AI in the trades. Older people don’t understand (Page 1 of 7)
Posted: Yesterday 9:53:48 AM EDT
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My wife and I started integrating AI into our construction business last year. We pay about $500/month for the high end professional level bundles. I don’t think people realize how transformative AI is for the trades. I eliminated our office manager, book keeper, social media marketing, quoter/estimator, and most of our lawyer billable. It’s saved me over $300k in overhead just this year. By the time I leave a quote, it’s already developed the bid for me with scope of work. Last night we received an invitation to bid on a large commercial site prep. By the time I woke up this morning it had prepared a $4 million bid with a perfect earthwork takeoff. I just woke up, reviewed it, made some basic changes to the formatting and sent it off. What used to take 40 hours of office work took it less than 4 hours and it did it while I slept and without input from me. I don’t doubt AI adoption is slow because people just don’t know how to use it for its higher level functions or they just refuse to use it because of the media. It took me about a week to train the agent on the commercial bidding process, but it’s probably saved me 3 months worth of work this year alone. I went from doing stupid menial tasks at the office to hiring 3 more guys and now run another crew myself. Everything from scheduling, to quoting to ordering supplies online is done through our AI agents. I didn’t just pocket the difference in profit. We were able to add 5 positions between the dump truck driver, 3 more laborers and another foreman. I’m making more money than we’ve ever made. I don’t want AI to slow down. I want this thing to basically be able to run the entire business in a year. I’d love to just wake up and work with my hands. I hate office work. It’s so f***** boring. For all you old guys in the trades, say goodbye to the high paying project manager jobs. I’d suggest brushing up on dozer and excavator work. |
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Originally Posted By Bigdawg90: My wife and I started integrating AI into our construction business last year. We pay about $500/month for the high end professional level bundles. I don’t think people realize how transformative AI is for the trades. I eliminated our office manager, book keeper, social media marketing, quoter/estimator, and most of our lawyer billable. It’s saved me over $300k in overhead just this year. By the time I leave a quote, it’s already developed the bid for me with scope of work. Last night we received an invitation to bid on a large commercial site prep. By the time I woke up this morning it had prepared a $4 million bid with a perfect earthwork takeoff. I just woke up, reviewed it, made some basic changes to the formatting and sent it off. What used to take 40 hours of office work took it less than 4 hours and it did it while I slept and without input from me. I don’t doubt AI adoption is slow because people just don’t know how to use it for its higher level functions or they just refuse to use it because of the media. It took me about a week to train the agent on the commercial bidding process, but it’s probably saved me 3 months worth of work this year alone. I went from doing stupid menial tasks at the office to hiring 3 more guys and now run another crew myself. Everything from scheduling, to quoting to ordering supplies online is done through our AI agents. I didn’t just pocket the difference in profit. We were able to add 5 positions between the dump truck driver, 3 more laborers and another foreman. I’m making more money than we’ve ever made. I don’t want AI to slow down. I want this thing to basically be able to run the entire business in a year. I’d love to just wake up and work with my hands. I hate office work. It’s so f***** boring. For all you old guys in the trades, say goodbye to the high paying project manager jobs. I’d suggest brushing up on dozer and excavator work. LOL! 😂 good luck sir |
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Originally Posted By RouxGaRoux: How do we know you didn't just prompt it to make up this entire post? Nick |
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Originally Posted By FistPeso: AI will be driving your machines before too long. Already is. I saw a video touting Computer driven equipment stripping dirt a while ago. Attached File |
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Originally Posted By MFP_4073: make sure you fully review the AI deliverable. lots of examples out there of 'AI slop' embedded in the product that isn't discovered until later close examination. This. It's all awesome and saves lots of money until saving thousands costs you millions.  ETA: That said, I use it as well, but I'm verifying it's work and it's wrong... often. You need to tell it it's wrong and prompt again to fix it, or just take the direction it lead you and finish yourself. |
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Originally Posted By Bigdawg90: I don’t think people realize how transformative AI is for the trades. I eliminated our office manager, book keeper, social media marketing, quoter/estimator, and most of our lawyer billable. The mistakes it will make will hurt you, hard. And it won't care or refrain from making the same and new mistakes the next time. |
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And a side thought.... What happens when everyone uses AI to process bids, and someone drops their price b/c you now have substantially less overhead? That's when the real nut-cutting will start and then contractors will be bitching that they don't the price they used to. |
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AI can already answer phones and carry on a conversation. How long until AI replaces OP? No one is above AI replacement at this point and as soon as AI realizes the planet no longer needs humans on it we won't need those roads either. |
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Originally Posted By sprtpilot: The mistakes it will make will hurt you, hard. And it won't care or refrain from making the same and new mistakes the next time. This. The first major fuck up it'll do will really leave a bad impression on people. There's some realtors down south that used AI to create listings, with a song and nobody bothered to review it. The song turned out to be "My Corgi doesn't like n____". A realtor AI program just threw it in and nobody bothered to review the entire listing video and published it. This happened to multiple realtors, and put their names in people's heads for all the wrong reasons. |
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Originally Posted By Bigdawg90: My wife and I started integrating AI into our construction business last year. We pay about $500/month for the high end professional level bundles. I don’t think people realize how transformative AI is for the trades. I eliminated our office manager, book keeper, social media marketing, quoter/estimator, and most of our lawyer billable. It’s saved me over $300k in overhead just this year. By the time I leave a quote, it’s already developed the bid for me with scope of work. Last night we received an invitation to bid on a large commercial site prep. By the time I woke up this morning it had prepared a $4 million bid with a perfect earthwork takeoff. I just woke up, reviewed it, made some basic changes to the formatting and sent it off. What used to take 40 hours of office work took it less than 4 hours and it did it while I slept and without input from me. I don’t doubt AI adoption is slow because people just don’t know how to use it for its higher level functions or they just refuse to use it because of the media. It took me about a week to train the agent on the commercial bidding process, but it’s probably saved me 3 months worth of work this year alone. I went from doing stupid menial tasks at the office to hiring 3 more guys and now run another crew myself. Everything from scheduling, to quoting to ordering supplies online is done through our AI agents. I didn’t just pocket the difference in profit. We were able to add 5 positions between the dump truck driver, 3 more laborers and another foreman. I’m making more money than we’ve ever made. I don’t want AI to slow down. I want this thing to basically be able to run the entire business in a year. I’d love to just wake up and work with my hands. I hate office work. It’s so f***** boring. For all you old guys in the trades, say goodbye to the high paying project manager jobs. I’d suggest brushing up on dozer and excavator work. 
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That’s great, glad you’re able to improve your business and expand. AI being used to collect personal data and spy on people for the governments benefit is the AI that most people are against. We don’t need 2000 more data centers for job quotes, they need it for spying and data storage for this spying. |
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Originally Posted By Undaunted: What a.i. are you using? This. I used to ask young engineers that question when they said they'd just put their work assignments into an AI. "We'll just hire the AI, then we don't need you" |
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This is way smaller in scale, but it taught me step by step how to fix a well and make engine repairs I would have never been able to do on my own. AI is already taking work away from skilled trades. Im worried what kind of future my kids will have. Im hoping they go into medicine as you will need at least some human intervention. 10 years from now I think the workplace will be unrecognizable. |
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Originally Posted By dukeofearl: Your job is next. What does it need you for? Go learn to code with your former employees. I've been coding for 30 years but I've never done any type of vehicle communication or programming. Over the weekend I had AI write a program that can read and identify every individual battery cell, location, and voltage in the electric vehicle I have. I can understand what the application is doing but I don't understand the data being sent or received. In about 4 hours it accomplished what would have taken me 4 months to figure out on my own. |
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Here is all I have to say. People start companies to make money to spend. They do this so they have moneys to spend. They hire people, because people want moneys to spend. So get rid of peoples moneys and they have nothing to spend for things that people that start companies make. So then no one has moneys. Also what is stopping the large company from using AI and putting you out of buisness. It matters not that you have all kinds of products or services if no one can purchase them. |
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Sounds less "in the trade" and more in the office, where it should be. The only trade I see it starting into is the driving (as posted above), with most grade work already being gps controlled remote autonomous is the logical next step. We should see it in the open mines first. |
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Originally Posted By MeInMediocrity: AI might eliminate some jobs, but it creates others. So, AI doesn't necessarily mean doom. Originally Posted By MeInMediocrity: We were able to add 5 positions between the dump truck driver, 3 more laborers and another foreman. But who knows, maybe that office manager can learn to run a dozer? |
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| OP we see a lot of AI contracts come through and some of them are terrible, and in a few cases clearly illegal. However the amount of automation in the contracts and legal review space is astonishing. AI is a really powerful tool and what you describe is exactly why there so much investment in it. It will continue to get better and take over more and more of business. Great for investors and business owners, not so good for working people. Just wait until your excavator can dig on it own assisted by the guy in the hole prodding for utilities and setting the grade stick, or the bulldozer cut and make grade autonomously. Imagine running 20 simultaneous job sites with only a couple dozen people. Imagine how lucrative your business could be. That is what they want AI to be, time will tell if that becomes true or not. |
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Seems like alot of faith to be that reliant on it. But I hope it works out for ya. Im happy just to pull up in my truck, do some work, get paid and go home. No dreams of maximizing efficiency for a few extra bucks or expanding operations. I like simple. |
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Originally Posted By MFP_4073: make sure you fully review the AI deliverable. lots of examples out there of 'AI slop' embedded in the product that isn't discovered until later close examination. Absolutely this. I use AI a lot and I'm in the utilities biz, but I still review each and every product AI creates for me. But yes, I've saved many hours of legal, real estate, and metes/bounds research. |
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Originally Posted By efxguy: Well, it kinda does. It certainly could mean hard times for those five office workers if any of them are over 55 years old. But who knows, maybe that office manager can learn to run a dozer? |
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Originally Posted By RouxGaRoux: How do we know you didn't just prompt it to make up this entire post? Some YouTube guy spoke at a gala we went to. He played a who presentation of himself, covered his whole day and how important education is to kids, blah blah blah. All audio over PowerPoint slides. Got to the end, and said “I’m glad that went well, I didn’t even watch it. The entire thing is AI”. That was 3 or 4 years ago. Think how much it’s changed since then |
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Originally Posted By flcroc: And a side thought.... What happens when everyone uses AI to process bids, and someone drops their price b/c you now have substantially less overhead? That's when the real nut-cutting will start and then contractors will be bitching that they don't the price they used to. That was my thought. All it takes is one or two contractors to start the race to the bottom. |
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Originally Posted By MeInMediocrity: AI might eliminate some jobs, but it creates others. So, AI doesn't necessarily mean doom. Originally Posted By MeInMediocrity: We were able to add 5 positions between the dump truck driver, 3 more laborers and another foreman. AI creates nowhere near the jobs it removes, the entire selling point for companies is removing the human factor from practically all aspects of business. As can be seen by the OP even the trades are heavily impacted, which many wanted to claim would weather the AI storm unlike other industries. Unlike other technical and industrial revolutions in the past which closed doors to certain jobs and opened others AI is nearing the end state where all it does is close doors and restrict job availability, which will continue to accelerate as robotics becomes more viable to replace the remaining physical jobs. I don't have a solution for this problem, just stating that it is there and it is real. |
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Originally Posted By MFP_4073: make sure you fully review the AI deliverable. lots of examples out there of 'AI slop' embedded in the product that isn't discovered until later close examination. |
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It’s transformative for any small business. A lot of people really don’t understand how effective it can be. And like the OP pointed out, it’s not eliminating jobs, it’s moving the work from non value added work to value added work. Reducing administration is a good thing. |