Construction injuries cost the U.S. building industry roughly $11.5 billion every year. That number includes medical bills, lost wages, legal fees, OSHA fines, and project delays. It does not include the cost of burying someone who went to work and never came home.

Most safety programs work the same way they have for decades: something goes wrong, you investigate, you write a report, you hold a toolbox talk, and you hope it doesn’t happen again. It’s reactive. You’re always one step behind.

Arrowsight is trying to flip that. Their platform combines AI-powered video analysis with real human safety coaches to catch unsafe behavior before someone gets hurt. They’ve been doing it for years on some of the biggest construction projects in the country — billion-dollar infrastructure jobs, massive superstructures, marine civil work.

This isn’t a tool most contractors will buy. Let’s be upfront about that. But the technology behind it is heading downmarket fast, and every contractor running crews should understand what’s coming. Here’s what Arrowsight does, how it works, and what the results actually look like.

What Arrowsight Actually Does

Arrowsight calls their product “Intelligent Video Coaching,” and the name is more accurate than most marketing labels. It’s not just surveillance cameras on a jobsite. It’s not just AI scanning footage for hard hat violations. It’s a system that combines three things:

  1. Camera hardware deployed on your jobsite
  2. AI-powered video analysis that flags risky behaviors
  3. Human safety coaches who review the flagged footage and send daily coaching clips to your team

That third piece is what separates Arrowsight from a basic security camera system or a standalone AI monitoring tool. The AI does the heavy lifting of watching thousands of hours of footage and pulling out the moments that matter. But a human coach — someone who understands construction safety — reviews those clips, adds context, and packages them into what Arrowsight calls a “highlight film.”

Every day, your site safety team gets a short video showing both proper and improper safety practices from their own jobsite. Not stock footage. Not generic training videos. Actual clips of actual workers on their actual project.

That daily feedback loop is the core of the product. Over weeks and months, crews start changing their behavior because they know the cameras are watching — and more importantly, because they’re getting regular, specific coaching on what they’re doing right and wrong.

How It Works on a Jobsite

The Cameras

One of the biggest practical challenges with construction site monitoring is that jobsites are temporary, messy, and often lack reliable power or internet. Arrowsight built their camera systems around exactly this problem.

Their cameras are:

  • Portable — designed to be repositioned as the work moves around the site
  • Battery-powered — no need to run electrical to every camera location
  • Cell-enabled — transmits footage over cellular networks, no Wi-Fi or hardline internet required
  • Ruggedized — built for construction environments, not office buildings

This matters more than it sounds. Plenty of AI safety monitoring tools assume you’ve got reliable power and a strong internet connection. That works fine in a finished building. It doesn’t work on a bridge deck, in a tunnel, or on a rural infrastructure project 40 miles from the nearest Starbucks.

Arrowsight specifically lists excavation, foundation, structural, infrastructure, bridges, and tunnels in their construction coverage. These are exactly the types of projects where traditional camera systems fall apart.

The AI: Smart Sampling

Arrowsight doesn’t try to analyze every frame of every camera feed in real time. Instead, they use what they call “Smart Sampling” — an AI-powered annotation system that identifies the moments most likely to contain safety-relevant behavior.

Think of it this way: on a 10-hour shift with 20 cameras, you’ve got 200 hours of footage per day. Nobody’s watching all of that. The AI watches it and says, “These 47 clips are worth a human looking at.”

The system flags things like:

  • PPE violations (missing hard hats, high-vis vests, fall protection)
  • Workers in hazardous zones without proper precautions
  • Unsafe lifting or material handling
  • Housekeeping issues that create trip/fall hazards
  • Improper equipment operation

This is where the AI adds real value. It turns an ocean of video into a manageable stream of relevant safety moments.

The Human Coaches

Here’s where Arrowsight diverges from most AI-only solutions. After the AI flags clips, human safety coaches review them. These coaches understand construction. They know the difference between a worker who removed their hard hat for two seconds to wipe sweat and a crew that’s been working at height without fall protection for an hour.

The coaches compile the flagged clips into daily highlight reels. These aren’t gotcha videos designed to get people fired. They include both positive and negative examples:

  • “Here’s your crew on Tower 3 doing fall protection exactly right yesterday.”
  • “Here’s a worker on the south excavation who entered the trench without checking the shoring. Let’s talk about that in tomorrow’s huddle.”

This coaching approach is critical. Workers respond differently to “here’s what you did well and here’s what to fix” compared to “you got caught on camera.” One builds a safety culture. The other builds resentment.

Real Results from Real Projects

Arrowsight publishes case studies from actual construction projects. These aren’t hypothetical projections. They’re results from jobs that have been completed or are well underway.

EMR Reduction: The Big One

An approximately $800 million New York civil contractor used Arrowsight and lowered their Experience Modification Rate (EMR) by more than 50%, dropping below 0.30 over four years.

If you know what EMR means, you know how significant that is. For readers who don’t: your EMR is a number that insurance companies use to set your workers’ comp premiums. An EMR of 1.0 is average. Below 1.0 means you’re safer than average. Below 0.50 is excellent. Below 0.30 is elite.

Dropping your EMR by 50% doesn’t just mean fewer injuries. It means dramatically lower insurance premiums. On an $800 million contractor’s book of business, that EMR reduction could easily translate to millions of dollars in annual insurance savings. And it makes you more competitive on bids — many project owners and GCs require EMR thresholds to even qualify.

If you want to understand how to put dollar figures on safety improvements and other AI investments, check out how to calculate AI ROI for your contracting business.

Claims Reduction

Multiple $200 million-plus building and civil projects using Arrowsight reported less than $250,000 in total claims. On projects of that size, that’s remarkably low. A single serious injury on a large project can generate $250,000 in claims by itself.

A billion-dollar-plus New York superstructure project lowered its OCIP (Owner Controlled Insurance Program) loss fund requirement significantly by the two-thirds completion mark. In plain English: the insurance pool set aside for injury claims on that project was being drawn down so slowly that they were able to reduce the required reserve. That’s real money back in the project budget.

Another billion-dollar-plus marine civil project in New York experienced only a very small number of claims roughly 60% through the project.

Who’s Using It

Arrowsight’s client list includes some of the biggest names in construction:

  • Suffolk Construction — one of the largest general contractors in the U.S.
  • Zurich Insurance — issued a joint press release with Arrowsight about their partnership
  • Skanska — referenced in industry reports as an Arrowsight user

When Zurich — one of the world’s largest construction insurers — partners with a safety technology company and puts their name on a press release, that’s a strong signal. Insurance companies don’t endorse things that don’t reduce claims.

Arrowsight has also been featured on CNBC’s Mad Money, where they discussed the benefits of Remote Video Coaching (RVC) for construction safety.

For contractors tracking where venture capital and partnerships are flowing in construction AI, our AI construction funding tracker covers the latest deals and trends.

Who This Is For (and Who It’s Not)

Let’s be honest about this, because it matters.

Arrowsight is designed for:

  • Large general contractors running $50M+ projects
  • Infrastructure and heavy civil contractors
  • Owners and developers managing large OCIP or CCIP programs
  • Safety directors overseeing multiple large jobsites
  • Insurance companies looking to reduce construction portfolio losses

Arrowsight is probably not for:

  • Residential contractors running 5-person crews
  • Small commercial contractors doing $1M-$10M projects
  • Specialty subcontractors on single-trade scopes
  • Anyone looking for a self-service app they can set up in an afternoon

And that’s fine. Not every tool is for every contractor. If you’re running a residential remodeling company with a crew of six, you don’t need enterprise video coaching. You need good training, consistent toolbox talks, and a culture where people speak up when something’s unsafe.

But if you’re a GC running multiple large projects, a safety director responsible for hundreds of workers across several sites, or an insurance carrier trying to reduce your construction book losses — this is worth a serious look.

For a broader view of AI tools across all contractor sizes, see the best AI tools for contractors in 2026.

The Cost Question

Arrowsight does not publish pricing on their website. This is enterprise, contact-us-for-a-quote territory.

Based on the scale of their deployments — ruggedized cameras, cellular data transmission, AI processing, and human coaching staff — expect costs in the range of thousands of dollars per month per site. The exact number will depend on the number of cameras, site size, project duration, and scope of coaching services.

That sounds expensive. It is expensive in absolute terms. But here’s the math that matters:

  • One serious injury claim: $100,000 to $500,000+
  • One fatality on a jobsite: $1 million+ in direct costs (OSHA fines alone can be $156,259 per willful violation as of 2026, before you even get to legal costs, project delays, and wrongful death settlements)
  • EMR increase from a bad year: Higher insurance premiums for three years running
  • Lost bid opportunities: Many owners require EMR below 0.80 or even 0.70 to qualify

If Arrowsight costs you $5,000 a month on a project and prevents even one moderate injury claim, the ROI is immediate and obvious. If it drops your EMR by a quarter point over a few years, the insurance premium savings alone could dwarf the cost.

The real question isn’t “can we afford this?” It’s “can we afford not to explore proactive safety monitoring on projects where one bad incident costs more than the entire system?”

Limitations: What Arrowsight Can’t Do

No tool does everything. Here’s what Arrowsight doesn’t address:

It Only Sees What Cameras Can See

Arrowsight catches visual safety violations — PPE, fall protection, housekeeping, unsafe work practices. It cannot detect:

  • Structural deficiencies
  • Material defects
  • Underground hazards
  • Air quality or chemical exposure issues
  • Noise exposure levels
  • Fatigue or impairment (at least not reliably)

It’s a powerful layer in your safety program. It’s not a replacement for your entire safety program.

It Requires Camera Infrastructure

Even though Arrowsight’s cameras are designed for rugged construction environments, you still need to deploy, position, maintain, and occasionally relocate physical cameras. On a fast-moving project with constantly changing work areas, keeping cameras positioned effectively takes ongoing effort.

Privacy Concerns Are Real

Workers don’t always love being watched. Some will see AI video monitoring as Big Brother, not coaching. This is a legitimate concern that needs to be addressed head-on with your crews.

The coaching approach — showing positive examples alongside corrections, framing it as helping everyone go home safe rather than catching people doing things wrong — helps. But it requires buy-in from field leadership. If your superintendents treat the camera footage as a punishment tool instead of a coaching tool, you’ll get resistance and resentment instead of behavior change.

For a deeper look at how AI monitoring intersects with worker privacy and data rights, read our AI data privacy guide for contractors.

It Doesn’t Replace Safety Managers

Arrowsight augments your safety team. It gives them better information, daily coaching content, and a proactive detection system. But you still need qualified safety professionals on site making decisions, running orientations, managing permits, and handling the thousand things that cameras can’t address.

Think of it as giving your safety director a second set of eyes that never blinks, never takes a break, and watches every camera simultaneously. That’s powerful. But eyes without a brain behind them are just surveillance.

What This Means for the Industry

Even if you never buy Arrowsight, this technology matters for every contractor. Here’s why.

AI Safety Monitoring Is Coming Downmarket

Today, AI-powered video safety analysis is an enterprise product for billion-dollar projects. Five years from now, it’ll be available as a subscription service for $500/month with cameras you can buy at Home Depot.

The pattern is predictable. Every construction technology starts expensive and exclusive, then gets cheaper and more accessible. GPS machine control used to cost $50,000 per unit. Now it’s standard on mid-range equipment. BIM used to require a dedicated department. Now a solo architect can run it on a laptop.

AI video safety analysis will follow the same path. The question isn’t whether it’ll reach mid-size contractors. It’s when.

Insurance Companies Are Paying Attention

Zurich’s partnership with Arrowsight is a signal. Insurance companies are actively looking for technologies that reduce construction claims. When insurers start offering premium discounts for contractors using AI safety monitoring — and some already are in pilot programs — the economics will shift fast.

If your insurance carrier calls and says “use this AI monitoring system on your next three projects and we’ll cut your premium by 15%,” suddenly it’s not an expense. It’s a requirement with a built-in return.

The Shift from Reactive to Proactive

The bigger story here isn’t about Arrowsight specifically. It’s about the entire construction safety industry shifting from reactive to proactive.

Traditional safety: Something goes wrong → investigate → change procedures → hope it doesn’t happen again.

AI-augmented safety: AI watches continuously → flags risk before an incident → coach the behavior change → measure improvement over time.

That’s a fundamental shift in how safety works. And it’s happening now, not in some distant future.

For general contractors thinking about how AI fits into their broader business strategy, check out our GC-specific AI guide and our guide on building an AI strategy for your contracting business.

The Bottom Line

Arrowsight is an enterprise-grade AI video coaching platform built for large construction projects. It combines ruggedized, cell-enabled cameras with AI-powered video analysis and real human safety coaches to deliver daily coaching clips to your site teams.

The results from major projects are genuinely impressive: EMR reductions of 50%+, claims well below industry norms on billion-dollar projects, and partnerships with top-tier insurance carriers.

Most contractors reading this won’t be in the market for Arrowsight. The scale and cost put it firmly in large GC and infrastructure territory. But the technology it represents — proactive, AI-powered safety monitoring — is heading toward every jobsite in the industry.

If you’re a large GC or safety director: look at Arrowsight seriously. The math on preventing even one serious injury makes enterprise safety monitoring easy to justify.

If you’re a smaller contractor: watch this space. The tools coming in the next two to three years will bring this same concept — AI watching your jobsite for unsafe behavior and helping you fix it before someone gets hurt — to projects of every size.

Either way, the future of construction safety isn’t a guy in a hard hat walking the site with a clipboard once a day. It’s AI watching every angle, every hour, and putting a coaching clip in your super’s hands before the morning huddle.

The only question is how fast you want to get there.

Arrowsight’s platform is available through direct enterprise engagement. Visit arrowsight.com for more information and to request a demo.