Preconstruction is moving faster than it has in years. AI can read a set of plans, run a takeoff, and pull an answer out of a spec book in seconds. These capabilities are already available in the tools that contractors and estimators use every day and they keep getting better.
If that makes you a little cautious, you're in good company. When we recently polled preconstruction pros, 60% called themselves "cautiously optimistic, keeping a human finger on the mouse." Matt Ferris, a preconstruction manager at McClure Engineering, was one of them.
“I’ll be honest, I was opposed to AI,” he told us. “But I was absolutely amazed at the results and how quickly I got them. The sooner you start using it, the sooner you benefit.”
The good news is you do not have to choose between speed and control. The AI tools we’re building across ConstructConnect® are designed to give you both: technology that handles the heavy lifting, with you still making the final call on every project.
We’ve been working to bring AI across the full preconstruction workflow in ConstructConnect® Project Intelligence, On-Screen Takeoff®, and PlanSwift®. That means support at every stage: finding work, deciding whether it’s worth pursuing, and building the bid.
Here’s what that looks like in practice.
Before you bid anything, you have to find it. The harder question is not whether work is out there. It is which projects are worth your time. Which markets are growing? Which GCs send consistent work? Where is the market heading next?
For many teams, those decisions still come down to gut feel and a stack of spreadsheets.
ConstructConnect® Analytics changes that. It brings market intelligence into Project Intelligence, combining 825,000+ verified projects with AI-generated summaries that update as you filter. That means you can move from a high-level market view to a specific list of projects in seconds.
Instead of guessing where the opportunity is, you can see it clearly: which segments are gaining momentum, where activity is shifting, and who is worth calling next.
The AI handles the kind of analysis that would usually take a dedicated data team, then gives it back in plain language your team can act on. You still decide where to compete. You just make that decision based on data instead of instinct alone.
Once a project is on your radar, the next questions come fast. What is the scope? Which specs matter? Is this worth a full estimate?
Two AI tools help answer those questions quickly.
Ask Documents in Project Intelligence lets you ask questions in plain language and get project-specific answers pulled from the documents, with source information available so it is easy to verify what you’re seeing. You can ask something like “What concrete is specified?” and get to the answer in seconds.
Then, before you spend hours on a full estimate, Takeoff Boost™, the AI takeoff suite in On-Screen Takeoff and PlanSwift, can run a quick pass to give you a rough number. That helps you make a more confident go or no-go decision without measuring everything by hand.
That is exactly how Bill Brady, COO of KBI Painting, uses it: “You can run Takeoff Boost to get a rough number for a budget instead of doing the whole takeoff manually for something that you’re going to end up measuring again down the road with a different set of drawings.”
When the job is a go and it is time for the real takeoff, the same suite takes on the repetitive work.
At the center is Auto Takeoff, which measures areas, lengths, and counts directly from the plan in minutes. Around it, a growing set of AI tools helps with the rest of the setup work, from counting repeated symbols to setting scale to organizing and linking plan pages. The work that used to take up most of your day can now happen in the background.
Takeoff Boost lives inside On-Screen Takeoff and, as of this spring, inside PlanSwift too, something many PlanSwift estimators had been waiting on for a long time. Takeoffs that used to take days can now take minutes, giving that time back to the work that wins the bid: reviewing the plans, refining scope, and sharpening the number.
This is the part that does not change, no matter how good the tools get: you stay in control.
AI does not price your scope, judge your risk, or submit the bid for you. It takes on the repetitive tasks that slow you down, like measuring, searching documents, and organizing plans. You still interpret the job, prioritize what matters, and decide whether it is worth pursuing.
The tools simply get you to the starting line faster, so you can spend more of your expertise where it counts.
Step back and look at the full preconstruction process: finding the right work, sizing it up, running the takeoff, and landing on a number that can win. There is now an AI tool at each step, built to remove busywork so your time goes where it pays off most.
That is the transformation happening across ConstructConnect: not AI for its own sake, but practical tools that help you bid more, win more, and stay ahead of competitors who are already moving.
Bill Brady put it best, “AI is the way the industry is moving. I would recommend getting in front of it rather than playing catch-up, because most of your competitors are probably using it.”
More than 100,000 construction pros already build with ConstructConnect, and we’re just getting started. You do not have to automate everything to get ahead. You just have to take the first step.