Industry-leading AI, built for how builders actually work: What Buildertrend’s newest acquisition means for the future of construction

For two decades, Buildertrend has built automated workflows for construction businesses across the entire job lifecycle. We’ve studied how real builders solve for real challenges, and we prepare them for what’s next, helping them to scale and run more profitable businesses. In the last few years, we’ve applied that construction expertise to thoughtfully embed AI into the workflows our customers already use every day.

We understand the stakes for our customers. Those that can harness this technology gain a significant competitive advantage, driving more opportunities and a greater bottom line.

In fact, The McKinsey Global Institute projects AI could unlock roughly $228 billion a year in value for the U.S. construction industry by 2030, with AI able to automate close to 39% of the non-physical work that eats up a builder’s time today. There’s a gap in the construction industry between what’s possible, and the value builders have yet to realize through AI that truly connects their entire business.

That’s the gap we’ve been closing for a while now. Now, we’re going even further.

Here’s what that means, in plain terms: streamlined jobs, a more profitable business and clients and subs who feel the difference. Our software doesn’t just track the work – it helps move it forward. A lot of companies say that. Few build like they mean it. That’s what industry-leading AI, already built into Buildertrend, keeps making possible, with more on the way.

Where the value shows up

It’s not really about speed. Our approach is embedded automation that pulls from what’s already happening – job site updates, team conversations, shared documents – to serve up what GCs, clients and subs need to know, when they need it. And it keeps getting sharper, learning from a builder’s past jobs to help them get better day to day. That’s technology that does the busy work, so our customers can focus on their craft and running the business.

Think about what small, repetitive work costs a construction company over a year.

Every status update written by hand is time not spent on the job site. Every bill entered manually is a chance for a cost code to end up wrong, and a wrong cost code is a job costing report you can’t trust. None of that shows up as a single dramatic problem. It shows up as a slow leak. A little less margin, a little less time, a little more risk of something falling through the cracks.

This is also where a lot of AI tools quietly fail builders.

AI is only as good as the information it can understand, and most construction software wasn’t built to give it a full picture. We’ve spent years making sure ours is, which is why AI means something real coming from Buildertrend instead of just being a buzzword.

What practical AI looks like today

Some AI tools work like a blank spreadsheet: build almost anything, as long as someone’s got the time and the know-how to set it up. That flexibility feels powerful at first, but it tends to break down exactly when a business needs it most. It becomes one more system to maintain instead of one less thing to worry about.

Compounding that problem is where the industry is today. A lot of construction software cobbles together AI automation by linking separate tools together, trying to pass context and action across integrations or worse having users manually jump between systems.

Practical AI for construction works differently.

Ours lives inside the platform itself, working directly with the schedules, financials and communication already there. Nobody has to make sure they write the perfectly worded prompt with the perfect context window, double-checking whether the underlying data is right across multiple systems or finding usage costs piled up unexpectedly. It just works, quietly, in the background.

AI still needs to be measured by the value it provides its users. Was it truly faster and accurate? Did it drive revenue, increase team member or client satisfaction, reduce operational cost? That’s how we think about AI: just like how we’ve always built products for contractors focused on measurable value.

Here are some of the ways that shows up for our customers today:

AI Client Updates takes the daily inputs teams are already logging and turns them into a polished, client-ready summary automatically. It cuts update time by 97%, turning what used to take a full day into just minutes, so clients feel more informed without anyone having to chase down the details.

AI Bill Capture pulls vendor details, line items and cost codes straight off bills inside Bill Pay. Builders have cut invoice processing time by an average of five days, giving them more control over cash flow and the flexibility to pay subs sooner and strengthen those relationships.

AI-Powered Submittals looks at specs and an optional plan set, then matches them up so the written spec information lines up with the right plan pages, building the outline of a submittal log instead of leaving someone to piece it together by hand. What normally takes a project manager days to weeks, this feature cuts down to a matter of hours per log. In the first seven weeks of beta testing alone, builders collectively got back about 240 hours, roughly two workdays each.

None of this is AI for AI’s sake. Every feature above exists because it removes a specific piece of manual work that used to slow builders down, introduce errors and cost them money.

The AI veterans behind BizJet and why they chose Buildertrend

BizJet AI was built by two tech leaders who understand the best AI carries out multi-step work on its own. Answering a question is the easy part. The real value is following a task through from start to finish. The way a great hire would if a builder handed them a job and trusted them to run with it. Ruhaab and John have built tools for construction like this that will accelerate the shared vision Buildertrend was already building toward.

What drew them to Buildertrend goes beyond our technology.

They believe, like we do, that automation only matters when it solves a real problem. It also has to be built with the people living that problem, not for them from a distance. Construction is poised for exactly that kind of shift, and it’s the same problem Ruhaab and John were already building solutions for at BizJet. Of everywhere they could have gone next, they chose Buildertrend, because the multi-step, follow-a-task-through AI they’d already built could now reach so much more of a builder’s business by joining our end-to-end platform.

Ruhaab and John have built and scaled AI products at Amazon, AWS and Google, including work on Alexa, AWS generative AI products and Google Cloud. Ruhaab also brings firsthand experience having served as an investor and operator of a residential construction company that ran on Buildertrend. In their new roles as VP of Product, AI and Distinguished Engineer, they’re focused full-time on driving outcomes that push customers’ businesses forward.

We’re excited for what’s ahead, to continue working together to change the way the world builds for the better For the full announcement, including more on Ruhaab and John’s backgrounds, read the press release here.