This blog content comes from an interview conducted on January 30, 2026. For more information or context, watch the full episode where you get your podcasts.
“If you’re charging by the hour and you’re doing it quicker, then it’s self-defeating.”
- Joe Viscuso, Director of Strategic Growth, Pennoni
Joe Viscuso has seen AEC from nearly every angle: founder of his own firm, M&A veteran, and now the person at Pennoni responsible for growing the top line. He also has a reputation for putting new technology to work before most firms have finished debating it. On Episode 2 of the AEC GrowthCast, he sat down with host Greg Hart to talk about what separates technology worth adopting from technology that is just noise.
1. Start with the client’s problem, not the tool
“I like to say I try to connect the two ends of the wires, to be that piece of wire in the middle. I’ve seen a lot of technologies that have been brought to Pennoni. And some of the things that I always point out is, ‘I think it’s a really good application, but you’re going to have to adjust A, B, and C for it to be something that the client will want to use at the end of the day.’”
Fit matters as much as function:
“All technologies won’t fit every firm because they won’t fit every client. Our digital journey might be different than somebody else’s digital journey because we need ABC. This is what our clients are looking for versus another firm might be.”
2. Adoption will speed up as the workforce turns over
“Pennoni, like many other firms, the senior leadership is aging out and retiring. We had quite a few retirees at the end of 2025, which brings really good opportunities for our younger staff. That’s what you want.”
Clients are changing too, though not all at the same pace:
“I think the private clients are much more ready to adopt. They are entrepreneurs in their own way. They want the best and the fastest and the quickest way to get to the finish line. The public sector clients are a little more reluctant to change: the DOTs at that level, some of the counties and municipalities. I think it’s going to take probably a few more years.”
3. Objective data takes the politics out
Viscuso’s example is AI-based road analysis, which his firm started exploring about eight years ago.
“In the past, the way to do asphalt or pavement analysis was basically visual, and it was a very subjective type of analysis. The way you see a crack in the asphalt is different than the way I see the crack in the asphalt.”
The new approach produces a map of road conditions, and the clients’ reaction surprised him:
“Out of that comes what I call a heat map, and it puts the conditions of the road from dark red being the worst to dark green being the best. Now it’s very objective. It takes the subjectivity out of it. When I show them to my clients, they’re kind of relieved because I’ve taken the politics; I’ve taken Mrs. Smith out of the equation. They’re not spending any less dollars, but they’re putting them in the right place.”
4. Prove it small before you scale it
“Proof is in the pudding. I had a client that I’d ask, ‘Hey, can we try this on your roads?’ What do they care? It didn’t cost them a dime. So we made a couple of models out of it. There wasn’t a big expense on our end. Sometimes you just have to prove it with a proof of concept and spend some dollars. But to me, it’s much better to spend the dollars to actually try the product on a couple of clients in terms of our own internal beta testing, and then go from there.”
He also points out why this kind of technology keeps improving:
“Like all AI, the more it sees, the better it gets. So you’re not comparing Main Street to Elm Street in that particular municipality. You’re comparing Main Street to some street in Amarillo, Texas.”
5. Make the data work twice
Once the data exists, it keeps paying off:
“We’ve taken that technology and run it into our asset management team. Now we’re locating assets with it. The AI knows what a park bench is versus a street light versus a stop sign. As you’re gathering the street data, you’re also gathering all of these other inlets and manholes. Ten or 15 years ago, you would have had to go out and survey and locate all that stuff. It was too costly for a small municipality to be able to afford it.”
He sees a much bigger opportunity ahead:
“I think we are one industry as a whole that hasn’t figured out a way to monetize our data yet. The data that we collect is unbelievable. Unbelievable amounts of data on a project. To be able to monetize that data and use it several times over, beyond even the initial client that you gathered the data for, I think there’s going to be an appetite for that.”
6. Get out of the business of selling hours
“We do have to get out of the selling our hours kind of business. It’s really more about value proposition, the ability to bring more holistic approaches, and then charging on the value.”
“Our clients are looking for bigger, more holistic solutions than just ‘Give me this for five hours at $200 an hour.’ They’re looking at all kinds of things that bring value to them: ‘How do I save energy? How do I save time? How do I save tax dollars?’ We as an industry have to transform ourselves out of that hourly charge kind of mentality.”
Hear the full conversation
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