammerTech Intelligence – it’s honestly mind-boggling where the future could go.
I don’t think AI will replace people. There’s always nuance it can’t catch, but it can make the process far more efficient and help highlight things humans might miss. It’s a big opportunity to reduce that admin burden.
About Kane Constructions
Sector: Commercial construction (plus industrial, health, education, community, residential and specialised projects)
Size: 450+ employees; $1billion+ annual turnover
Location: East Coast Australia (Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Sunshine Coast) + select overseas projects
Timeline: Founded in 1973; joined the HammerTech Community in 2018
