Spark AI for the Built Environment
AI capability for the consultancies behind our buildings and places.
We've helped 80+ creative and marketing consultancies build AI capability across their whole organisation. Now we're bringing the same approach to architects, engineers, surveyors, planners and designers – led by a FRICS with nearly 20 years in real estate.
Join the list to be first into the founding cohort – and first to get our new research on AI's impact on workplace design, out in January.
Your expertise is what clients pay for. AI is changing how it's delivered.
Most built environment consultancies have a few people experimenting with AI and everyone else waiting. Meanwhile clients are asking what it means for fees, bids are getting harder to win, and RICS now expects regulated firms to govern how AI is used.
We help your whole team use AI well – safely, in shared ways, on real work. You choose how: a small cohort with peer firms, or a programme built for your firm.
The founding cohort
- Four half-day sessions with our AI coaches
- Up to 12 people from peer consultancies
- Training on how to go from individual experimentation to team-wide workflows, where you can gain real commercial value from AI
- Agent builds on your own work
- How to lead the AI transformation in your business
- AI policy and safe ways of working with client data
Where the industry is
of UK architecture practices now use AI – up from 59% a year earlier
RIBA AI Report 2026construction professionals say their firm is unprepared or only minimally prepared
RICS, 2026of architects think AI will make it harder for juniors to build skills and experience
RIBA AI Report 2026RICS's mandatory standard on responsible AI use came into force
RICSWhy we're here
Creative and marketing consultancies felt the heat first. Now it's turning to the built environment.
So much of their work is written, visual and billed by the hour – exactly the kind of work AI speeds up. That's why they were among the first businesses to be disrupted.
We've spent nearly three years helping 80+ of them through that change, in the UK and US. We've seen what works, what doesn't, and what the firms that get ahead do differently.
Your firm isn't a marketing consultancy, and we won't treat it like one. We start with your work, your clients and how you win business – and bring the lessons that apply.
What we've learned
Training a few keen people doesn't change the business. Shared workflows across the whole team do.
Leaders have to lead it. When the leadership team learns alongside everyone else, it sticks.
Clear rules on client data come first. They give people the confidence to use AI on real work.
Firms that rethink how they price and package their work early are in a stronger position when clients push on fees.
Join the founding cohort and you get these lessons first – and a head start on the firms around you.
Join the waiting listThe same challenges we've been solving with creative and marketing consultancies for nearly three years
Every firm is different, but these come up again and again wherever expertise is sold by the hour.
Fees built on hours
AI speeds up the work you charge for. Clients are starting to ask why fees haven't come down – and you need a good answer.
Bids eat senior time
Frameworks, tenders and PQQs pull your best people off fee-earning work, for win rates nobody's happy with.
Mountains of reports
Design and access statements, planning statements, surveys, specs and cost reports – much of it follows a pattern AI handles well.
A few people using AI, most not
Some of the team are experimenting on their own. Others are waiting to be shown. There's no shared way of working.
Client data and professional risk
Confidential drawings, commercial figures and professional liability. You need clear rules on what goes into which tool.
How juniors learn the craft
If AI takes on the first-draft work, how do graduates and trainees build their judgement?
New professional standards
RICS now expects governance, policies and a risk register for AI. Other institutes are moving the same way.
Your AI journey with Spark AI
We'll take you as far as you want to go
- Where most firms areStage 1ExperimentationA few people trying AI on their own
- Stage 2AdoptionThe whole team using AI every day, in shared waysCohort or 1:1 programme
- Stage 3OptimisationWorkflows redesigned around AI, with agents doing the repeat work1:1 programme
- Stage 4TransformationAI reshapes what you sell and how you runOngoing partnership
A handful of people using AI, no shared approach, and leaders unsure what's safe or worth paying for.
Start with everyone using AI well on real work, with clear rules. Then go further – redesigned workflows, agents, and new ways to price and sell your expertise.
Built on the Spark AI Maturity Model®, our benchmark from three years of working with expert firms.
Join the waiting list →Two ways in
Tell us which suits you when you join. We'll use your answers to shape what we launch first.
Cohort
Learn alongside peer firms
A small group from different consultancies, working through the programme together. Lower cost, and you learn from firms facing the same challenges.
- Four half-day sessions
- Up to 12 people
- Live with our AI coaches
- Agent builds on your own real work
1:1
A programme built for your firm
For firms ready to bring everyone along at once, shaped around your disciplines, tools and clients.
- A diagnostic of where you are today
- AI policy and governance with your leadership team
- Training for every role, partners to graduates
- Tracked results, so you can see the value
Who it's for
Consultancies, developers and housebuilders across the built environment – firms that sell expertise, write a lot of reports and win work through bids.
Why Spark
We know your world, and we know AI. Your team builds alongside us, so the skills and knowledge stay with you.
- 20 yearsin real estate, from HOK to the Houses of Parliament, the Cabinet Office and the NHS
- Consultantswe've worked in workplace, property and management consultancy ourselves, so we understand fee-earning work and how you win it
- OxfordSpark teaches on the AI for Business programme at Oxford's Saïd Business School
- 80+creative and marketing consultancies trained across the UK and US
- Top 25%where Accelerator clients land on the Spark AI Maturity Model® after ten weeks
- #1bestselling book, Shift, on AI and business transformation
Clients include Publicis, Pearlfisher, JKR, Radley Yeldar and Sampson May.
"I've spent nearly 20 years in real estate – as a workplace consultant at HOK, Decant Director for the Houses of Parliament, and at the Cabinet Office as Head of Strategic Forward Planning, Construction, where I delivered the UK Government Construction Pipeline, and Head of Smart Working Standards. Until recently I was also an NHS non-executive director, chairing the Digital and Estates Committee at Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust.
I've been the consultant and the client. Built environment firms are next in line for big change from AI, and I want to help them get it right."
Emma Wharton FRICS
Co-Founder & CEO, Spark AI
What you get for joining
It takes a minute, and there's no sales call.
- First look at our new researchBe first to read our research on AI's impact on workplace design, out in January
- A head startFirst places in the founding cohort, at founding pricing – get ahead of competitors, the way early-moving agencies did
- Dates when five firms sign upAs soon as the first five firms register interest, we'll send everyone cohort dates and a programme outline
FAQs
Anything else? Email emma@wearespark.ai.
Does my team need to be technical?
No. The programme is built for experts in their own field, not in AI. We start with the work your people already do and show them how to do it better.
What about client confidentiality?
It's one of the first things we cover. We help you set clear rules on which tools are approved, what can go into them and how to check outputs before anything reaches a client.
We're a Microsoft firm. Does that work?
Yes. Most consultancies run on Microsoft 365, so we work with Copilot alongside other leading tools and help you get value from what you already pay for.
Will this help with the RICS AI standard?
Yes. We'll help you put in place the policy, governance and risk register the standard expects, and make sure your team knows what responsible use looks like day to day.
How much time does it take?
The cohort is four half-day sessions, so it fits around client work. Everything is built around your real work, so time in the sessions turns into work done.
Cohort or 1:1 – which is right for us?
Cohorts take up to 12 people, so they suit smaller firms, or larger ones starting with a pilot team. 1:1 suits firms ready to bring everyone along at once. Not sure? Tick both and we'll send you details of each.
Does it count towards CPD?
Yes. The programme qualifies as informal CPD, so you can log the hours with your professional body.
Ready to bring your whole firm with you?
Places in the founding cohort are limited. Join the waiting list for founding pricing – and be first to read our new research on AI and workplace design in January.
Sources: RIBA AI Report 2026 · RICS AI in Commercial Property and Construction 2026 · RICS responsible AI standard