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Caterpillar’s Digital Chief Ogi Redzic on How A.I. Is Redefining Construction Work

Caterpillar is using A.I. to coach operators, automate equipment and coordinate job sites as the construction industry faces a labor crunch.

Beneath attention-grabbing headlines about driverless taxis and laundry-folding robots, some of the most consequential deployments of physical A.I. are actually unfolding quietly in construction and earthmoving. One company leading this shift is Caterpillar.

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In 2018, when former CEO Jim Umpleby set out to transform the traditional heavy-equipment manufacturer into a modern, service-driven enterprise, he brought in Ogi Redzic, a seasoned automotive executive then leading connectivity and autonomy at Renault-Nissan, to unify Caterpillar’s scattered digital efforts. Redzic spearheaded the development of Helios, a central platform that now manages connected machines worldwide. That early work proved prescient and laid a strong data foundation just in time for the A.I. wave.

Today, Redzic leads Cat Digital, a 3,000-person division building the digital tools behind Caterpillar’s equipment. His work not only determines how the world’s largest heavy equipment maker uses A.I., but shapes how the technology will redefine construction work itself. As the industry faces acute labor shortages, with nearly 40 percent of current operators set to retire by 2031, Redzic sees autonomous tools as a vital way to bridge this gap without displacing existing jobs. “Humans won’t be out of the loop anytime soon,” he notes.

Redzic spoke with Observer about how Cat Digital is deploying A.I. to assist operators on the ground, why clean data matters, and how A.I. is changing the way his own team builds software.

The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Observer: You run a digital unit with over 3,000 employees at a company most associated with heavy machinery. What does your team do, and how does that........

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