Tech entrepreneur Rodion Shishkov speaks to Simon Foulds about All3, one of a handful of pioneering companies looking to redefine the way homes are built by using AI-powered design and robotics
Robotics and AI are beginning to deliver tangible results on building sites, promising to tackle the inefficiencies, labour challenges, and sustainability demands of today’s built environment.
At the forefront of this shift is All3, co-founded by Rodion Shishkov, a serial entrepreneur with a background in industrial robotics, video-on-demand services, and large-scale retail innovation.
Earlier this year, Housing Digital ventured into the heady world of housebuilding robotics, with a look at some of the emerging players in this field, inlcuding All3.
Now Simon Foulds – editor of our sister title, Build in Digital, has caught up with Shishkov to explore how the company is using AI and robotics to develop a vertically integrated construction model; one that could transform how buildings are designed, manufactured, and assembled.
From retail to robotics
Rodion Shishkov’s career spans industries as varied as retail logistics, robotics, and digital media. Before founding All3, he and his business partner, Slava Bocharov, launched Samokat, a pioneering rapid grocery delivery service in Russia. In five years, Samokat achieved revenue of approximately 42.4bn Rubles (£412m).
But the ambition to tackle an industry ‘with overdue innovation’ soon led them to construction. Shishkov recalls looking at numerous failed start-ups in the sector, concluding that the problem lay not in the technology itself but in the project-based nature of construction.
“Every building is essentially a business on its own,” he explains. “Focused innovation often fails because it benefits one stakeholder in the chain but creates headaches for others. The solution is not to integrate into the existing value chain, but to replace the value chain altogether.”
At the heart of All3’s approach is an AI-driven design platform. Traditionally, building design requires the input of multiple specialists, from structural and MEP engineers to fire safety consultants. All3’s system reduces this to a single designer working with AI-powered tools.
Inputs can be as simple as a sketch, text description, or a model from another software. From there, the AI translates the architect’s intent into a design that complies with regulations, performance metrics, and quality standards.
Crucially, Shishkov emphasises that the AI is not generating arbitrary designs but acting as a translator between human input and algorithmic rules. Building codes and structural requirements are effectively transformed into algorithms, ensuring compliance and optimising for cost, safety, and performance.
From regulations to algorithms
This approach places All3’s platform firmly in the AI in construction category, but with a unique value proposition: combining creativity with automated regulatory compliance.
Once designs are complete, they are fed directly into a production system powered by industrial robots. All3 leverages off-the-shelf robotics hardware enhanced with proprietary software that automatically generates and deploys robot programmes.
“There is no programmer, no commissioning process, no downtime,” says Shishkov. “The design comes in, programmes are generated, tested, and deployed, and the elements are produced.”
This automation removes bottlenecks from prefabrication, enabling highly customised building components to be produced at scale and at industrial cost.
The most innovative element of All3’s system lies in its mobile robotics for construction sites. Unlike industrial robots in controlled factory environments, these machines are designed for the unpredictability of live building sites.
“All3’s robots are not universal machines but are purpose-built to handle our elements within our process,” Shishkov explains. They are fully AI-driven, trained using reinforcement learning, which allows them to improve and expand their capabilities over time.
This level of bespoke robotics, integrated directly into the construction workflow, could eliminate some of the industry’s biggest inefficiencies: manual assembly, coordination between subcontractors, and delays caused by rework.
Overcoming risk aversion
Despite the potential of AI and robotics, the construction sector has historically been slow to adopt innovation. Shishkov attributes this to its project-based business model.
In industries like retail, innovation can be tested at a small scale and rolled out across hundreds of stores. In construction, a single project represents the full risk. “Best case, you win small. Worst case, you lose large,” Shishkov notes. This risk aversion has stifled adoption, leaving the industry technologically behind sectors such as automotive or manufacturing.
All3’s goal is not incremental improvement but a paradigm shift comparable to the evolution of the car industry. While vehicles have become more advanced, reliable, and affordable over the decades, houses are still built much as they were 70 years ago. Costs have increased, but efficiency and functionality have lagged.
By combining AI robotics in new construction, All3 aims to deliver unique, multi-storey, multi-family housing at the cost level of standardised, low-labour builds. This model promises both scalability and customisation, something no current construction method achieves.
A defining feature of All3’s strategy is its vertically integrated model, encompassing:
- Design software – translating briefs into buildable designs
- Robot-Powered Production– prefabricating components at industrial scale
- Mobile construction robotics – assembling buildings on site with minimal human intervention
Changing the digital construction game
This integrated approach mirrors disruptive companies like Tesla and Apple, which paired innovative products with the infrastructure needed to scale them. “For innovation to succeed quickly, you need not only the product but also the ecosystem around it,” Shishkov concludes.
The combination of AI-driven design, automated production, and site-based robotics positions All3 as a potential game-changer in the digital construction sector. By replacing the value chain rather than integrating into it, All3 is offering a scalable pathway to affordable, sustainable housing.
As global demand for housing continues to grow, and economic pressures make traditional methods less viable, technologies like those developed by All3 may define the future of AI robotics in new construction.
Simon Foulds is the editor of Build in Digital
Image credit: Courtesy of All3
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