The Library · By industry

AI agents for general contractors

What a custom agent looks like inside a commercial or heavy-residential general contractor — the ten roles in your language, and what each one plugs into in a shop running Procore or Autodesk alongside Sage or Foundation.

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Construction is a document business that thinks of itself as a building business. Almost every recurring administrative cost in a general contractor traces back to a piece of paper that has to be collected, checked, matched against a contract, and produced again later for somebody else — the certificate, the waiver, the submittal, the change order, the closeout binder. The project management platform holds the drawings and the RFIs, the accounting system holds the money, and the paperwork that governs whether you get paid sits in the gap between them, chased by a project administrator with a spreadsheet.

What an agent plugs into here

The honest version of "does it integrate with my software." These are the systems this industry actually runs on, and what each one means for a build.

ProcoreProject management

The system of record on most commercial work — drawings, RFIs, submittals, daily logs, change orders, and increasingly the financials. It has a real API and a permission model, which makes it the natural place for an agent to read and write, and the natural place to hit the question of what a vendor account is allowed to see.

Autodesk Build / ACCProject management

The other side of the market, strong where the design team is already in Autodesk. Similar shape for integration purposes; the differences that matter are in how issues and submittals are modeled, not in whether you can reach them.

Sage 300 CRE / Foundation / ViewpointConstruction accounting

Job cost, AIA billing, retainage and payroll. These are where the actual profitability lives and they rarely agree with the project management platform without someone reconciling them. Integration ranges from good to a nightly file, so this is the end to verify before scoping.

Textura / GCPaySubcontractor payment and compliance

Where lien waivers and sub payment applications flow on larger projects. Where it is in use it owns the waiver workflow; where it is not, that workflow is email and a spreadsheet, which is the version an agent helps most.

Certificate trackingInsurance compliance

Sometimes a dedicated service, more often a folder of PDFs and a spreadsheet. Either way the underlying job — read the certificate, check it against what the subcontract actually requires, chase the agent for a corrected one — is manual almost everywhere.

BluebeamDrawings and markup

Where takeoffs, markups and much of the document review actually happen. Less an integration target than a source of PDFs that other agents read.

Egnyte / SharePointDocument storage

The project file. Usually the real answer to "where is that document," and usually organized by convention rather than by structure — which makes it readable but means an agent needs the naming convention explained to it.

Building Connected / SmartBidBid management

Invitations, bid packages and subcontractor coverage. The place preconstruction chases responses from, and a natural home for follow-up.

Payroll and certified payrollPayroll

On public work, certified payroll reporting is a weekly recurring document with penalties attached to getting it wrong. Frequently produced by hand from timecards even where payroll itself is automated.

The ten agents, in your language

Each of these is a real build, not a feature of a product you already pay for. Follow one through to see how it works in general.

The Follow-Up

Nothing you are owed gets dropped.

  • Subcontractors who have not returned a signed subcontract or a conditional waiver
  • Owner payment applications sitting past their contractual pay-when-paid window
  • RFIs to the architect with no response and a crew waiting on the answer
  • Bid invitations with no coverage from a trade three days before the deadline

The Intake

Whatever arrives, in whatever format, becomes a clean record.

  • Bid invitations arriving from four different platforms plus email
  • Subcontractor invoices emailed as PDFs against a schedule of values
  • Field photos and daily reports texted to a super instead of entered anywhere
  • Owner-supplied specifications and addenda dropped into a shared folder

The Drafter

Writes the recurring document from your own past work.

  • The change order narrative, built from the RFI trail and the field photos
  • Subcontract scope exhibits assembled from your standard language and this trade's actual scope
  • The monthly owner report nobody has time to write properly

The Watcher

Knows what expires, renews or comes due — and says so first.

  • Certificates of insurance expiring mid-project on active subcontractors
  • Notice periods and substantial completion dates buried in the prime contract
  • Permit inspections that have to happen before the next phase can start
  • Retainage that became billable at substantial completion and was never billed

The Answer Desk

Answers from your own records, not from the internet.

  • "What does the spec say about that?" — answered from the actual project manual
  • Which drawing revision is current, asked from the field
  • What this subcontract obligates us to, asked six months after anyone read it

The Scribe

The conversation becomes the record, without anyone typing it up.

  • The OAC meeting becomes minutes, decisions and assigned action items
  • The site walk becomes a punch list with photos attached to locations

The Reporter

Assembles the recurring report from systems that do not talk.

  • Weekly job cost against budget, reconciled between the PM platform and accounting
  • Which projects are trending over and how early the signal appeared
  • Certified payroll assembled from timecards on schedule

The Reconciler

Matches two sets of records and queues only the exceptions.

  • Subcontractor pay applications against the schedule of values and prior billings
  • Supplier invoices against purchase orders and delivery tickets
  • Committed cost in the PM platform against what accounting actually has

The Connector

Two systems that do not talk, now talking.

  • The project management platform and construction accounting, which disagree on committed cost
  • Field time capture and payroll
  • Bid management and the estimating system

The Gatekeeper

Applies your rules, escalates only what needs judgment.

  • Change order requests from subs, checked against the contract before they reach a PM
  • Whether a sub is compliant enough to be released to work
  • Purchase approvals over a threshold, with the job budget already attached

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