Among a headline craze, contractors find practical ways to use AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI), primarily ChatGPT, has captured headlines for most of the year. Consumers and businesses in all types of industries – including the trades – are scrambling to understand what the technology is and what it means for them.

Every new technology attracts “hype”, but doesn’t always have a practical way of being used in the early stages. Richard Friedman, owner of a construction-focused consulting firm, shares a few ways his clients are making real use of AI in the present day:

• Developing proposals. Contractors will leverage tools like ChatGPT to create standardized wording for the more mundane parts of proposals, like warranty and contract terms. They’ll also feed information on a specific customer to have it generate personalized messages to send along with a proposal.
• Data analysis. Certain tools allow contractors to import data from their CRMs and will spot anomalies and trends that can be used to make business decisions. For example, importing customer and job history can help identify which maintenance customers are most likely to need a replacement soon, based on signup date, equipment age, and service history for that equipment.
• Content marketing. Marketing and office personnel are finding time savings by using ChatGPT to help write educational blog posts, outreach emails, and social media posts. “.. a process that might take an hour or two without AI can happen in minutes”.

Keep in mind: Although there are some benefits to be gained with AI today, it’s not perfect. Because these systems are still developing, they don’t always produce fully accurate information, or “humanized” blog posts. Data should still be double-checked and blog posts reviewed, for example, by team members.