AI Consulting for Construction
Your PMs Shouldn't Have to Search Three Places for One Jobsite Answer.
One contractor’s project managers now get answers 70% faster, with the source document attached. Icon Custom Pools cut quote time from a full day to five minutes. We build AI in construction around the tools your team already uses. Start with a 30-minute call with Rob and a senior engineer.
For general, specialty and residential contractors · Since 2010 · 100+ people in the US · SOC 2 Type II
A note from Rob
Most contractors I talk with don’t need to be sold on AI. They need time to check the scope before a bid goes out, and a faster way to get answers to the field.
If you’re not sure where to start, tell me what your team keeps chasing each week. We can start there.
Bring one workflow that’s costing you time or margin. A senior engineer and I will tell you plainly whether it’s worth building and what it would take.
Rob Lubeck
Chief Revenue Officer, RTS Labs
Builders and Field Teams We've Built For
Estimating, project or field work eating hours?
Why It Matters
Less Time Chasing Paper.
More Margin on Every Job.
Estimators, project managers and supers spend hours pulling answers out of plans, specs, emails and spreadsheets before they can act. AI does the digging and links every answer to its source. Your people make the call.
Where Most Teams Are Stuck
Pilots that never touch Procore, your accounting system or the shared drive
Plans, specs and RFIs scattered across revisions, folders and inboxes
Tools the office likes and the field ignores
No approvals or audit trail, so nobody trusts it with a number
Where RTS Labs Takes You
One workflow live inside the tools your team already uses
Documents and data checked before we build, so it works on live jobs
Approvals and a record of where every answer came from
Measured in hours saved, quote turnaround, change orders billed and margin by job
Sound Familiar?
The Problems We're
Called In to Solve.
If one of these sounds like your company, it’s a good place to start.
“Quotes take days. The customer signs with whoever answers first.”
Pricing lives in spreadsheets and in the heads of one or two senior estimators.
“Nobody has time to read the whole spec book before bid day.”
The scope gap you miss on page 612 becomes work you do for free.
“The extra work got done. It never got billed.”
Your super agrees to extra work on site, the T&M ticket never gets signed, and the change order never gets submitted.
“Every Friday, PMs rebuild the same report.”
Job status, cost and schedule get pieced together from logs, emails and the accounting system.
“The answer is somewhere in the RFIs.”
PMs and supers dig through drawings, specs, submittals and meeting notes for an answer someone already gave.
“Another tool the field won't use.”
The demo looked great until it hit a jobsite, and the crew went back to texting the PM.
Recognize two or more?
Start with the one that costs most.
Thirty minutes with a senior engineer. You’ll get a first read on which workflow pays back fastest.
Proof
What It Looks Like When It Ships.
Two construction builds in production: a published case study and an anonymous client result.
Sales Quoting · Icon Custom Pools
Pool Quotes in Five Minutes, Down From a Full Day
Icon Custom Pools, a family-owned pool and outdoor-living builder in the Mid-Atlantic, priced every pool by hand across several systems. A quote could take a full day, and by then homeowners had cooled off or signed with someone else. We built a guided pricing tool that applies Icon’s business rules, produces a proposal the homeowner can sign on the spot, and syncs every quote to the CRM. A chat interface helps newer reps, and an AI visualizer previews the pool on a photo of the customer’s own backyard. A later phase added about 130 hardscape line items, so reps now price the pool and the hardscape in one session.
Project Copilot · Construction Client
Project Answers 70% Faster, With the Source Attached
Project managers spent hours a week digging through drawings, specs, RFIs and meeting notes spread across Procore, Autodesk and SharePoint, and the answer depended on who you asked. We built a project copilot that answers from the project record and cites the document behind every answer.
More From the Field
Field Service Dispatch · Carter Machinery (Caterpillar dealer)
One dispatch system for dispatchers, drivers and technicians, built on live GPS and equipment data. Routing efficiency up 30%.
HVAC Field Service · Weinstein
A voice-enabled assistant that pulls answers and diagrams from service manuals on the job. Lookups went from 5 minutes to under 10 seconds, and daily job completions rose 25%.
Want this on your own workflow?
Start with a 30-minute call.
A senior engineer on the estimating, project or field workflow costing you the most.
Where We Apply It
Where We'd Start in Your Company.
Specific construction workflows, each one built into the tools you already run. Filter by the part of the business you want to move.
Win Work
Estimating From Spec Books
Pain
Estimators read 500 to 1,000 page spec books by hand against a bid deadline.
We Build
Reads the spec book and bid documents, pulls the sections that apply to your trades, flags risky terms such as liquidated damages, pay-when-paid and testing requirements, and builds a scope checklist your estimator prices from. Takeoff stays in your takeoff tool.
Impact
Faster bids and fewer scope gaps, with your estimator’s time spent on pricing judgment.
For: Chief Estimator · Preconstruction
Win Work
Bid Scout
Pain
Good private work gets awarded before your team hears about it.
We Build
Surfaces early project signals from permits, planning agendas, news and bid sites that fit your trades, size and region, and ranks them for your team.
Impact
More of the right bids, found earlier.
For: Business Development · Owner/President
Win Work
Sub Bid Leveling
Pain
Sub bids land in the last hour in twenty different formats.
We Build
Lines up each sub’s bid against your scope sheet, flags exclusions and missing items, and builds the leveling sheet for your estimator.
Impact
Cleaner bid-day decisions and fewer scope holes you carry into the job.
For: Estimators · Preconstruction
Win Work
Quote & Proposal Configurator
Pain
Quotes depend on spreadsheets and one senior estimator’s memory.
We Build
A guided pricing tool that applies your rules, options and markups and produces a proposal the customer can sign, synced to your CRM.
Impact
Icon Custom Pools went from a full day to five minutes per quote and lifted its close rate by more than 40%.
For: Sales · Owner/President
Win Work
Lead Intake & Routing
Pain
Web inquiries, referrals and GC bid invitations pile up in an inbox until someone sorts them.
We Build
Reads each inquiry or bid invite from email or BuildingConnected, checks it against your trades, size, region and bid calendar, and routes it to the right estimator or sales rep with the details filled in.
Impact
Faster first contact and fewer lost leads.
For: Sales Manager
Run Jobs
Project Manager Copilot
Pain
Answers live in thousands of pages of drawings, specs, RFIs and meeting notes.
We Build
A copilot that answers from the current revision of the project record, cites the source document, and flags superseded or conflicting documents.
Impact
Hours back per PM each week. One client got answers 70% faster and 5 PM hours back a week.
For: Project Managers · Supers
Run Jobs
RFI & Submittal Assistant
Pain
RFIs and submittals are drafted and tracked by hand under deadline.
We Build
Builds a draft submittal register from the project specs, checks packages against the relevant spec sections before they go up for review, drafts RFIs with drawing and spec references attached, and tracks required and actual response dates.
Impact
Faster turnaround and fewer missed responses.
For: Project Engineers
Run Jobs
Daily Logs & Weekly Reports
Pain
PMs rebuild the same owner and job reports every Friday.
We Build
Pulls daily logs, photos, schedule updates and cost data into a drafted weekly report for the PM to review and send.
Impact
Reports out on time, without the Friday scramble.
For: Project Managers · Owner/President
Run Jobs
Dispatch & Crew Scheduling
Pain
Crews and equipment get scheduled on a whiteboard, then reshuffled by phone all morning.
We Build
Schedules crews and equipment against job priority, location, skills and availability, around inspections, deliveries and weather, and pushes changes to the field.
Impact
Carter Machinery, a Caterpillar dealer, raised routing efficiency for its service technicians by 30%.
For: Operations · Dispatch
Run Jobs
Field Technician Assistant
Pain
Foremen and techs call the office for answers that sit in manuals, specs and approved submittals.
We Build
A voice and mobile assistant that answers from your manuals, specs and past jobs, with diagrams.
Impact
Weinstein cut technician lookups from 5 minutes to under 10 seconds.
For: Service Techs · Foremen
Protect Margin
Change-Order Capture
Pain
Extra work gets agreed in the field and never billed.
We Build
Flags scope changes in RFIs, daily logs, emails and meeting notes, drafts the change order request with backup attached for your PM to price, flags the contract’s notice deadline, and tracks it to signature.
Impact
More approved extra work billed, with the backup attached.
For: Project Managers · Controller
Protect Margin
Field Time & T&M Capture
Pain
Time cards and T&M tickets come in days late, coded to the wrong job.
We Build
Foremen log hours, quantities and extra work by voice or photo from the truck. It proposes job and cost codes, routes T&M tickets to the authorized customer representative for signature, and sends approved records to payroll and job cost.
Impact
Cleaner job cost, billable T&M, and real production rates for the next bid.
For: Foremen · Payroll · Controller
Protect Margin
Schedule Risk Alerts
Pain
Slips show up after they’ve already cost you.
We Build
Reads schedule updates, daily logs and submittal status and flags activities likely to slip, with the reason.
Impact
Slips flagged while you can still recover.
For: Scheduler · Project Controls
Protect Margin
Job Cost & WIP Early Warning
Pain
Overruns show up in the monthly WIP report, after the money’s spent.
We Build
Combines cost to date, remaining commitments and the PM’s cost to complete into a forecast final cost, compares it with the revised contract value, and compares earned revenue with billings to flag profit fade and underbilling.
Impact
Profit fade caught while there’s still time to act.
For: CFO · Controller
Protect Margin
Subcontractor Compliance Tracking
Pain
Expired insurance certificates and missing lien waivers surface at pay app time.
We Build
Reads COIs, licenses and lien waivers, tracks expiration dates, and flags subs with missing paperwork before payment goes out.
Impact
Fewer compliance gaps and payment delays.
For: Project Accounting · Risk
Protect Margin
AP Invoice Matching
Pain
Sub and supplier invoices are matched to POs and subcontracts by hand.
We Build
Extracts invoice data, matches it to POs, subcontracts and receipts, and routes mismatches for review.
Impact
Fewer overpayments and fewer AP hours.
For: AP · Controller
Win Work
Estimating From Spec Books
Pain
Estimators read 500 to 1,000 page spec books by hand against a bid deadline.
We Build
Reads the spec book and bid documents, pulls the sections that apply to your trades, flags risky terms such as liquidated damages, pay-when-paid and testing requirements, and builds a scope checklist your estimator prices from. Takeoff stays in your takeoff tool.
Impact
Faster bids and fewer scope gaps, with your estimator’s time spent on pricing judgment.
For: Chief Estimator · Preconstruction
Win Work
Bid Scout
Pain
Good private work gets awarded before your team hears about it.
We Build
Surfaces early project signals from permits, planning agendas, news and bid sites that fit your trades, size and region, and ranks them for your team.
Impact
More of the right bids, found earlier.
For: Business Development · Owner/President
Win Work
Sub Bid Leveling
Pain
Sub bids land in the last hour in twenty different formats.
We Build
Lines up each sub’s bid against your scope sheet, flags exclusions and missing items, and builds the leveling sheet for your estimator.
Impact
Cleaner bid-day decisions and fewer scope holes you carry into the job.
For: Estimators · Preconstruction
Win Work
Quote & Proposal Configurator
Pain
Quotes depend on spreadsheets and one senior estimator’s memory.
We Build
A guided pricing tool that applies your rules, options and markups and produces a proposal the customer can sign, synced to your CRM.
Impact
Icon Custom Pools went from a full day to five minutes per quote and lifted its close rate by more than 40%.
For: Sales · Owner/President
Win Work
Lead Intake & Routing
Pain
Web inquiries, referrals and GC bid invitations pile up in an inbox until someone sorts them.
We Build
Reads each inquiry or bid invite from email or BuildingConnected, checks it against your trades, size, region and bid calendar, and routes it to the right estimator or sales rep with the details filled in.
Impact
Faster first contact and fewer lost leads.
For: Sales Manager
Run Jobs
Project Manager Copilot
Pain
Answers live in thousands of pages of drawings, specs, RFIs and meeting notes.
We Build
A copilot that answers from the current revision of the project record, cites the source document, and flags superseded or conflicting documents.
Impact
Hours back per PM each week. One client got answers 70% faster and 5 PM hours back a week.
For: Project Managers · Supers
Run Jobs
RFI & Submittal Assistant
Pain
RFIs and submittals are drafted and tracked by hand under deadline.
We Build
Builds a draft submittal register from the project specs, checks packages against the relevant spec sections before they go up for review, drafts RFIs with drawing and spec references attached, and tracks required and actual response dates.
Impact
Faster turnaround and fewer missed responses.
For: Project Engineers
Run Jobs
Daily Logs & Weekly Reports
Pain
PMs rebuild the same owner and job reports every Friday.
We Build
Pulls daily logs, photos, schedule updates and cost data into a drafted weekly report for the PM to review and send.
Impact
Reports out on time, without the Friday scramble.
For: Project Managers · Owner/President
Run Jobs
Dispatch & Crew Scheduling
Pain
Crews and equipment get scheduled on a whiteboard, then reshuffled by phone all morning.
We Build
Schedules crews and equipment against job priority, location, skills and availability, around inspections, deliveries and weather, and pushes changes to the field.
Impact
Carter Machinery, a Caterpillar dealer, raised routing efficiency for its service technicians by 30%.
For: Operations · Dispatch
Run Jobs
Field Technician Assistant
Pain
Foremen and techs call the office for answers that sit in manuals, specs and approved submittals.
We Build
A voice and mobile assistant that answers from your manuals, specs and past jobs, with diagrams.
Impact
Weinstein cut technician lookups from 5 minutes to under 10 seconds.
For: Service Techs · Foremen
Protect Margin
Change-Order Capture
Pain
Extra work gets agreed in the field and never billed.
We Build
Flags scope changes in RFIs, daily logs, emails and meeting notes, drafts the change order request with backup attached for your PM to price, flags the contract’s notice deadline, and tracks it to signature.
Impact
More approved extra work billed, with the backup attached.
For: Project Managers · Controller
Protect Margin
Field Time & T&M Capture
Pain
Time cards and T&M tickets come in days late, coded to the wrong job.
We Build
Foremen log hours, quantities and extra work by voice or photo from the truck. It proposes job and cost codes, routes T&M tickets to the authorized customer representative for signature, and sends approved records to payroll and job cost.
Impact
Cleaner job cost, billable T&M, and real production rates for the next bid.
For: Foremen · Payroll · Controller
Protect Margin
Schedule Risk Alerts
Pain
Slips show up after they’ve already cost you.
We Build
Reads schedule updates, daily logs and submittal status and flags activities likely to slip, with the reason.
Impact
Slips flagged while you can still recover.
For: Scheduler · Project Controls
Protect Margin
Job Cost & WIP Early Warning
Pain
Overruns show up in the monthly WIP report, after the money’s spent.
We Build
Combines cost to date, remaining commitments and the PM’s cost to complete into a forecast final cost, compares it with the revised contract value, and compares earned revenue with billings to flag profit fade and underbilling.
Impact
Profit fade caught while there’s still time to act.
For: CFO · Controller
Protect Margin
Subcontractor Compliance Tracking
Pain
Expired insurance certificates and missing lien waivers surface at pay app time.
We Build
Reads COIs, licenses and lien waivers, tracks expiration dates, and flags subs with missing paperwork before payment goes out.
Impact
Fewer compliance gaps and payment delays.
For: Project Accounting · Risk
Protect Margin
AP Invoice Matching
Pain
Sub and supplier invoices are matched to POs and subcontracts by hand.
We Build
Extracts invoice data, matches it to POs, subcontracts and receipts, and routes mismatches for review.
Impact
Fewer overpayments and fewer AP hours.
For: AP · Controller
Not sure which of these fits your company?
Start with a 30-minute call to narrow the options. If there’s a fit, a fixed-fee Discovery Sprint confirms the workflow, the data and the build scope.
How We Partner
From Your Highest-Cost Workflow to a Production System.
A fixed-fee Discovery Sprint first, then fixed-price builds. You know the cost and the go/no-go before the real spend starts.
1
Find the Workflow With the Most Pain
A two-week Discovery Sprint. We find where manual work, delays, rework and margin leakage show up, and pick the one with the clearest payback.
Clarity on where AI pays first
2
Validate the Data and Systems
We review your project management, estimating, scheduling, accounting and document systems to confirm what’s feasible before we build.
Go/no-go before real money
3
Build Phase 1 Into Production
We build, integrate, test and deploy one focused workflow inside the tools your team already uses, with the right controls.
Live in weeks
4
Measure, Improve and Scale
We track hours saved, quote turnaround, change orders billed and margin by job. The numbers that prove phase 1 scope phase 2.
Phase 1 scopes phase 2
Why RTS Labs
The Team That Recommends It Is the Team That Builds It.
How we compare with the options you’re probably weighing: big consulting firms, offshore dev shops and AI prototype vendors.
Big Consulting Firms
Offshore Dev Shops
AI Prototype Vendors
Ships Production Systems
Senior Engineers on Your Account
Owns Data, Security and Governance
Phase 1 Live in Weeks
Stays After Launch
See It in Action
Watch How We Ship AI Into Production.
A short look at how we take AI from pilot to production: the data work, the guardrails and the handoff.
Why Contractors Trust Us to Build
A Delivery Team You Can Rely On.
The facts a vendor review asks for, and the controls owners ask about.
Building Since 2010
We’ve shipped production software since 2010. Our AI work runs on the same delivery habits.
200,000+ Hours of AI Work
Delivered for clients in construction, logistics, insurance, financial services and more.
100+ People, All in the US
The engineers on your project are RTS employees based in the US.
SOC 2 Type II
SOC 2 Type II attestation held by Rising Tides Solutions, LLC, the company behind RTS Labs. Report available under NDA.
Anthropic Claude Partner
RTS Labs is a member of Anthropic’s Claude Partner Network.
Runs Inside Your Network
We’ve deployed inside a client’s private Azure network, behind their firewall.
You Own What We Build
The custom code and infrastructure we build transfer to you at handoff, in your repositories.
A Person Approves the Big Moves
Anything that changes a price, a contract or a payment waits for a person. Routine reminders go out on rules you set.
Tested on Your Own Jobs
We measure accuracy on your real plans, specs and documents before launch, and keep measuring in production.
Who You'll Work With
Meet the Delivery Team.
Everyone on your project is an RTS employee based in the US, and the engineers who scope the work are the ones who build it. Our home base is Glen Allen, Virginia, just outside Richmond.
Nathan Clarke
Director of Client Delivery
Chris Deiter
Team Lead, Software Engineer
Jerry Pauly
Team Lead, Software Engineer
Named a 2026 Top Workplace by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, based on what our own people say about working here.
Our Clients' Words
Testimonials
Renewal By Andersen
- Colin Sullivan, Owner & President
Questions, Answered Straight
Before You Talk to Us.
What is AI consulting for construction?
It’s help choosing, building and running AI inside a contractor or builder. A good partner finds the estimating, project or field workflow where AI pays back, checks that your documents and data support it, builds it into the tools your team already uses, and measures the result. At RTS Labs, one senior team takes it from the first call to production.
How is AI used in construction management?
Mostly to take document digging, re-keying and reporting off skilled people. Common uses include estimating from plans and specs, project manager copilots, RFI and submittal drafting, weekly reports, change-order capture, schedule risk alerts, job cost warnings, subcontractor compliance and invoice matching. Generative AI reads documents and drafts. Trend checks on your cost and schedule data flag risk early. Agents chase paperwork and route work, with people approving anything that changes a price, a contract or a payment.
Can AI help with construction estimating?
Yes, as a fast first pass your estimator checks. AI can read a 500 to 1,000 page spec book, pull the sections that apply to your trades, flag risky terms and missing items, and build a scope checklist. Once your estimator’s quantities are in, it can draft line items from your own cost history. Takeoff stays in your takeoff tool, and your estimator still owns the price. We’ve built this pattern in another industry, turning a multi-day expert estimate built from dozens of messy spreadsheets into AI-drafted counts the expert reviews, live in about 10 weeks.
Which construction workflows pay back fastest?
High-volume, repetitive work with accessible data and a clear cost, such as quotes and proposals, estimating from spec books, answering project questions, weekly reports and change-order capture. We compare time spent, error rates and integration effort during discovery. Icon Custom Pools cut quote time from a full day to five minutes and raised its close rate by more than 40%.
Does it work with Procore, Autodesk, P6 and our accounting system?
Usually. During discovery we check what each of your systems allows, whether that’s Procore, Autodesk Construction Cloud, Primavera P6, HCSS, Sage, Viewpoint, Foundation or QuickBooks, and we connect through APIs, database connections or scheduled file exports. Some on-premise accounting systems offer limited APIs, so you’ll know what’s possible before you commit to a build. The project copilot on this page answers from documents in Procore, Autodesk and SharePoint.
Is our project data clean enough for AI?
You don’t need perfect data to start. You need access to the right data. Plans get revised, specs get superseded and cost codes drift from job to job, so we check quality during discovery and fix the foundation as part of the work. Our data engineering team handles that before the model work starts.
Can AI catch change orders and schedule slips earlier?
Yes, if it can read where they start. AI watches RFIs, daily logs, emails, meeting notes and schedule updates for scope changes and activities likely to slip. It drafts the change order request with backup attached and flags the notice deadline, or flags the schedule risk with the reason. Your PM decides what goes to the GC or project owner. The payoff is billing extra work you’ve already done, and seeing slips while there’s still time to recover.
How long does it take, and how is it priced?
Every engagement starts with a fixed-fee, two-week Discovery Sprint, so you know the scope and price before you commit to a build. Builds are then priced as fixed-scope projects with milestones. Most first builds go live in 6 to 16 weeks, depending on data and integrations. The project copilot on this page went live in 6 weeks.
How much of our team's time does it take?
We plan around your bid dates and busy season. Discovery needs a few working sessions with the people who do the work, sample documents from real jobs, and read access to the systems involved. During the build, one person on your side reviews progress each week and tests drafts on live work. Your estimators and PMs aren’t pulled off jobs to run the project.
Is this only for large general contractors?
No. Several of our construction clients are owner-led specialty, residential and home improvement companies, and Icon Custom Pools is a family-owned builder. Smaller firms usually start with the workflow that eats the owner’s or the estimator’s week, such as quotes, proposals or weekly reports. Larger general contractors tend to start with estimating, project documents or job cost.
Is AI safe to use on live projects?
Yes, when it’s controlled. Every answer links to the drawing, spec or email it came from, and we set it to answer from current revisions and flag superseded or conflicting documents. An agent gets a clear job, access only to approved systems and folders, and rules for when to act, ask or escalate. Anything that changes a price, a contract or a payment goes through a person, and everything is logged. The full set of controls is on our AI agent governance page.
Who owns the code and the data?
You own the custom code and infrastructure we build, in your repositories and your cloud account. During discovery we agree with you which model services, if any, can see your data. Third-party models stay under their providers’ terms. At handoff you get documentation and training, and you’re never locked in to us to keep it running.
What happens after launch?
After launch, you decide who runs it. Some clients run the system themselves. Others keep us on a monthly support retainer or add an embedded AI team to build the next workflow. Running costs are mostly cloud and model usage in your own account, and we size them with you during the build.
Should we build custom AI or use what's in Procore and our other software?
Use what’s there when it handles the workflow and fits your systems at a lower total cost. Procore, Autodesk and accounting vendors keep adding AI features, and you should use them. Build when a high-value workflow isn’t covered, such as your own pricing rules, your estimating history or a process that crosses several systems. Often we build the layer that connects those tools into one workflow.
Do you also work with real estate owners and developers?
Yes. This page is for contractors and builders. Owners, developers and property managers usually start with lease abstraction, owner and investor reporting, or maintenance and tenant communication. That work is on our AI agents for real estate page.
How is RTS Labs different from a big consulting firm or an offshore shop?
The senior engineers who scope your project build it, connect it to your production systems with controls and monitoring, and stay through launch and after. Everyone on the work is an RTS employee based in the US. We’ve built production software since 2010 and delivered more than 200,000 hours of AI work.
Let's Talk
Bring Us Your Toughest Construction Workflow.
Thirty minutes with a senior engineer. Bring one workflow and tell us where it gets stuck. You’ll leave with a first read on feasibility and a rough effort range.
- A senior engineer on the call
- A read on feasibility, data and effort
- Which workflow to start with, and why