AI is Riding Shotgun on Interstate 10

If you’ve driven Interstate 10 between Columbus and Sealy lately, you’ve probably noticed something big is happening. Lanes have shifted, construction crews are everywhere, and the highway seems to be taking on a new shape. It’s easy to assume that engineers simply drew a line on a map and started moving dirt.

Not anymore. Projects of this size still depend on experienced engineers, surveyors, and architects. They make the decisions. But today they have a remarkably intelligent assistant riding shotgun: artificial intelligence.

Imagine being asked to redesign one of the busiest stretches of highway in Texas. Where should the lanes go? Will traffic increase over the next twenty years? Which areas flood during heavy rains? Where will trucks merge safely? How can construction be staged to keep traffic moving?

Fifty years ago, answering those questions meant countless hours studying maps, traffic counts, and engineering reports. Today, AI can analyze decades of traffic patterns, weather records, crash reports, elevation maps, and construction costs in a fraction of the time. It can compare hundreds—or even thousands—of possible design scenarios before engineers settle on the best solution.

That doesn’t mean AI is making the decisions. It isn’t.

People still decide where the road goes, how much money to spend, and what risks are acceptable. AI simply helps organize an enormous amount of information so the people making those decisions can see patterns they might otherwise miss. It can also help engineers test different alignments, estimate costs, identify flood-prone areas, and plan construction stages that reduce delays and improve safety. Indeed, construction workers and engineers are two years into a four-year project.

Think of it this way. If you’re putting together a thousandpiece jigsaw puzzle, AI doesn’t tell you what the finished picture should look like. It just helps sort the pieces into piles—sky, trees, buildings, and roads—so you can assemble the puzzle much faster.

That’s how I believe we should think about artificial intelligence. It isn’t replacing the engineer. It isn’t replacing common sense. It’s helping professionals do what they’ve always done— only with better information.

The next time you drive through that construction zone on I-10, remember that bulldozers and concrete aren’t the only tools at work. Somewhere behind the scenes, AI has probably helped answer hundreds of questions before the first shovel ever touched the ground. And that’s the kind of AI most of us can appreciate— not flashy, not frightening, just quietly helping build the road ahead.