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Welcome to the Site . Visit podcast Leadership

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and perspective from construction

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With your host , james

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Faulkner , live

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from BuildX Vancouver 2024

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. Mr

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Forest , hey , how are you doing ? I'm

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doing well , you're back in the saddle here .

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I know I was thinking about it the other day . I think it's been probably

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four or five years . It's the last time

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I was here . We had just got acquired at Plangrid

0:34

by Autodesk .

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Oh yeah .

0:36

Yeah , and that shows how much time is

0:38

flying , because I've worked almost double the

0:40

amount of time at Autodesk than Plangrid .

0:43

So you did tell me your new title

0:45

, which was you might

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need to . It's like a page turner . It's quite

0:49

long , so give it to us .

0:51

Yeah , so I'm the Senior Regional Manager of

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Western US Territory Sales at

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Autodesk , focused on our construction product suites

0:57

. Wow .

0:58

Yeah , yeah , that's Thank God

1:01

. There's no business cards anymore , because you'd need like a

1:03

long , wide one .

1:04

You know what ? Last time I printed a business

1:06

card , I think by the time they came it was obsolete

1:08

. I got another title anyways . So yeah , it's definitely

1:10

find me on LinkedIn . I'm definitely active

1:12

on there and that's why you , you are .

1:14

You are , yeah , try to be Well , thanks for coming

1:16

on , I appreciate it . I

1:19

know that we sort of hit each other in

1:21

certain ways with certain customer cohorts that

1:23

we have , you know , Autodesk , sitemax , yeah

1:26

, so maybe just give us a . I

1:30

want to talk to you about the future of construction because I think

1:32

things are probably changing quite quickly

1:34

, as you can tell . Where do you see

1:36

the big innovation , changes with Autodesk and what you

1:38

guys are looking at right now ?

1:40

Yeah , we were obviously doing a lot of things . We actually

1:42

just acquired a company called PayOps or GCP

1:45

, depending on if you live in Australia

1:47

or North America and so we continue

1:49

to innovate . I think over the last five

1:51

years , autodesk made a big investment in construction

1:54

. You know , everyone you mentioned Autodesk

1:56

will say , hey , I use AutoCAD or I use Revit . This

1:58

building we're sitting in is probably most likely

2:00

designed by an Autodesk software , and

2:02

so really what we're looking forward

2:04

to is allowing customers

2:07

to work in their Autodesk solutions across

2:09

the entire lifecycle of construction .

2:11

Right .

2:11

So when it starts and design , those can transfer

2:14

into our construction and asset management

2:16

turnover . So there's lots of things we're

2:18

doing . You know , obviously , like all large

2:20

tech companies , we're looking at AI and what that means

2:22

to our business . We already acquired some companies

2:24

previously that do some of that work for us . So

2:27

the innovation at Autodesk is endless

2:29

really . So we try to listen to our customers

2:31

as best we can . When you have as many customers

2:33

as we do , it is hard to kind of

2:35

narrow in on one area , but we have just in

2:37

the construction side of our group

2:39

, over 1,000 developers working on the Autodesk

2:41

Construction Cloud Wow .

2:43

That's a lot of people 1,000 developers

2:46

, developers Whoa , that

2:48

is crazy . That's more than we have .

2:49

Yeah , a couple I'd imagine . Right , but

2:52

a lot of that came from the acquisitions of companies

2:54

like Building Connected . I come from Plangrid originally

2:56

. That was acquired back in 2017 .

2:57

So how many people from Plangrid made their way into

3:00

Autodesk ?

3:01

When we got acquired we were probably around 500 people

3:04

, and so a lot of what has

3:06

made the Autodesk Construction Cloud as those groups we continue

3:08

to integrate into the core business of Autodesk

3:10

on the design side , and so now there's people parsed

3:13

in different areas , so we have a multitude

3:15

of levels , whether it's named accounts , mid-market

3:17

territory , which I cover , and so we do

3:19

really run the gamut . We do manufacturing

3:21

. We have a movie making

3:23

group that does all the visual effects . If

3:26

you go to the Toronto office , there's actually an Oscar that sits

3:29

in there . So it's a very unique

3:31

company to work at . And really , when they

3:33

focus on what we do , we're really focusing

3:35

on design to make . You can design

3:37

it at AutoCAD or Revit or

3:39

the other solutions you can make in the Autodesk Construction

3:42

Cloud or other solutions , and so we

3:44

really do run the gamut of how do we support

3:46

different types of customers across their life

3:48

cycle and journey .

3:49

That's pretty cool , the so

3:52

in terms of the competitive landscape . I'm

3:54

not going to name names . I'm just going to give you a

3:57

moniker that I've recently come up . We're

3:59

going to call it the Big Orange . Ok , so

4:05

you guys come up against the Big Orange . So

4:09

I took that from IBM's Big Blue .

4:11

Yeah and you know it's funny , it's previously

4:13

, before working in construction tech , I worked at SAP

4:15

right and it was SAP , Oracle

4:17

and then ultimately Microsoft who's

4:20

played in the space and Salesforce has grown and

4:22

I think when you look at the competition right , everyone's taking

4:24

a different approach of where they started from . I

4:27

think it's really down to the customer to

4:29

make a decision on which one fits their business . At the

4:31

current time , I think the

4:33

construction technology market overall is

4:36

just scratching the surface . Honestly , In

4:38

the eight years that I've been in construction tech , there has

4:40

been tremendous amounts of innovation , but

4:43

we're still not getting anywhere close to the

4:45

level of sophistication that will come in the next

4:47

10 to 15 years .

4:48

Yeah , so where do you see you

4:51

touched on that you might . You've acquired

4:53

some AI companies . Where is that

4:55

AI being ? Is it in

4:58

tasks that

5:02

are like setting up projects , setting up

5:04

things and being able to analyze what last

5:06

projects did ? So you're sort

5:08

of starting at a further state forward

5:10

rather than having to reinvent the wheel every time . I

5:13

mean , it's kind of like like I've even seen this

5:16

is a very rudimentary example but even

5:18

in Google Docs , now you'll start and it'll

5:20

just give you it's not even a template

5:22

. There's three buttons come up . It's

5:25

like do you want to start with the document ? Like

5:27

you had last time . I was like , oh , that's pretty cool , so

5:29

I didn't have to reinvent it every time . It's

5:31

that boring kind of work AI

5:34

seems to be able to do . That very , very well

5:36

is repeated tasks are

5:38

kind of gone .

5:40

Yeah , there's tons of stuff that we're doing there , but I'll focus

5:42

on what we're doing in construction . We acquired a company probably

5:44

three years ago now , which is three

5:47

years ago . Now would be a third acquisition between

5:49

when we've actually acquired a company that does estimating

5:51

and Pro-Est , and now we've acquired GC

5:53

Pay , which I was on vacation so still catching up

5:55

on that but Pipe , which is now

5:57

auto specs , allows you to

5:59

throw your spec book into our system and extract

6:01

all of the submittal information to start

6:03

that process quicker . When we look at the advantage

6:06

that has on the construction industry

6:08

, we have confirmed with many customers

6:10

that it cuts down like two weeks of work . Now

6:12

that work is usually given to a junior person

6:14

and I think when you look at what's changing

6:16

in the industry is when you originally started selling

6:18

that tool , people said I want them to go through that , I want

6:21

them to know what's in there . And I think now

6:23

, with the labor shortage and the ability

6:25

to try to get projects started quicker and try

6:27

to reduce errors , tools like that

6:29

and the AI to be able to extract that information , throw

6:32

it in our submittal tool to then start the approval process

6:34

. Architects , engineers , sub-trades , whoever

6:36

that is Like that has a huge monetary

6:38

value to companies , and

6:41

so I think that's an example . The other one that we

6:43

have in our system is you're

6:45

able to take photos and it will recognize if it's a wall

6:47

, if it's a beam , if it's a joint

6:49

, if it's a door , and so if you're tagging issues

6:52

, it'll automatically tag the location is another

6:54

area where that's been around since Plangrid

6:56

, where you will have the exact longitude

6:58

and latitude of where this photo is taken . So if you think about

7:01

large infrastructure projects , which are top

7:03

of mind right now for both the US

7:05

and Canada the ability to have that

7:07

exact where this photo

7:09

or issues taken , if you go back to have to re-rip

7:12

up that road , you're going to know what's underneath

7:14

because of the photos . And I think that automation

7:16

is one component . But when you look at the automation

7:19

of reporting and predictability that's something

7:21

that Autodesk has had for five years with Construction

7:23

IQ it's telling you what problems

7:25

to look out in certain projects . Now that becomes really

7:28

complex , because the data and the structures

7:30

that they have at the construction level have

7:32

to be good , right , and I think one of the things

7:34

that I think needs to improve for the construction industry

7:37

is the way that they are structuring or

7:39

looking at or figuring out what they want to see from a

7:41

data standpoint to be able to act on it . And

7:43

I think when people have implemented solutions

7:46

, they haven't thought about what is the workflow

7:48

we're trying to get to or what are we trying to solve . Because

7:50

originally the problem was we want to get off paper

7:52

. I would say that most of the industry

7:54

80% , because there's still definitely this

7:57

20% out there that are a little bit laggers

7:59

in that space They've already implemented

8:02

a sitemax or the big orange or Autodesk

8:04

or some of the other solutions in the market . But

8:06

now it's how do we optimize what

8:09

we do within these systems to get us where we need to go ?

8:11

Right , right . So

8:13

are you guys seeing transfer

8:17

into you guys from orange A

8:19

?

8:19

little bit . I would definitely say

8:22

there's that . But I think for

8:24

in the market there's an opportunity

8:26

for everyone . It really does depend on what the customer

8:28

is looking for . I think where we win

8:30

in the market overall , I think , is

8:32

we're able to take

8:35

everything from design through to construction right

8:37

. The other competitors in the market are the ones

8:39

using our files to be able to do the job

8:41

Correct . We're the ones creating the files and connecting

8:43

to that , and so Autodesk

8:45

is in that unique position where the architect

8:47

and engineer and mechanical or whoever's designing

8:50

the buildings they're able to design it in

8:52

Revit . That Revit workflow can then go

8:54

get Clash Detect automatically . Right , we talk about

8:56

AI , the ability to automatic Clash Detection

8:58

, to sign that out to individuals , whether it's in Revit

9:01

. That goes back to that system and then back into our construction

9:03

cloud and from there we're able to budget

9:05

out that project . We're able to execute on that project

9:07

, we're able to turn over that project with the tools that we

9:09

have , and so I think that really is the advantage

9:12

that we have in the market is truly the end-to-end

9:15

construction management . Now , there are definitely

9:17

challenges that come with that , because

9:19

there is still construction contracts in the way that data

9:21

moves between individuals . But we're doing something

9:23

really innovative with a tool called Bridge

9:26

, which is allowing the core site

9:28

. So , let's say , a general contractor is the one who owns

9:30

the . I am going to own data as part

9:32

of this If you're a sub-trade on that project and

9:35

you want to manage your own data because after construction

9:37

you still have a contract with it . You can replicate

9:39

that data from a drawing standpoint , from

9:42

a document standpoint that as soon as you get floated

9:44

in the core site , it will come to your Autodesk site

9:46

. So everyone walks away from the project with valuable

9:48

information , improves closeout time

9:51

, improves what the owner is getting from those sub-trades

9:53

and GC is working on the project , and

9:55

so , again , this is a very new concept to construction

9:58

and is very confusing , but it's

10:00

what the industry's asked for . I think when you look

10:02

at what people have asked for

10:04

, which is , hey , the biggest problem we have is everyone's

10:06

got their own version . This will allow for somebody at

10:08

a core tenant to have that information and

10:10

disperse it out into other sites , and I think

10:13

that's a big advantage that we have in the industry is

10:15

the ability to do all that stuff .

10:16

Yeah , what do

10:18

you wish would change ?

10:21

I think I probably said this four years ago , but I think the

10:23

biggest gap that construction companies

10:25

have in picking up construction technology is when

10:28

you look at the way they're broken down , and

10:31

when I started working construction tech , it

10:33

was always who's the young PM that's good with

10:35

his technology , that's gonna implement this solution

10:37

? Well , when you come out of trade school

10:39

or you become a project management , your

10:41

background is not operation management , it's

10:44

not on data structure management , it's not

10:46

on how do I integrate an ERP system the number

10:48

one question . I ask the customers . They say , oh , I want to integrate into

10:50

my financials . Have you done this before

10:52

? Has someone there done it before ? Because these

10:54

are complex things that include , you

10:57

know , apis and data and mapping

10:59

and how do we report on this and holding people

11:01

accountable to the structures that you need to follow

11:03

as a business . So I think the biggest growth that

11:05

needs to happen at all levels is hiring people that

11:07

aren't tied to actual project execution

11:09

and tied to how do we run the business

11:11

, and I think that's ultimately

11:13

where the industry and you see it in larger

11:15

companies , where they'll have VDC groups or they'll

11:17

have operations groups , but for your mid-sized general

11:20

contractors , anybody who's doing 15

11:22

to 30 million that one person you hire for

11:24

, whatever the dollar total is can have immense

11:26

value , because then you're starting to get that insight that allows

11:28

you to say where do we lose money on this project

11:30

and how do we focus in on that area and

11:32

also hold people accountable to the standards that we need

11:34

as a business . But everyone's running too quick

11:37

, right ? That's the problem is , we got to build

11:39

this as a tight turnaround and that's why I think

11:41

when you try to do it through project managers or

11:43

even a VP of construction , they're too busy

11:45

to deal with this . You need someone who's an advocate

11:48

, and in sales , for example , which is where I come from we

11:50

have sales operations that help us manage

11:52

our data . We have marketing operations .

11:53

You have CRMs . You got a lot of CRMs . We have CRMs right .

11:55

And so these systems are CRMs , they're project

11:58

management , they host a lot of data and

12:00

you'll hear a lot of people in industry say the

12:02

data's the new gold for construction . But

12:05

how do we operationalize that data and make it useful

12:07

to making decisions in the future ?

12:09

So do you think it's the fact that for

12:12

a construction company to be profitable , there's very

12:15

little margin on a GC side anyway , more

12:17

on the sub trade side but that

12:20

they , in order to implement anything

12:22

new , they kind of have to almost press

12:24

pause or do two things at once they're

12:27

old stuff and the new stuff because

12:29

they're not sure , and sold , that the new stuff will

12:31

work how they want it to . Yeah

12:33

, so how do you guys address that at AutonF

12:35

?

12:36

At this point I would tell the customer

12:38

if you don't think it works at this

12:40

point we have thousands and thousands of use

12:43

cases that says it does right and I

12:45

think it's our job to guide them through what

12:47

we have seen in both success

12:50

and failure within rollouts . No

12:53

offense to the customers , but usually when software

12:55

rollouts are not successful

12:57

, a lot of it falls to them because they don't resource

12:59

it . You have somebody's doing two jobs this

13:01

is their secondary job , not their primary job

13:03

or they don't

13:05

pay for professional services and training

13:08

. So if you look at any successful

13:10

software rollout , those individuals

13:12

have to be trained , retrained because there's

13:14

new features and you have to have accountability

13:16

where there's someone internally that owns this . And

13:19

if there is no accountability , if a superintendents accountable

13:22

to building the building , who's accountable to rolling

13:24

out the software ? And I think that , ultimately

13:27

, is some of the changes that we continue to see happen

13:29

. The good companies are doing it , but I think

13:31

that is where I would focus on if I was a construction

13:33

company is how are we rolling this out ? What does success

13:35

look like ? And also not doing too much

13:37

at once , right , get bite-sized wins

13:39

and then from those bite-sized wins you can roll

13:41

out additional features . Most companies will come to

13:43

us and say we want to do everything . And we'll say

13:45

to them let's slow this down , let's get some wins , and

13:48

then the people are more receptive to using more of the technology

13:50

.

13:51

Nice . So what is

13:53

the typical entry point for

13:56

your customers ? Is it

13:59

just the overall

14:01

concept of adopting an entire

14:03

cloud solution or is it the fact ? What

14:05

are the main features that bring people into

14:07

your platform that haven't been in there before ?

14:10

Yeah , I would say we always sell on pain right

14:12

. What is the pain point of your business and what can we fix

14:14

that you get tangible ROI and value today ? But

14:16

there is a vision of like , where are we going to go in ?

14:18

terms of partnership . I guess what I'm asking . What are the common

14:20

threads that you see that most customers are

14:22

like what is the most pain ?

14:24

Yeah , because we sell a magnitude

14:26

of products right across pre-construction and

14:28

site construction . It's different . I

14:30

would say that communication and document management

14:32

is still the number one . Cost

14:35

management would be definitely number two , right , construction

14:38

companies are just laser

14:40

focused on how they manage their costs . As you mentioned , margins

14:43

are tight , as they've ever been , right , and so how we

14:45

do that , and then from the pre-construction

14:48

standpoint , it's still the numbers , right . Hey , I'm estimating

14:50

, and a lot of the estimating that's been happening

14:53

in the industry has been done on Excel , so how do we repeat

14:55

that and have that data that you talked about

14:57

earlier around ? What do we look like

14:59

on another project ? Should we be doing this project

15:01

? Should we even tender this based on the numbers that we're seeing

15:03

and what we got to get to ? I think

15:05

those are some of the key things that drive people

15:07

in , which is just still managing the dollars , managing

15:10

the documentation , and then everything else is a

15:12

bonus that they add on as they go , but

15:14

those are probably the three core things .

15:16

So are people still

15:19

sharing drawings in the same plan

15:21

grid way that plan grid was ? Is

15:24

that still kind of the is

15:27

that viral growth . You saw this from plan grid

15:29

right away . It was . Can

15:31

you get me those drawings ? Y'all share it with you . You open an account

15:33

and suddenly you're maybe using the free version

15:35

. You're collaborating on set of drawings .

15:37

Well , we have a variety of different ways

15:39

in which you can set up an account with us . So we have account

15:41

based , which is the ability for everybody to see

15:44

. So , again , mainly general contractor

15:46

owner mechanical would buy that kind of model

15:48

. It depends on the number of employees and the value they get

15:50

. But that bridge idea of round

15:52

everybody's able to see it if you load in the tenant

15:54

site is kind of where we're pushing towards , which is everyone

15:57

can have that same information . But it is

15:59

very similar , right ? It's . The one

16:01

big change that has come from plan grid is the ability

16:03

to hide information if you're a general contractor

16:05

owner , the ability to hide some files , drawings

16:08

you want everybody to see . So it's the same mechanism

16:10

. And that is really . When you look at the Autodesk construction cloud

16:13

, although it's been rebuilt , a lot of the core

16:15

strong things that plan grid did on

16:17

the mobile side and then the document management

16:19

is still very much part of the system .

16:21

Nice , okay . So

16:24

where do you see all of this like

16:26

? When you're laying your head down on the pillow at night ? Do

16:28

you think of what construction is going to look

16:31

like in 10 years from now ? In terms

16:33

of like

16:35

, maybe , so maybe . A couple

16:37

of categories here maybe robotics , ai

16:40

, labor .

16:41

Yeah , I definitely think about it quite

16:43

a bit and I think when we start talking about robotics

16:46

and AI , I think AI is definitely kind

16:48

of the buzzword that's in the industry right now

16:50

. I think the industry

16:52

needs to focus and I think the industry often talks

16:55

three years ahead of where it actually is , because last

16:57

time we're on this , we're talking about BIM . Bim workflows

16:59

still haven't been enabled across the industry and to

17:02

me that's crazy . Like this

17:04

is 2024 , cars are driving

17:06

themselves and we're building off 2D drawing sets

17:08

rather than a model that you can easily build and

17:10

that's easier to visualize what

17:12

we're doing From an AI standpoint

17:14

. I do think that that's going to be an ability to

17:16

streamline some of that data that we talked about and

17:19

make it easier in terms of some of the stuff that we're

17:21

trying to track . I don't think it's a be

17:23

all end all for the labor shortage , but , again , the more

17:25

that we can streamline and operationalize and speed

17:28

up the way in which we're doing some of these tasks rather

17:30

than the building , that's going to have a huge , huge

17:33

effect on the future of construction . But I still think we need

17:35

to become BIM enabled

17:37

. There's huge advantages If you look at general contractors

17:39

and owners the fact that clash detection is

17:41

still not done in every

17:43

single project and you talk to everyone , right

17:45

? We'll get customers and they'll say , hey , we

17:47

want to improve our RFI process . They'll say

17:49

, well , why don't we fix you not having RFIs ? Because we

17:51

have the ability to do that If you have a better clash

17:53

detection process that doesn't end up on site and

17:56

you're telling me your average RFI is costing you a change

17:58

order of $20,000, . If you

18:00

have 10 of those in product , there's the barge in right

18:02

. So if you improve the upstream pre-construction

18:05

process , the downstream construction process

18:07

will be a lot better . So I think the industry

18:09

itself with AI is going to be beneficial

18:11

and the ability to do a lot of that work automatically

18:13

, but the work itself still needs a human

18:15

touch of okay . This is why this

18:17

can't go here . There is going to be a clash

18:20

and the human element is let's get

18:22

the data in front of them to make decisions rather than spending

18:24

all the time collecting data .

18:26

Oh , okay . So

18:28

on the robotics side , I

18:30

mean , I think to me , so

18:33

we had the SuperDroids guys , we did . Did

18:35

you listen to that ?

18:36

No , I have not listened to that , but I see the robots

18:38

at every single trade show I go to and they're definitely

18:40

freaky .

18:41

They are . They are freaky . I mean the ones that make

18:43

perfect sense , the ones that go and lay out a slab . It's

18:47

amazing , right ? What

18:49

do you think of the ? Do you think there's enough trust in

18:51

the accountability of a robot

18:53

? It could just get it all wrong . I

18:56

mean , somebody's going to come up to fact check that whole thing after it's

18:58

done , right ?

18:59

Yeah , but if you ask them construction VPs

19:01

and people that are president's construction company

19:03

they might trust the robot at this point more than some of their

19:05

own workers , depending on the worker . I had a conversation

19:07

that was interesting about that recently , I do think for

19:10

some of the demolition stuff going

19:12

on , the robots taking part in

19:14

that , I think there's definitely the ability

19:17

to get around some of the

19:19

labor shortage with that . I do

19:21

wonder and there was 60

19:23

minutes where they were talking about 3D printed

19:25

homes in Texas , can't remember the company's name , but it was

19:27

really unique . And I think that's where how

19:29

do we speed up the building process through using

19:32

some of this technology

19:34

that we have , that not every home needs to be custom

19:36

, that we need to build , and how do we end up doing that with

19:38

robotics or systems that are

19:40

able to help us ? I do think that will fill a major

19:43

gap in the future . I think that's where it's going

19:45

, and if you look at the innovation

19:47

of some of the people that are pushing that like , I

19:49

do think those are the companies that

19:51

are going to win over a period of time . Right , it's the status

19:53

quo today . If you're trying to think about the status quo , you will

19:55

end up losing in the future .

19:56

Yeah , no for sure . So definitely the

20:00

intersection or the sort of harmony

20:02

between modular building and

20:05

robotics ? I think will definitely be

20:07

it , because you

20:09

probably saw those sort of V1 versions of

20:12

these . It looks like icing making

20:15

the walls and it looks like a Michelin man wall

20:17

. It's all weird looking right , you're

20:19

thinking how's this rebar work and how structurally

20:22

sound is that ? You start to think

20:24

about all of those things . But when you go modular

20:26

, you're talking

20:28

autonomous vehicles , autonomous

20:31

cranes , robotics

20:33

, receiving , I guess

20:35

the hard part , and you probably know that's not a problem to

20:37

say it to you . But it is interesting that often

20:40

with innovation , a lot of ideas

20:42

come to the construction realm

20:44

with the manufacturing

20:48

mindset , like a manufacturing

20:50

floor . The problem is that

20:52

environment and construction is the floor

20:54

is evolving , so it's never

20:56

the same . It's not like Tesla where you can just suddenly have we

20:59

make half a million bottle

21:02

threes and then the tooling is the same every single

21:04

time . You just bang it out . The tooling has to

21:06

change constantly because the actual

21:08

environment is changing and it's vertically growing

21:11

, it's expanding . So everything

21:13

is this peril , possible

21:15

peril everywhere , and

21:18

we are many , many years away

21:20

from there only being machines on

21:22

site . So as soon as there's a

21:24

proliferation of machines , then you have serious

21:27

possible injuries because

21:29

machines are strong . So

21:31

there's lots of stuff that's going to be happening that I

21:33

find pretty interesting

21:35

on where things can go . So what are your

21:37

thoughts ? Has Autodesk

21:40

acquired any robotics companies

21:42

? Is that in the

21:44

Not yet .

21:45

We're mainly still in the software business

21:47

, right ? I think that's a mixture of hardware and software

21:49

. I'm not in that area

21:52

of the business that makes those decisions . We have an entire

21:54

group of people but I do think your point of

21:56

like . How do they interact with the humans ? Think

21:59

about a site safety meeting on Monday morning

22:01

and you've got 12 robots in there and

22:03

then all your workers . I don't think anyone's really thought

22:05

that through yet . It's like do

22:07

they have to adhere or they're just going to be roaming around the

22:09

room is cleaning the floor , but what happens if someone's trying

22:12

to hang ?

22:12

a seal . Well , they don't have to adhere because they just do what you're telling

22:14

them .

22:14

Yeah , exactly , they can do whatever you want , but yeah

22:16

, I do think that will be interesting . I

22:18

wonder the first company to be able

22:20

to figure that out is going to win , and

22:23

I think , ultimately , it's

22:26

a very interesting time in the convergence

22:28

of robot plus human beings

22:30

generally as an overall human

22:32

, like even chat . Gpt is changing everything

22:34

immediately in AI and

22:36

so , for construction , how do you utilize

22:39

those tools ? And I still think it's in the data . I

22:41

think those areas are going to help with the labor shortage . But

22:43

I think the automation of workflows , the ability to

22:45

track people when they're on site that's

22:47

something that we hear all the time . It's I want to track what's

22:50

happening , automatic safety reporting that

22:52

goes out through an automatic field form and populates

22:54

, and so that's the stuff that I think we're really focused on is

22:57

how do we take some of that insight from AI , populate

22:59

it to make decisions at the executive level and allow

23:02

them to figure out where they want to make investments ?

23:04

Crazy .

23:05

Yeah , it is a crazy time it is .

23:07

It is a crazy time . Do you think that the

23:11

next so

23:13

I guess innovation multiples

23:16

like if you were to talk about an

23:19

hour development

23:21

time that used to take an hour is now taking 15

23:23

minutes ? Do you think that we're

23:25

now in this compression time where innovation

23:27

is coming so fast we don't know , almost don't

23:29

know what to do with it ?

23:32

I would say so . I think I've

23:34

said for a while that I actually think our software is ahead of where

23:36

the industry's at , because if you look at the utilization

23:38

, of our tool and the ability

23:41

of what it does . the industry hasn't actually caught up to

23:43

it . Again , back to clash detection . Not

23:45

everybody in the industry is clashing every job in

23:47

an effective manner . So if we haven't got there

23:49

, we haven't actually realized the tools that we have today

23:51

rather than the tools in the future , and I think that's got to be . The focus

23:54

is , we've got to operationalize and figure

23:56

out how much of these tools that we already purchased can we get

23:58

value out of and then look to expand

24:00

Again . It's that walk , run

24:02

, sprint approach and I think we're still

24:04

in the we're starting to lightly jog .

24:07

Lightly jog . I like to lightly jog , it's good . No

24:09

sweat , no sweat , no sweat .

24:11

Listen , you'll go to a site and you'll see TVs

24:13

and touch plans and all that stuff

24:15

which is different than eight years ago , but

24:17

you'll still go to a couple that got drawings there , and

24:21

that's the way they're communicating is through email . I

24:23

still hear tons of hey , we're tracking RFIs

24:25

through email , Like that

24:27

. We started talking about robotics . Yeah

24:30

, we're still tracking RFIs through email . We're

24:32

still not at the inflection point of

24:34

when that needs to come in .

24:35

Yeah , well , it's still gonna come down to the . You

24:38

know what the sub trade has , yeah , and

24:40

what they're willing to do , and often

24:43

you know it's a , it's a sub

24:45

trades market . It is , and

24:48

you know , a GC . Can you know they ? They're

24:51

not all , they're not getting , they're not

24:53

, they don't have a lineup of people who

24:55

can do this work . So it's basically , you are

24:57

, you're stuck to how

25:00

the GC , how the sub , sometimes

25:02

wants to . Just you just have to accept it .

25:04

Yeah , and I do think that one of the areas

25:06

the construction industry and you can see

25:08

it that they're working on improving it . From From

25:11

when I started , construction tech was trying to get younger people

25:13

and , I think , innovation and the future

25:15

tracks that attracts it For sure , right ? if you have

25:17

kids that are playing video games all the time and that's

25:20

what they grow up on , then you

25:22

give them an email , rfi and a

25:24

2d drawing and say go , build it . They're gonna look at you

25:26

and go why am I here ? Right , and I think that

25:28

when you look at the what's

25:30

so exciting about the industry , as you see

25:32

what you build and it is , each one is unique

25:35

and it is truly a project that you got to think through . But

25:37

adding that innovation layer of here's how we

25:39

want you to take this on . I think that's what excites

25:41

people , right . It's when you give them an old-school

25:44

job and say it's the way we've done it forever . That's

25:46

not very enticing to a kid coming out of school that wants to

25:48

change the world .

25:49

No , that's true . Thinks they can change

25:51

it . Well , hopefully

25:53

that's cool . Okay , luke

25:55

, always a pleasure . Thank you , man , I really

25:57

appreciate it . Thanks for stopping by . Your new

25:59

branding looks good . Yeah , it's nice , it's

26:02

nice , nice and black , yeah , very

26:04

.

26:04

Star Wars , very Star Wars .

26:05

It's good . Yeah , they did . I won't call you .

26:07

Darth Vader yeah , luke , I

26:09

am your father . I've heard a million times in my life , so , yeah

26:11

, okay , I appreciate you .

26:12

Awesome Thanks , man . Well

26:22

, that does it for another episode of the site visit

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