Brief
Quebec-based contractor Pomerleau is entering the second phase of an initiative with artificial intelligence firm Zetane Systems that is helping the builder streamline the estimating process. Zetane CEO Guillaume Herve notes that many contractors often avoid efforts to use AI for estimating due to disparate data formats, but making the leap could make companies more competitive.
Insight
In a development with broad implications for construction technology, Montreal-based artificial intelligence (AI) development company Zetane Systems today announced an initiative with its customer, Pomerleau, funded by the investment arm of Ivado Labs, also of Montreal.
Pomerleau, based in Quebec, completes work through multiple delivery systems ranging from design-build to lump sum, employs 2,000 and claims revenue of about $1 billion. The project will apply powerful AI algorithms and neural networks to the problem of speeding up, de-risking and improving the estimating processes that set any construction project on a path towards either success or failure.
The initiative announced today is a second phase of Zetane and Pomerleau’s collaboration. Zetane already successfully completed an initial phase last year, designed to deliver an AI methodology that can pull important information from unstructured documents submitted during a request for proposals (RFP). Prior to that project, Pomerleau engaged in a Call for Innovation, soliciting small technology companies to engage work with them on an AI-driven approach to estimating.
Thirty companies participated, five were retained for more substantive proposals and Zetane was ultimately selected. After selection, Zetane delivered a four-month proof of concept for its approach to intelligent estimating functionality. The more thorough buildout of this proof of concept is what is ultimately announced today.
“The Initial problem we addressed that evolved into this project had to do with preconstruction and estimating and the fact that contractors are getting all of these complex requests for bids,” Zetane CEO Guillame Herve’ told ForConstructionPros in a phone interview in the days before the announcement.
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