On a busy construction site, it can feel like you need eyes in the back of your head to avoid accidents. SenseHuman AI wants to provide you with those “eyes.”
The Edmonton-based startup has developed a hardhat imbued with AI machine vision, giving the wearer 360 degrees of worksite surveillance. The company has already had traction, signing customers and completing pilots. Now, co-founder and CEO Adil Muhammad says they need to meet demand.
“We want to scale up manufacturing … and we’re trying to get the attention of investors so we can scale.”
Adil Muhammad, SenseHuman
Originally from Pakistan, Muhammad founded SenseHuman AI last year alongside three co-founders: Gavin Mei, Vicente Gonzalez, and Gaang Lee. A graduate of the University of Alberta (U of A), Muhammad completed his master’s degree in civil engineering and spent time working in the U of A’s IHT Lab researching ways AI can be integrated into construction site safety. But it wasn’t his education that served as the lightbulb moment for Muhammad, but rather a video game.
“If you’ve ever played Call of Duty, there’s this minimap on the bottom of the screen. If something comes at you from the back, you see it on the minimap,” Muhammad said. “I thought, why not use the same thing with a worker?”
SenseHuman’s hardware doesn’t actually create a minimap. In fact, there are no screens at all. Instead, it uses four cameras and machine-vision software to create a 360-degree field of vision. If that software detects an imminent risk—like, say, a trench, ledge, or tripping hazard—it sends a vibrating signal through the hardhat in the direction of the danger. SenseHuman can even custom build the helmets to factor job site rules—like standing three metres from a piece of operating machinery—into its risk assessments.
SenseHuman’s platform isn’t perfect (it can’t yet reliably predict falling objects from above, and it can’t stop every accident on a job site from happening), but the company is focused on preventing the minor injuries that make up the lion’s share of job site incidents.
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“I was reading a lot of incident reports from the Workers’ Compensation Board, and talking to different companies,” Muhammad said. “Every year you see news articles—and many more that go unreported—about accidents that lead to minor injuries. These are the main incidents that are happening, and these guys have the most pain in the industry.”
The Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada (AWCBC), a nonprofit body representing Canada’s workers’ compensation boards, reports that in 2024 there were more than 320,000 lost time claims, meaning an injury was serious enough that a worker could not be at work. Among that number, jobs in the trades, transportation, and equipment operators were far and away the most common.
Financial incentives
Beyond the potential safety benefits, there’s value for employers, too. Muhammad said SenseHuman’s cameras can create video footage—which excludes audio recording due to privacy concerns—that it claims has already been used by its pilot partner to investigate an accident.
WorkSafeBC, the BC provincial counterpart to the AWCBC, in its own report last May said that the construction industry had around 38,000 accepted claims, with nearly 5,800 of those involving falls and nearly 7,000 involving equipment or vehicular collisions. WorkSafeBC estimates total costs from those claims tallied at more than $1.3 billion.
While most workers’ compensation claims are paid by the province, companies still incur costs, either from subsequent investigations or fines levied against them after an accident. In Alberta, penalties can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Momentum and bottlenecks
Since launching last October, SenseHuman has had remarkable traction. In January, it received $250,000 CAD in pre-seed funding from OpenCircle Contractors Association, a non-profit construction industry association, alongside an additional undisclosed investor. It later sold its first five units to OpenCircle and has 12 smart helmets active in the field today.
SenseHuman has also completed several pilot programs, including Edmonton Unlimited’s Built World Venture Pilot program, where the company partnered with Sherwood Park, Alta.-based industrial contractor The Bartlett Group. It has used the feedback from those relationships to further tailor its product to industry needs.
“Right now, the main issue is that we have a lot of interest from companies, but we don’t have capacity to build more units,” Muhammad said. “We want to scale up manufacturing … and we’re trying to get the attention of investors so we can scale.”
BetaKit’s Prairies reporting is funded in part by YEGAF, a not-for-profit dedicated to amplifying business stories in Alberta.
Feature image courtesy of SenseHuman AI.