There is a big question in 2026: Does the total station still has a place in survey projects, or is it’s time finally up?
Last year in 2025, a trend emerged regarding AI and made that very bold, and everyone was worried about their job security. Many people fearing they would eventually lose their jobs to automation. Everyone were really anxious what would happen if they their job obsolete and they would not continue with their method of work anymore. There were huge advertisements about the AI with influencers that make it bigger from the reality, and everybody talked about future of world with AI; surveyors were not immune to this matter.
There was one question if new technology and modern drones, 3D scanners, digital twin and AI and many other things little by little push out total station from the spotlight.
But I am here to answer this question:
Yes, The total stations have a very important place in a Land survey project, and manual operation by a skilled surveyor is remains essential to the industry. Artificial intelligence still is not powerful like a human as much as showed off. In 2026, as my knowledge, there’s a massive gap between human and algorithm so it can’t truly replace us. AI is very helpful and automates a lot of work for us, but still for actual site work you need a surveyor behind a Total Station.
Now I want to ask another question. Which total station is more popular between surveyors?
There are a lot of brand like Leica, Sokkia, Trimble, and others. Leica total station is really popular for surveyors, other brands are good but in the Leica total station is first. For example, Sokkia total station is cheaper than Leica one and has good quality but, if you ask a surveyor, they might say, “No, please no,” because they haven’t worked with Sokkia before. When you give them a Sokkia for the first time, they become confused for a whole day; they have to search the menu just to find out how to work with it if they haven’t used it before.
But Leica is more famous and popular, and almost everyone loves it. If I want to compare all brands of Total Stations, I believe Leica ranks first among surveyors. All surveyors love it because it’s easy to use, and the quality, accuracy, software and more are perfect. This includes models like the Leica TS06, TS07 and many others that are very well-known. All surveyors over the words have a experience to works with those total Stations.
Now, let's talk about GNSS (GPS) receivers. Which brand is more popular?
I think the most popular brand is Trimble. It is the best option for GNSS (GPS) receivers; for example the Trimble R12i or R980 GNSS receiver are very popular because has high quality, even if they are quite expensive.
I believe the GNSS (GPS) receiver that surveyors love most is Trimble brand. It has a high quality but in other side a little expensive. The big projects usually use it because software, quality are perfect. But if you don’t want to spend too much money but want to have a good quality GNSS GPS receiver system with cheaper brand, I think surveyor prefer for to work for example with Hi-Target V30 Plus, or I93 CHCNAV GNSS receiver systems. Leica has also very good brand GNSS receiver systems, but I believe Trimble is the superior brand for GNSS (GPS) technology. Spectra aswell is a good and is supported with Trimble, so has a cheaper price than Trimble.
I don’t talk about the quality, I talk about the surveyor cowed, and which brand the surveyors usually prefer.
I believe in 2026, still surveyor prefers to work with that equipment and want to continue with them.
In conclusion, surveyors play a vital role in any survey project. Both the total station and GNSS (GPS) receivers remain essential tools in the field. You can be certain that as a surveyor, your expertise is still very much in demand!