Dive Brief:
- Providence, Rhode Island-based contractor Gilbane Building Co. is betting on artificial intelligence, signing a deal with contech firm Trunk Tools to deploy its AI chatbot on jobsites across the country, according to a Sept. 10 news release.
- Gilbane will scale the platform beginning with ten projects representing its market sector portfolio, which includes healthcare, commercial, sports & entertainment and institutional projects, per the release.
- With the addition of Trunk Tools on more projects, Gilbane sees an opportunity to streamline operations, enhance efficiency and boost productivity, according to the release.
Dive Insight:
The move signals the latest volley in a quickly escalating arms race among major contractors to leverage AI. Earlier this year, London-based Balfour Beatty and Sweden-based Skanska teased their own AI tools to gather and present project data quickly to field teams.
Previously, Gilbane used New York-based Trunk Tools’ TrunkText chatbot to track nearly 21,000 documents across its work on the Baird Center in Milwaukee, which the contractor completed on a fast-track schedule in May 2024.
"We partnered with Trunk Tools for its innovative approach to document management and productivity enhancement,” said Karen Higgins-Carter, Gilbane’s chief information and digital officer. “We believe AI can transform our operations by refocusing our teams’ work on higher value, more strategic tasks.”
For Trunk Tools, which launched in 2021 with seed funding from Fifth Wall and Foundation Capital, the win represents a huge get: a national contractor that can test and scale its technology quickly while providing a showcase for other builders interested in deploying their own AI pilots.
“This partnership highlights our mutual commitment to augmenting construction workers with tools that make them more productive, reduce rework by 65% and deliver exceptional value to our clients," said Sarah Buchner, the founder and CEO of Trunk Tools, in the release.
Parsing project data
The Trunk Tools platform allows builders to upload all of their documents to the service, such as RFIs, contracts and change orders. Once there, users can leverage the AI capabilities of TrunkText, which acts as an information gopher to find answers to builders’ project questions.
At the Baird Center, for example, Gilbane personnel used it to fetch spec information about duct work on a large fireplace. The answer they received helped them avoid costly rework and lost time.
AI is breaking into construction at a time when people across industries are trying to figure out how exactly to best use the tech. Contractors across the world are publishing reports on the topic, experimenting with new in-house apps and technologies, and using other startups’ solutions on their jobsites.
“We look forward to this national rollout and seeing how TrunkText can be utilized on other projects to save time and improve work processes for our team members,” said Kelly Benedict, head of innovation and transformation for Gilbane, in an email with Construction Dive. “Our partnership with Trunk Tools has been very positive in terms of sharing and providing feedback and getting insights to leverage TrunkText to take its use to the next level.”
