AI and automation for a general contractor is software that handles the paperwork around a job, so the people running it spend more of the day on the job and less of it at a keyboard. AI is short for artificial intelligence, software that can read and write plain language, and automation is a set of steps a computer runs on its own once something happens, like a sub quote landing in the inbox or a super finishing the day's notes. So, the software sorts, drafts and files, and your estimators, project managers and superintendents still decide the price, the schedule and the fix in the field.
Where do the hours go in a general contracting company?
So, crews are short. Associated Builders and Contractors, a national construction trade group, estimated on January 15, 2026 that the industry needs to bring in about 349,000 net new workers in 2026 just to keep up with demand.
And the shortage shows up on the schedule. In the Associated General Contractors of America's 2026 workforce survey, released September 3, 2026 with 1,830 respondents, 42% said shortages of their own workers or their subs' workers had delayed projects, the most common cause of delays they named.
Drew Anderson, who founded Thanks Anderson, is a licensed builder and has managed builds to a deadline himself: the scope, the crews and getting it right. He isn't running projects these days. That being said, the list below is the office side of the trade as he knows it from the inside.
On a typical job, the hours leak in the same few places.
Bid day is a scramble
Sub quotes arrive by email, text and phone call, often the morning the bid is due, and somebody has to pull them into one spreadsheet, check that each sub covered the same scope, and catch the one that left out the demo. Your estimator spends bid day copying numbers instead of checking them.
RFIs and submittals live in somebody's inbox
An RFI is a request for information, the formal question you send the architect or engineer when the plans don't say. A submittal is the product data or shop drawing you send for approval before you order. Both get tracked in email and a spreadsheet, and when one goes unanswered for weeks, nobody notices until the crew is standing around waiting.
Change orders that never get written up
The owner asks for an extra outlet run or a different tile, the super says yes on site, and the change order gets written up later, or never. By closeout, nobody can find the email that proves the owner asked, and that money stays on the table.
Daily logs typed twice
The super writes the day's notes in a notebook or a text to the PM, and someone in the office retypes them into the project software. Weather, crew counts, deliveries, inspections... every one typed twice, and every retype is a chance to lose the line you'll need in a dispute.
What would we build for a general contractor?
Each fix below is a fixed-scope, fixed-price build. The prices come from our problems and prices page, where the ranges are published for teams of two to five people.
Bid leveling that starts done
Sub quotes get pulled from email as they arrive, sorted by trade, and lined up side by side against your scope sheet, with anything missing flagged in plain words. Your estimator checks and decides instead of copying. This is document intake and extraction, which starts at $5,000 on our problems and prices page.
An RFI and submittal log that chases itself
Every RFI and submittal gets logged the moment it goes out, with the date it's due back, and the system sends the reminder before it's late and tells the PM which ones are holding up the schedule. This is workflow automation, also from $5,000 on our problems and prices page.
Change orders written while the conversation is fresh
The super says or types what the owner asked for, right there on site, and the system writes a draft change order from your own template, sends it to the PM to price, and keeps the record tied to the job. The PM still sets the price and sends it. This falls under quote and proposal generation, from $5,000 on our problems and prices page.
Daily logs entered once
The super talks through the day once, on a phone, and the system writes the daily log and puts each piece where it belongs in your project software. The office reviews it instead of retyping it. This is workflow automation, from $5,000 on our problems and prices page.
Bids out on time, RFIs answered before the crew waits, change orders paid, logs that hold up in a dispute... fewer weekends at the desk, better margins, and a PM who isn't the bottleneck, all of it. If the real problem is that one senior PM knows every spec, warranty and closeout requirement, our custom AI tools work turns your own documents into answers the whole team can look up in seconds, with the source shown, starting at $12,000 on our problems and prices page. It's built on the same architecture as our production system, which answers from 170+ source documents.
What does an AI assistant say about contractors like yours?
When an owner or a developer asks ChatGPT, Gemini or Google's AI Overviews for a general contractor nearby that does tenant improvements or custom homes, the assistant names a few firms and leaves out the rest, and most contractors have never checked which list they're on. Our free AI visibility check puts a few questions like those to ChatGPT and shows you its answer word for word: whether your name comes back, who comes back instead, and what it thinks your company does. The report is yours to keep either way.
Where does AI not work for a general contractor?
AI doesn't read a set of plans and price a job, and nothing we build tries to. Takeoffs, means and methods, safety and every number that goes on a bid stay with your people. It also doesn't fix a schedule that was wrong from the start, or a sub who won't return calls.
That being said, the biggest limit in this trade is crews. Software doesn't put another carpenter or electrician on site, and if your jobs are slipping because you can't staff them, a faster RFI log won't change that. Spend the money on hiring and keeping people, and we'll tell you so.
Some project software is locked down and won't connect to anything, and when that's true some fixes become a daily export instead of a live link. We check that first. And if you run a handful of jobs a year, a spreadsheet and a good habit may be all you need.
Where should a general contractor start?
Start with the free Bottleneck Finder at /start. It asks seven plain questions about how the work actually gets done, matches your answers against 42,000 tested combinations across 57 industries, and hands you a written brief with what to fix, what it costs and what to skip. No email, no signup, and sometimes the brief says don't build anything yet.
Is it worth three minutes to find out where your office is losing the week? No worries either way.