Builders deploy AI translators to deliver real-time instructions as foreign nationals make up growing share of construction workforce
Yun Seung-uk, a safety team leader at Lotte E&C, stood at the podium as some 600 workers were getting ready for their morning meeting at a construction site in Seoul on Thursday.
As he prepared to read the rundown of the day’s workload, large screens to his right and left, as well as 16 additional monitors, displayed images, action plans, and a window titled “AI translator.”
Once he began speaking, the window filled with three languages — Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese — almost in real time. Forty percent of the workers on-site were foreign nationals.
“There were no Korean subtitles before,” said Yun, who has about 30 years of experience in construction sites. “Now that there are Korean subtitles, we can confirm whether the translations were done correctly.”
As more workers are sourced from overseas in the construction industry, Korean builders are turning to artificial intelligence for better communication.
According to the Construction Workers Mutual Aid Association, the proportion of foreign workers at construction sites logged 11.8 percent in 2020, 12.7 percent in 2022 and 14.7 percent in 2024.
Lotte Innovate, Lotte Group’s digital transformation and IT services arm, co-developed the country’s first construction-specific AI translator with Lotte E&C in July. Based on speech-to-text translation technology, it can recognize spoken Korean, which it then translates into various languages via text.
Unlike some existing translation services by Google or Naver, Lotte’s AI translator offers services in 20 languages and is capable of understanding and properly interpreting construction jargon. The technology has been upgraded with over 300 hours of audio data, including background noise, collected on-site.
According to Lotte E&C, it now uses the AI translator at approximately 40 construction sites nationwide.
Jin Tian Goang and Yuan Guo Feng, Chinese workers at Lotte’s partner firm IL E&C, can both speak Korean. Still, the two highlighted that toolbox meetings — smaller gatherings following the general morning briefing by each team — now only take about 10 to 20 minutes.
“In the past, we had to interpret everything, but now we can just translate certain parts. So that saves a lot of time,” said Yuan. Jin added that they would often “have to translate the daily morning briefing for about 40 minutes after the session.”
Lotte E&C is advancing the AI translator as the builder gears up to officially launch a QR code-based service in July, so workers can follow live translation on their smartphones.
Daewoo Engineering & Construction has also recently begun using an AI translator for construction sites, as it looks to improve safety and workflow efficiency among foreign workers.
“For newcomers from Vietnam, we would need to explain things in Vietnamese because they don’t understand Korean at first,” said Pham Van Tuan, a worker at Daewoo E&C’s partner firm Seoyong Construction.
“Now that we have the (AI) translator, it has made everything much better.”
Daewoo E&C has adopted Lotte Innovate’s AI translator program and modified it for the company’s mobile-based safety and health management application, Smarty. Daewoo E&C has been conducting interviews with foreign workers to collect data while cooperating with Lotte Innovate to keep advancing the program.
Lee Jae-hwan, an official at Daewoo E&C’s safety and health team, underscored that the introduction of the AI translator was based on the need to reiterate safety among foreign workers through clearer communication.
“The program is designed to exert output by each sentence as it recognizes halts in one’s breath (while speaking),” said Lee. “We have designated 15 main languages in accordance with the proportion of foreign workers on site. Of course, if another language outside the 15 main ones is needed, you could look it up and use it (on the AI translator).”
As Daewoo E&C’s AI translator was already offered via QR codes, each foreign worker could access the service on their phones with ease and choose their preferred language.
Kim Seung-eun, Daewoo E&C’s safety manager, said the AI translator has allowed supervisors to be as specific as possible when giving directions and guidelines to foreign workers.
“The leaders from our partner firms are trying to explain as much information as they can to their foreign employees,” said Kim.
“In some other cases, they would just say ‘Work on this and that,’ ‘Be careful.’ But (with the AI translator,) they can be more detailed and say something like ‘Since you guys are working on (aluminum formwork pins) today, make sure that the aluminum formwork pins are facing inward.’”
Daewoo E&C, which currently uses the AI translator at two construction sites, plans to upgrade the program and expand its usage for more workplaces.
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