Under the “Smart+” education initiative, the traditional Introduction to Civil Engineering course faces challenges such as abstract knowledge delivery and disconnection from practical applications. Guided by the core concept of “bidirectional integration,” this research systematically develops a novel teaching model that deeply incorporates generative artificial intelligence (AI) with project-based learning (PBL). This model not only employs generative AI as an intelligent tool to empower the entire PBL process but also uses authentic PBL project tasks to drive students’ high-order and critical use of AI, aiming to simultaneously enhance students’ engineering cognition and AI literacy. Teaching practice demonstrates that this model effectively stimulates students’ learning interest and improves their comprehensive ability to solve complex engineering problems, providing an actionable pathway and reference for the intelligent teaching reform of similar courses.