The Trade Contractors Are Leading the AI Revolution in Construction with Colin Piper

0:00 [SPEAKER_00]: On this week's show, The Pivot Point, with Colin Piper from BuildOps. [SPEAKER_00]: All right, Colin. [SPEAKER_00]: It's just you and I. [SPEAKER_00]: We got some special and store for the listeners. [SPEAKER_00]: They never know why I decide to have it just be me. [SPEAKER_00]: They'll figure it out in a minute.

0:25 [SPEAKER_00]: We'll get to it. [SPEAKER_00]: Where are you coming from, Colin? [SPEAKER_01]: Hey Jeff. [SPEAKER_01]: Good to be here. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for having me on. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm calling in from a San Francisco Bay area today and joining you as a CMO from build ups. [SPEAKER_01]: You place I joined just a couple of months ago now.

0:38 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you're new to it, but you're bringing us some stuff before we dive into it. [SPEAKER_00]: Y'all know the speel. [SPEAKER_00]: Check us out on YouTube YouTube.com for slash at the content crew. [SPEAKER_00]: Now listen, you guys are actually listening and we're getting close. [SPEAKER_00]: And there's this moment in the algorithm where you will start to pick up.

0:59 [SPEAKER_00]: And we're almost there. [SPEAKER_00]: So be a part of it. [SPEAKER_00]: Don't be left behind. [SPEAKER_00]: All right, we are back. [SPEAKER_00]: So Colin. [SPEAKER_00]: We're sitting down, CMO, build-ups, recently moved over. [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody know a little bit about, you know, quick you background, but, uh, and then tell them what this fantastic thing you sent over that, uh, that we're going to see here and go through some of the data on.

1:22 [SPEAKER_01]: No, that sounds great, Jeff. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: So my background, I was thinking about this the other day, goes back over 20 years, believe it or not, always in the AEC industry and some capacity, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So right out of school, you know, I was doing the CAD drafting thing.

1:36 [SPEAKER_01]: Any of you've been CAD drafters out there. [SPEAKER_01]: I was doing that right out of college. [SPEAKER_01]: Little land planning, urban planning, shop, went into civil engineering from there, doing some kind of design and drafting got into marketing pretty quickly. [SPEAKER_01]: I loved it.

1:50 [SPEAKER_01]: And the business development side of AEC, chasing new work, writing IRFP responses, that sort of thing. [SPEAKER_01]: And that really got me to learn how collaborative this industry really is. [SPEAKER_01]: So I was in civil for a bit, went into a big architecture firm. [SPEAKER_01]: But I was sitting here in the Bay Area and thinking, you know, I got to get into software somehow.

2:06 [SPEAKER_01]: I got to get into the tech side, right? [SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot happened in there. [SPEAKER_01]: So that brought me to a company called Autodesk. [SPEAKER_01]: Many listeners probably have heard of before. [SPEAKER_01]: So spent over 10 years at Autodesk, building marketing teams, really building their construction tech, construction cloud portfolio, bringing that to market.

2:24 [SPEAKER_01]: And like I told in the beginning, just a few months ago, I actually made a pivot myself and went over to build offices at first CML. [SPEAKER_01]: So it's been a great ride. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, it's it's great to see so many people coming from, you know, the industry, the pains.

2:37 [SPEAKER_00]: You have a history in the pain point one way or another. [SPEAKER_00]: So you can, you can always kind of call back on that, you know, change. [SPEAKER_00]: There are some listeners out there. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure that are cad drafters to this day. [SPEAKER_00]: A lot more of them are, you know, been in VDC.

2:50 [SPEAKER_00]: As you know, that little CAD program, that's what they used beforehand, you know, the thing everybody tells you not to use when you're drawing, but still quite prevalent. [SPEAKER_00]: So still a real important tool in the space. [SPEAKER_00]: So, but you guys, you know, when people go to come on, I get a lot of requests to come on and, and this was a real interesting, because you, you know, led forward with you guys are doing some, you know, did a report.

3:13 [SPEAKER_00]: That's where the joke of the intro is, that's what it was called, right? [SPEAKER_00]: The pivot point. [SPEAKER_00]: So explain a little bit about the survey. [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe just a little bit about how you guys went about it, why you went about it, and then let's jump into some of this great data that's coming out of it.

3:28 [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, no, that sounds great. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this is a report. [SPEAKER_01]: We just released last month. [SPEAKER_01]: So it's really hot off the press still. [SPEAKER_01]: It's called the pivot point. [SPEAKER_01]: It's really about AI and auction in commercial contracting, right?

3:39 [SPEAKER_01]: So a lot of folks think of the construction industry as a bunch of laggers, right? [SPEAKER_01]: They're not adopting technology. [SPEAKER_01]: bit of the opposite. [SPEAKER_01]: So we surveyed over 600 commercial trade contractors specifically. [SPEAKER_01]: So a wide variety of trades, mostly in HVAC, MEP, plumbing, low voltage, far-life safety spaces in the U.S. in Canada.

4:01 [SPEAKER_01]: So it was pretty, pretty wide, wide swath of folks who responded here in all the demographics are in that report, if anyone wants to go check it out after this. [SPEAKER_01]: But it gave us a really nice kind of flavor. [SPEAKER_01]: What's happening out there in the market specifically around who's adopting AI, who's not adopting it, what are the reasons they may or may not be adopting AI workflows in their day today, run of the business.

4:23 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think we all see AI as a... [SPEAKER_01]: I think likely something here to stay, you know, it's been coming upon the scene pretty quickly, but I don't think it's going away any time soon. [SPEAKER_01]: So our report kind of dug into that and dug into some of the reasons people are taking hold of that new technology or staying away from it.

4:41 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, we we've always gotten a bad rap for how digitized we are and how forward thinking we can be and how technological advance we are and I think it's you know, a guys bringing something interesting around that because we've always said it's. [SPEAKER_00]: It's because we're defining it differently, right?

4:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Like they weren't looking at the tools and go, just go to any job site and look at the tooling that they're using today and roll back a screenshot to a old one and you're gonna see a very different set of tools. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, physical tools, the ones that you know, Hilti and Duwalt and Milwaukee are building out there.

5:17 [SPEAKER_00]: They're very, very different and they're enabled themselves. [SPEAKER_00]: And [SPEAKER_00]: You know, the equipment is so different. [SPEAKER_00]: So in I think we were just measuring it wrong, but this also goes to that that data before was very wide. [SPEAKER_00]: And what I like about this is it's something it focuses in on a particular area.

5:37 [SPEAKER_00]: then I think is experiencing a lot of the squeeze, you know, it's in the report, so I'm going to steal your thunder, but you know, 74% say operations are more complex than ever, 65% site inflation and interest rates is the biggest threats to survival. [SPEAKER_00]: And this, this blew me away, 91% say bidding is more competitive than ever.

5:59 [SPEAKER_00]: It's the people doing the work, I mean really let's be honest like a lot of the other stuff is very important to get the job done, but the people doing the work are the trades and they've got their hands and they have the most I think the most gain from repetitive tasks that AI is really good at automating.

6:23 [SPEAKER_00]: So they can get back to fabricating and stalling, you know, getting paid. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, doing this stuff that I could never do, right? [SPEAKER_01]: This AI's not gonna go fix your children on site physically, right? [SPEAKER_01]: That's for a person, a specialist, to do. [SPEAKER_01]: But you know what we're seeing is AI's, you know, making those folks more efficient.

6:43 [SPEAKER_01]: So they don't have to spend so much time on the paperwork. [SPEAKER_01]: They don't spend so much time writing job site notes and their report, you know, some of those things, we find it could be, [SPEAKER_01]: can be automated out but you know you're right it is this kind of perfect storm happening like the demand for the works not going away like that's increasing you know everybody's that being asked a bit more and more and more but the bids are getting competitive and there's a lot of folks now in the mix becoming more efficient and being able to respond to bids quicker and so yeah that 91% you mentioned of you know bidding being [SPEAKER_01]: more competitive than ever.

7:11 [SPEAKER_01]: It was a really, pretty big standout data point we thought that I think personifies these two things are happening more demand happening for the work and the work's getting more complex at the same time and more competitive and that's a massive amount of pressure for these companies to be under to continue to deliver bottom line.

7:28 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, and we're seeing that in there also, [SPEAKER_00]: You know, when you talk about being more efficient, you know, it really is about stopping the paperwork portion of things and really focusing on getting the work done, but ultimately we can't even solve that problem. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, again, you've got it in here 47% nearly a quarter of positions are unfilled.

7:50 [SPEAKER_00]: skilled labor is still in short supply, breaking news, you haven't heard it here first. [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, you have. [SPEAKER_00]: You have heard it plenty, but I thought this was really interesting too because I think this is a canary in the coal mine we should focus on as an industry is 69% report rising burnout across teams.

8:06 [SPEAKER_00]: Basically we're solving the problem by making people work harder and harder and longer and that's going to have the inverse effect in the long term. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the burnout piece is huge, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, it's something that clearly, you know, you can't just throw more bodies at the problem or just have the folks you have work more hours, like it's not sustainable, right?

8:29 [SPEAKER_01]: And we're seeing, you know, it's happening. [SPEAKER_01]: What was interesting in some of our anecdotal conversations as well with these same folks is it's happening in the field, of course. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, people are out working long hours, but [SPEAKER_01]: it's happening actually in the back office more so even than the field because we have people who are running operations of a business sometimes this is a small company and you know people working back office are maybe the son or daughter of the owner cousin etc right and they're just burning out there they're working 10 12 14 hour days just to keep the business running and [SPEAKER_01]: Those are the really tough tasks that are all adamant related, you know, they're on the computer.

9:03 [SPEAKER_01]: They're just batching crews. [SPEAKER_01]: They're keeping track of everything on a whiteboard. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it is a ton of work to do that and keep your head on straight. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's often done by one person, you know, these companies. [SPEAKER_01]: And that's that's I think what was driving a lot of our assumption is driving that for an outnumber up is like these folks in the office, you kind of forget about them.

9:20 [SPEAKER_01]: You think of the trades on site, right, but there's people running the business behind the scenes, too. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, and your report kind of highlights this too, and I think it's really important to understand as well that we're seeing this also in, you know, the pre-construction VDC in BIM WORLD.

9:35 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I was, we were discussing pre-call about, you know, MCA fabrication was there for a great event this year. [SPEAKER_00]: And this was one of the things we had them talking about. [SPEAKER_00]: And we had multiple stories of people, [SPEAKER_00]: who are back there doing, you know, Bimm and VDC work and detailing and our burning out.

9:54 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, the one story was this person quit the company, took a break said I may come back, but I don't believe I can recover right now because they were getting up in the morning. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, getting their kids off to school, working, the only time they saw a day light because they can work remotely doing this was to walk out and get their mail and come back, work again until the kids got home, feed the kids, put them to bed and keep detailing because these jobs in order to keep a shop running, be detailors, and, you know, BMEVDC folks to really get the work done to spool it and push it down to the floor [SPEAKER_00]: It's a massive problem in every area, and so we got to solve it, but we could sit here and hash over that.

10:41 [SPEAKER_00]: Let's talk about some of the good stuff from it, because I think what your report is saying, and this is interesting, because I was just a part of a report for Bluebeam, and we just did a webinar, and it's a bigger swath, right? [SPEAKER_00]: You start bringing in the architecture, the engineering, [SPEAKER_00]: GC trade, a little bit of everybody, a lot of the numbers you're seeing right now go down, they differ from our report.

11:04 [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's great data, because I really think again, the trades are the place that the rubber is hitting the road to get technology moved forward. [SPEAKER_00]: I think they're far more advanced in most areas, [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it really surprises us that I think, you know, I see the trades as kind of the sleeper.

11:28 [SPEAKER_01]: They're like the underdog right there coming in here actually using technology in this case. [SPEAKER_01]: Adopnea, maybe without us even noticing in a lot of ways. [SPEAKER_01]: And don't sleep on the trades, I guess I would say it at the end of the day here. [SPEAKER_01]: Because the data that our board shows 78% of them are actually using AI.

11:43 [SPEAKER_01]: today or actively implementing it within their worlds. [SPEAKER_01]: And I think, you know, if you ask me three years ago, if four out of five trade contractors are going to be using AI, like I'll just say that's that's insane, right? [SPEAKER_01]: There's no way that that would be the reality they put it is.

11:58 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, the data is showing us that majority of folks are actively adopting and getting their teams trained up. [SPEAKER_01]: That's a pretty big indicator that something's come in to really change the fundamental workflows of how these companies are operating and hopefully we see it as an on-mock to solving some of the challenges we were talking about earlier with burnout labor shortage, efficiency, etc.

12:18 [SPEAKER_01]: a bit of bidding competition, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm optimistic. [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's leading indicator. [SPEAKER_01]: It's not the end of the whole story, but it's leading indicator that these folks are tooling up and getting what they need and using the technology to become more efficient.

12:30 [SPEAKER_00]: and this is where I think the data really lines up for me in predicting, like you said it, I don't think A.I.s going anyway, right? [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's here. [SPEAKER_00]: I will caveat this with there is going to be a bubble in some bursting that goes on. [SPEAKER_00]: It's just natural in a hype cycle.

12:45 [SPEAKER_00]: It is what it is. [SPEAKER_00]: It happens. [SPEAKER_00]: But I think at its core we found and are finding more and more of the places where this is going to really drive [SPEAKER_00]: change and you know your data backs it up. [SPEAKER_00]: This is what's interesting because I kind of remembering back to some of the SaaS reports where like 78% said they were going to go to cloud something of that big nature and then they're like yeah but we don't really think we have to and you know we're not really calm you know but it's 80% say it's going to be essential to be competitive and an 81% feel confident in their ability to adopt it.

13:21 [SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, I really think that plays to certain areas, certain swaths, right? [SPEAKER_00]: I think we have to watch for the big. [SPEAKER_00]: It's going to do everything for everybody and anybody says that to you. [SPEAKER_00]: They're probably going to bridge. [SPEAKER_00]: They can sell you to at the end of it, you know, or a big idea.

13:38 [SPEAKER_00]: But when you come in and you talk about specifics, workflows that are repetitive, RFIs daily reports, you know QAQC forms, et cetera, just being able to be assisted. [SPEAKER_00]: Remember, it's assisted. [SPEAKER_00]: It's getting that stuff done faster. [SPEAKER_00]: We used to say like, you can take pictures and talk to your phone and at the end of the day wrap it up better.

14:00 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, now that wrappers and A.I. [SPEAKER_00]: Right, that's just one example. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm wondering what else, where are other places that you saw this from the report? [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, it's really interesting. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think people are using it in different ways.

14:14 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think the report talks about AI adoption overall and intentionally generally, right? [SPEAKER_01]: If this could be a wide swath of usage, this could be, like I said, a back off sudden, using chatGPT to ask it a question and get something, [SPEAKER_01]: back a little more quickly than they could have if they go do their own individual research.

14:32 [SPEAKER_01]: It could be though something more advanced right where the company has already digitized and like you said move to the cloud and has their data in a way that can be cleared quickly and you can look at job histories and some AI workflows to get. [SPEAKER_01]: some predictive analytics on what may happen in a current job site or current job operations, right?

14:48 [SPEAKER_01]: I like the kind of individual efficiency examples where you have a tech on site, taking a picture of an issue or maybe it's a punchless side of them and your job notes are just automatically entered because AI is starting to understand and recognize what's in that image and you don't have to spend the time on your iPad or your phone on the site, like thumbing in the exact notes, right, that would maybe that saves you five minutes.

15:09 [SPEAKER_00]: But that five minutes right times a hundred is getting on going to have significant efficiencies across the course of that that job's old cycle right so I'll throw a little dollar behind that that was the old James Benham five minutes per person per day is one percent back on your bottom line in a low margin business.

15:26 [SPEAKER_00]: That's worth every percent man and and again, it keeps them in flow right and it also keeps you doing things that I think fall by the wayside right that are very dangerous like you just said you're you're in front of a killer and you're doing maintenance and it's filling out what you're doing and you're QA or your QA Q seeing and it's filling out what you're doing and you're making sure you take it a picture of it and it's gathering some things and you look down to go get me up nope change that yep.

15:53 [SPEAKER_00]: Done, you know, and this is what's great, computer vision, grabs a serial number for you. [SPEAKER_00]: How freaking annoying? [SPEAKER_00]: It's sorry, I'm getting old. [SPEAKER_00]: I have to even put on the little, you know, I hate to say this, but sometimes I got put on a month, you know, you zoom in, take that picture, AI grabs it, drops it in, because it knows it's serial number, drops it into a field.

16:10 [SPEAKER_00]: And again, it's two things. [SPEAKER_00]: It's fast and it's accurate. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's not a human's job, that's not what we care about. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't care that you can copy the serial number. [SPEAKER_00]: I care that you document the serial number to back up the fact that you did the QAQC on it, that it is ready to go.

16:25 [SPEAKER_00]: And that can be passed on and then inform other things, right? [SPEAKER_00]: This is the other part that I've seen a lot with AI is, then it can take that you've done that. [SPEAKER_00]: which there's a steps of work that had to be done to get to there. [SPEAKER_00]: So now our schedule can start to assume that we're getting to a place and allow schedule to maybe take a look and think about it.

16:48 [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, you go back to the beginning. [SPEAKER_00]: I heard this at a [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, a glazing contracting. [SPEAKER_00]: This guy was inundated with bids. [SPEAKER_00]: And he could not keep up with his two, three weeks out on bids. [SPEAKER_00]: And he admitted he said, Jeff, man, sometimes I was just going, it's a good customer.

17:13 [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's that. [SPEAKER_00]: And he institutes him some AI estimating that really helped him take do take off get to a good number and he's like now I'm turning them around in a day and he's like and I'll be honest [SPEAKER_00]: I'm kind of figuring out which ones I want to do and which ones I don't want to do and I'm being more selective and that's another increase so like there are these areas where we can just really see them advancing in like you said there's not 10 estimators for me to go higher there just isn't and so how do I make one estimator with all that knowledge.

17:52 [SPEAKER_00]: a superhuman without burning them out. [SPEAKER_00]: What am I doing right now? [SPEAKER_00]: I'm burning them out with old process, with old technology. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's a hot time for a lot of the simplistic, what are, would seem like simplistic workflows, but they are based on the rest of your systems.

18:13 [SPEAKER_00]: being implemented, your people being trained in your culture and environment, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Like people do think that this AI thing is going to come in and fix it for them. [SPEAKER_01]: It's not as horrible. [SPEAKER_01]: You're right. [SPEAKER_01]: You're right. [SPEAKER_01]: It's not a flip the switch and all of a sudden you're your entire crew is 50% more efficient.

18:33 [SPEAKER_01]: All right, you do need to do the groundwork. [SPEAKER_01]: You need to, you know, get off get off the paper, get off the whiteboard. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, start to put things in this system. [SPEAKER_01]: But I'm not saying you have to go all the way fully, bought in full digitization in the cloud.

18:45 [SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, there's some middle ground there where you got to start to get things in the computer and a place where [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I can do it's thing right. [SPEAKER_01]: I think the estimating example, which was actually the use case we saw most popular in the data in the report is is a perfect one right.

18:58 [SPEAKER_01]: It's like instead of just back of the napkin literally back of the napkin estimating, you know, you might be doing because you're crunched there. [SPEAKER_01]: You got too many jobs going. [SPEAKER_01]: You drop in some as builds or whatever inputs you have from the potential client into some sort of an AI system that can spit you out of much more accurate report.

19:14 [SPEAKER_01]: It's not 100%. [SPEAKER_01]: It's a first draft, but it's a much better first draft than you would have done, you know, spend a few hours, just scrolling something out on a piece of paper. [SPEAKER_01]: So I think I think that stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: to me is really exciting and relatable, right?

19:26 [SPEAKER_01]: Cause it's just such a routine, you know, repeatable task. [SPEAKER_01]: It does take some brain power, but let's say, let A, I do the first draft, right? [SPEAKER_01]: You're not going to submit that they're straight from what A, I give you. [SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, it'll get to halfway there.

19:37 [SPEAKER_01]: I probably even more. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I would say even more. [SPEAKER_00]: And that is the beauty, like, you'll hear a lot of people say this the wrong way and I'm big on language. [SPEAKER_00]: You'll see it's learning. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not learning, you're training it, it's a model, right?

19:49 [SPEAKER_00]: You're training it more and more and it gets more and more accurate in its ability to assist you. [SPEAKER_00]: It is this assistant that can drive things forward. [SPEAKER_00]: And in some cases, you know, can do particular tasks like, like, it's in the report as well, but like, go find things.

20:06 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: I just go find it for me. [SPEAKER_00]: Bring it back to me. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not, don't bring me an answer. [SPEAKER_00]: You're not, I'm not asking you to bring me the answer. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm asking you to bring me the information so that I can quickly make the answer.

20:18 [SPEAKER_00]: Again, I'm out, and I'm at a chiller, and I have a question, go find it. [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, what's this supposed to read right now? [SPEAKER_01]: say me to search time right you know how how much searching with that have taken you to go into all these different systems access right i i think jackle another example is you know compliance documentation right these companies projects are getting more and more complex especially on the commercial side talk about data centers right like it's exploding and compliance is rightfully so you know also getting more [SPEAKER_01]: complicated, but instead of going to research and asking your person in the office to go do a bunch of research on the latest code, you can just start asking those questions, right in the natural language search, right?

20:56 [SPEAKER_01]: And it's going and doing and crawling the web and getting the documentation you might need to help you find that answer, you know, in seconds, instead of, you know, might have been hours of research historically. [SPEAKER_01]: It's pretty cool. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's really cool and and you hit it again natural language processing right some of the biggest problems with even our own systems right now when you think about the system that you have finding an RFI like if you can have an LP on top of the system to find the RFI again.

21:22 [SPEAKER_00]: Quick you know again nobody ever walks into a room and goes why was that here again. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, what was that? [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, shoot. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, you have a real short list when you go out on site and you're doing things, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Now, hey, here's a great way in and this has been a barrier over time, right?

21:41 [SPEAKER_00]: Good searching, good ability to find that stuff has been sort of what's made some of our field that has other priorities. [SPEAKER_00]: available to to you know it's been a barrier now NLP breaks down some of that barrier so they can get to the information to make the decisions and you know I see this moving back into the fab shot too like this is the beautiful thing about AI as it starts to grow and what it's capable of doing is it is capable of seeing patterns before human eye can catch it.

22:15 [SPEAKER_00]: Man is that in a highly pressure, you keep hitting it over and over. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, the one size fits all job site is dead. [SPEAKER_00]: It is. [SPEAKER_00]: That's one of the things in there that came out of it. [SPEAKER_00]: The complexity of the jobs that we are that we are at has to be delivering for trade contractors now, is that in all time high and it's getting higher.

22:37 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, when you think about what the hyper scalars are starting to request, when it comes to liquid cooling, when it comes to the electrification of different parts of the systems themselves, I mean, shoot everybody's electrified right now, like so how do you really, you know, manage all that and keep up with that and see what's happening and stay on top of it again, having this assistant that's great.

23:06 [SPEAKER_00]: at being tasked with just throw up a flag when you see something. [SPEAKER_00]: I might put my trained eye on it and say, I'm okay with that risk. [SPEAKER_00]: But, man, if it sees the pattern over and over and it gets better and better, if it just, you know, what do we say? [SPEAKER_00]: A problem is the difference with a problem in a decision is how early I know.

23:30 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, exactly. [SPEAKER_01]: It's great to spot in those things, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And I think, you know, you don't want to spend year on time or you want to work these times, you know, just combing through, like you said, all the historic projects that, you know, those patterns, if you can centralize your data in one system, then it's ripe for laying this on top.

23:49 [SPEAKER_01]: And it's going to do that work for you. [SPEAKER_01]: It's going to do it much better. [SPEAKER_01]: I would argue you actually. [SPEAKER_01]: even would even do it in the first place. [SPEAKER_01]: So that's where you start to get. [SPEAKER_01]: I'd say to more advanced, hey, I work flows and applying it, you know, at scale to the enterprise.

24:00 [SPEAKER_01]: Then you're then you're really, you're really cooking, right? [SPEAKER_01]: But I think, you know, you got to start somewhere. [SPEAKER_01]: If you don't have to go there from day one, but I think you start to, you know, build a build in the software and the technology will continue to get better as well with you.

24:12 [SPEAKER_01]: And it'll take you long, hopefully on that journey. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and that's the beauty is we've, you know, been traveling the country the last year, speaking it a lot of these places and talking about the data enhanced contractor. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: And getting everyone to understand that all of what we're talking about is based on a level of your own in-house data and the ability to collect it and the ability for it to be as complete as it can be, it needs to be in more, you know, [SPEAKER_00]: more consolidated, more accessible, right?

24:41 [SPEAKER_00]: So there is blocking and tackling for people to realize too. [SPEAKER_00]: So like get your stuff together and really think about it. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's why platforms like yours are so important right now, because, you know, we need less, less is more in this moment. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

24:58 [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, we need that all feeding back into there and connecting. [SPEAKER_00]: And we need that interoperability to be there. [SPEAKER_00]: So we can look at these job sites as a whole too, [SPEAKER_00]: You know, HVACs don't work completely on their own, especially if we just said an electrification, well, bother having to coordinate with the electricals, in some cases their co-housed with electricals, in some cases you have them all under one roof in multi-trade right now.

25:24 [SPEAKER_00]: So. [SPEAKER_01]: That's right. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: No, it's a complex ecosystem, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And I think, you know, it continues to get more complex as the projects, you know, scale up. [SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I think you said something really interesting, which is, you know, some of these, you know, more advanced sites say trade and commercial contracts, they're investing heavily in data, right, data.

25:42 [SPEAKER_01]: infrastructure within their own companies, you know, I visit some of these trade shops that are, you know, building their own data warehouses and hiring their own, you know, data engineering teams, many of them are actually becoming almost like many software companies, right on their own, building apps, they're building proprietary pieces of software that will actually help them run their business more effectively.

26:01 [SPEAKER_01]: And doing it, of course, in a way that's tailor-made to how they operate. [SPEAKER_01]: I think that to me is a [SPEAKER_01]: was a big surprise just to see how advanced, you know, specifically trade contractors are overcoming right there. [SPEAKER_01]: And then you think of the big GC commercial shops, do you know doing this, of course, but the trades are doing it as well.

26:17 [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's pretty exciting to see. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and like you said, I mean, the GCs are doing it and they're doing it for a different set of purposes, I think the trade contractors are really doing it again because it's where the rubber hits the road when it comes to work getting installed and that work getting installed that work getting being determined compliant and clear to turn on and getting your CO is the key to money being made by the owner itself, whoever whatever it might be a hyperscaler, karma, anything like that, that's where it happens.

26:45 [SPEAKER_01]: So that's not all right. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you got to get installed correctly and handed over. [SPEAKER_01]: It's not going to happen without the trades on site. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and that coordination issues. [SPEAKER_00]: And again, the complexity and the speed in which they want it.

26:56 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: But you hit on something that I want to bring up because we are seeing more of those trade contractors and others reaching out and bringing in new skill sets. [SPEAKER_00]: a post recently about that. [SPEAKER_00]: And I said, listen, this is where it is a, you know, about company should build their own or buy it off the shelf, et cetera.

27:20 [SPEAKER_00]: I said, this is the perfect yes and moment. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: I think yes, you should be buying it off the shelf and you should have a team that's doing the 20% that you is, I don't want to call it unique to you, but fit your process or plugs the hole that still exists, whatever it might be in a way that's flexible enough to meet you into automate.

27:48 [SPEAKER_00]: Right. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's why we're seeing the rise of low code applications. [SPEAKER_00]: We're seeing in house developers developing certain things. [SPEAKER_00]: What I don't want to see is like somebody saying, oh, build up. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I can vibe code that in a weekend and let it go, man.

28:05 [SPEAKER_00]: Because I've heard that. [SPEAKER_00]: I had a person, you think I'm full of it. [SPEAKER_00]: I had a person pull me aside. [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, if you had one too many drinks, because yes, sure, you can vibe code that thing and get it out and he can maybe work for one project.

28:20 [SPEAKER_00]: But what's the security on it? [SPEAKER_00]: What's the scalability? [SPEAKER_00]: What's it going to be like when you put 3000 people in it? [SPEAKER_00]: No, stop. [SPEAKER_00]: But hey, I can vibe code this thing and prototype it. [SPEAKER_00]: And then I got a couple of people that can say, OK, let's harden this thing.

28:39 [SPEAKER_00]: Do we have our security take it and you're in a little, you know, you're in a little thing let's let's do that that's the key man that's where you gain true efficiencies and you open up our world to a whole new group of people. [SPEAKER_00]: to see the built environment. [SPEAKER_00]: I get to say this every time.

28:59 [SPEAKER_00]: Most of my listeners are sick of it. [SPEAKER_00]: 10 years ago, I found this industry and I was an outsider and I had no idea how the world around this was built. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm an IT guy by trade. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't build anything. [SPEAKER_00]: I laugh about this all the time. [SPEAKER_00]: If you see me on a job site, the boots are gonna be clean.

29:13 [SPEAKER_00]: The hard hats gonna be clean and white. [SPEAKER_00]: And so is the vest. [SPEAKER_00]: And if you see me near a tool, run. [SPEAKER_00]: It's just not safe out there. [SPEAKER_00]: But, [SPEAKER_00]: Just bringing them software and just walking those sites and making sure the tools that we were providing were driving value connected me to the industry.

29:32 [SPEAKER_00]: A data scientist, somebody who's coming over and low code, no coding, or writing AI agents if that's your thing and connecting and seeing a welding fabricator come out of the shop and be like, man, thanks for getting me home at five. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't have to do all this crap anymore.

29:51 [SPEAKER_00]: That'll connect them. [SPEAKER_00]: And that is where we can close the gap. [SPEAKER_01]: I think so too. [SPEAKER_01]: I think so too. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think, you know, a few things are important to hit upon. [SPEAKER_01]: I think, you know, platform agnostic, right? [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I think any any good platform that these companies are running their business on has to be extensible.

30:09 [SPEAKER_01]: So like all that the vibe coding stuff, like you should be doing that, right? [SPEAKER_01]: But build the plugin that plugs in to, you know, let them do the big heavy lifting. [SPEAKER_01]: And then you vibe code, you know, [SPEAKER_01]: API connections, things like that, right? [SPEAKER_01]: That's happening today.

30:25 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think the other piece that's really fun and interesting to close the gap you're talking about labor wise and really technology wise as well is the generational discussion. [SPEAKER_01]: You have Gen Z's fully coming in, right? [SPEAKER_01]: They're coming in to these shops they're being hired either right out of school, some of them are going to trade school, some of them are studying data science and being hired by construction companies.

30:45 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think [SPEAKER_01]: That's pretty cool to see. [SPEAKER_01]: I think they're going to start to lead the way to change some minds of some folks that are, you know, might be a little bit more dog end and resistant to technological change and you're having these, you know, generations come together, delivering a complex job and learning from each other right by direction by the way, you know, the gencies also learned from the the boomersuit been in the industry for decades.

31:06 [SPEAKER_01]: So, [SPEAKER_01]: It's a cool dichotomy. [SPEAKER_01]: I'd say that we're seeing a lot of our customer accounts. [SPEAKER_01]: It might have the young gun coming in with some of the data science background, and you might have a long time construction Mail or female that are teaching each other right, how to work together, and how to bring in that case at company to the next level, and Mary technology with the physical world.

31:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think you're dead on and we've been talking about this one for a very long time and and it is the good Sasha Reed, I think that introduced us all to the term of the symbiotic mentorship. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: But way back then, if you had told me we were going to get to this point where we now actually have a set of tools that if utilized correctly.

31:49 [SPEAKER_00]: can capture that valuable experience and democratize it through data and through the new modern ability to bring those things back. [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, like the last time we worked on this, these are some of the things that we were insights we found ahead, this work, this didn't work. [SPEAKER_00]: And when you partner Gen Z with that experienced [SPEAKER_00]: what they don't know how to do is coordinate and keep a job site safe.

32:20 [SPEAKER_01]: That's right. [SPEAKER_00]: Right. [SPEAKER_00]: There's all the things in the world that we can apply for safety, but safety comes down to humans. [SPEAKER_00]: It comes down to alertness. [SPEAKER_00]: It comes down to knowing the feel of a crew, knowing how people are operating, knowing who's been working, seven, 10s, and is susceptible.

32:41 [SPEAKER_00]: And the less time that super is heads down in the trailer, filling out some damn form, [SPEAKER_00]: and is out on that job site and is picking out those things. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, all right, we'll go beyond that heat. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, yeah, we can put sensors and stuff on people, but those sensors are catching you at the point you've crossed over.

33:04 [SPEAKER_00]: That form and nose. [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, listen. [SPEAKER_00]: This person's going to push themselves too far. [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, listen, 15 minutes each in the whole doing what you're doing. [SPEAKER_00]: And then you're taking a rest. [SPEAKER_00]: It is what it is like making sure those things happen and having their heads up and seeing things, right?

33:25 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, sure. [SPEAKER_00]: We can use a lot of computer vision to tell us certain things, etc. [SPEAKER_00]: But there's nothing better than that form and say it. [SPEAKER_00]: Don't lay that there, you know, that's gonna block this crew and that's gonna stack us up. [SPEAKER_00]: Or see trade stacking coming because they're seeing a crew that's carding their way through and installing and really isn't reaching the speed.

33:49 [SPEAKER_00]: That's what I want them focused on. [SPEAKER_00]: I also want them to know from the system who's supposed to be right behind them and what that predictable thing is and but they're the ones who are gonna know, [SPEAKER_01]: That's right. [SPEAKER_01]: That's right. [SPEAKER_00]: Or here's how we can adjust even.

34:08 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they got the pulse of the job site, like you're saying, as it's so invaluable, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And I think to your point getting off out of the trailer, get them off the paperwork, I think you said, right, let's have a, let's say I do the admin stuff, the road tasks that that format doesn't want to do anyway, right?

34:23 [SPEAKER_01]: It's down and get them out, you know, doing the thing that they're doing, which is saving lives on the job site. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's, [SPEAKER_01]: That's value right there. [SPEAKER_01]: And that's a stuff I think that's interesting. [SPEAKER_01]: And that, you know, the AI report that certainly that we really doesn't cover this, it's like, what are all those like, intangible downstream benefits of this thing, right?

34:40 [SPEAKER_01]: That you're describing. [SPEAKER_01]: How has it helped in, you know, the foreman keep his eyes on the site longer? [SPEAKER_01]: How has it helped in that tech at the killer? [SPEAKER_01]: You know, who may be a little sleep deprived, may be overwork burned out, like we said, actually not be manually entering the serial number and keeping him or her safer on the site, too.

34:55 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's pretty cool when you think about tying [SPEAKER_01]: indirectly or directly into safety, which I love that topic. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, because safety leads to productivity. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that was early lesson in my career that a clean, safe job site is a productive job site.

35:13 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I had a experience form and really walk me through and show me what that meant and and how that really impacted it. [SPEAKER_00]: And [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I had one that still to this day can say, look, I can walk a job site. [SPEAKER_00]: You can tell me nothing about schedule and nothing about anything.

35:28 [SPEAKER_00]: I can look around that job site and buy the way it is organized and how clean it is, et cetera. [SPEAKER_00]: I can tell you if I think it's going to be on schedule or not. [SPEAKER_00]: And then we can go look. [SPEAKER_00]: But you can't teach that. [SPEAKER_00]: But if you can show them that, and by the way, isn't it great if, you know, these things are great, but how much of the form, I don't need to form it out there doing this either, right?

35:49 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't need a labor out there doing this either. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't want that new gen Z or necessarily doing that. [SPEAKER_00]: I want them. [SPEAKER_00]: talking. [SPEAKER_00]: Because that's where the knowledge transfer, that's where the culture, right? [SPEAKER_00]: One of the other things is it's one thing to see a safety incident.

36:06 [SPEAKER_00]: It's another to shut it down. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: To have the authority and I don't I guess it's the guts, but to shut it down and say stop. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Right now. [SPEAKER_00]: Right, that costs money, but it saves lives at times. [SPEAKER_00]: And there's a lot of cowboys out there still in some cases that if that gentseers not been taught, not been empowered to really call it, you know, if you see it, say it.

36:35 [SPEAKER_00]: Again, getting the tools out of the way and making sure all those other things are done and creating that relationship and that bond to pass that real powerful information down. [SPEAKER_01]: Where are we going to be? [SPEAKER_00]: any final thoughts on insights into the report and what you took away from it?

36:54 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think one thing we didn't talk about that I think to me really, really hit home, it gives me time to optimism is we talked about 78% of these trade contractors, they've already adopted or are actively adopting it in their companies. [SPEAKER_01]: But what about the other 22% right?

37:11 [SPEAKER_01]: The folks that they answered know they're not they're not using it at all. [SPEAKER_01]: I think [SPEAKER_01]: what really surprised us I think in a good way is that 22% they're only barriers really to trying this thing out and trying to integrate it in their workflows is really just training.

37:23 [SPEAKER_01]: It's not it's not fear of the technology. [SPEAKER_01]: It's not complete shutting down an entire, you know, option to bring AI into their world. [SPEAKER_01]: It's just a hurdle to get started and I think that is the easy part to me, you know, where there are resources out there. [SPEAKER_01]: There are [SPEAKER_01]: Like you said others coming in who may have adopted on the previous company share the knowledge train others internally like that that will happen Whether it's organically or these companies actually actively seeking out some of that training.

37:53 [SPEAKER_01]: So to me that's a hurdle that can be overcome and really can bring it You know to to everyone who really needs a thin to the day. [SPEAKER_01]: So [SPEAKER_01]: It gives me a lot of optimism for the future, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's changing, it's here to stay, but it's changing a pretty incredible industry, and I think bringing it into the next decade here.

38:11 [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, I think you're spot on and in fact, it's interesting. [SPEAKER_00]: I've tied it back to the blue beam one that we did this year as well. [SPEAKER_00]: It spans it more. [SPEAKER_00]: There isn't enough investment in the entire industry in the ecosystem in training. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

38:24 [SPEAKER_00]: We forget the training we look to the technology tool to solve the problem. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry, folks, it will never solve your problem. [SPEAKER_00]: It will just become a bigger one if you don't focus on what is the biggest problems you have. [SPEAKER_00]: What are the biggest problems or concerns your customers have?

38:43 [SPEAKER_00]: And then how can I select technology and train my team to use that technology to enhance what we're doing? [SPEAKER_00]: You should be putting in, you know, 10, 20% of your technology budget. [SPEAKER_00]: into training and continual training. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't care, you know, if it's coming out of your operational budget, if it's coming out of your technology budget, it just better be there.

39:08 [SPEAKER_00]: You need to do two things, and I'll steal this from Jonathan Marsh yesterday. [SPEAKER_00]: He said, you need to have people become wizards on the tools, right, and give them the space. [SPEAKER_00]: That's not for everybody, but there's a group of people that need that, right, that they need to go deep.

39:25 [SPEAKER_00]: But then you need to operationalize the training for the people who are going to use those tools in a day to day basis that needs to be a part of their training and certification and job, you know, [SPEAKER_00]: Pupu, I'm gonna throw things at you. [SPEAKER_00]: It's, it's, hey, we realistically like have a problem here and don't know how to train on AI.

40:02 [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, I'm probably pretty sure they have other, most people have other training issues as well. [SPEAKER_00]: But that is where these new tools are available. [SPEAKER_00]: And don't just dive in and give some corporate people and throw all your corporate data in there, et cetera.

40:17 [SPEAKER_00]: There are some great consultants out there. [SPEAKER_00]: There are some great companies out there. [SPEAKER_00]: There are great places to go learn more about it. [SPEAKER_00]: Go do that. [SPEAKER_00]: Because in the end, man, that what I love about this report is there's this huge optimism in this huge move forward.

40:33 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think we agree that the trades are leading it. [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they are. [SPEAKER_01]: They are. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's happening, the report points to that, you know, we'll continue to do research in this space. [SPEAKER_01]: By the way, I love the space, of course, but, you know, these numbers are going to [SPEAKER_01]: going to change pretty quickly, I think, as we look into next quarter, next year, and beyond, so we'll keep a pulse on this space, we'll let you keep sharing with you Jeff Fowler.

40:58 [SPEAKER_01]: I were finding trades are adopting AI and other new technology solutions, and I think it's a really exciting time for the trades, like I said. [SPEAKER_01]: They're leading the way whether you think they are or not. [SPEAKER_01]: It's pretty cool. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, you've got to know, but invite any time reports come out.

41:13 [SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, I've loved this conversation. [SPEAKER_00]: And I love the data and the access to the report. [SPEAKER_00]: And I know listeners, I don't worry. [SPEAKER_00]: I'll have it in the show notes so you can link out and go get it because you should go down low this report. [SPEAKER_00]: And we agree, man.

41:26 [SPEAKER_00]: The future is with the trades. [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm doubled down and so are you. [SPEAKER_00]: So, [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks, Colin, tell people where they can't go learn more about you, learn more about build-ups, and we'll get them the link to the report, but I'm sure they can get it from the site as well.

41:41 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, come and check out build-ups.com if you want to learn a little more about the company, the report will be there as well as a bunch of other resources, and then yeah, come connect with me on LinkedIn. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm always here for a conversation, I'm always here to [SPEAKER_01]: hear your stories and learn some of the struggles you might be dealing with as either a commercial trader or otherwise in the industry.

42:00 [SPEAKER_01]: So open and buy it on my side as well. [SPEAKER_01]: And like I said, Jeff, yeah, I would love to join you again on the show. [SPEAKER_01]: There's been a lot of fun. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, definitely happening again. [SPEAKER_00]: You keep those reports coming and we're going to keep these shows going and now you guys know why it was just us.

42:11 [SPEAKER_00]: So I want to thank you for tuning in today to kick out for our interview with Colin Piper. [SPEAKER_00]: A read all our new stories. [SPEAKER_00]: Learn more about our guests and to listen to the show, visit the contentcrew.com. [SPEAKER_00]: This is the content crew signing out. [SPEAKER_00]: Until next time, enjoy the ride and kick out.