WE WON A HUGE AI AWARD, BUT SO WHAT?

WE KNOW ANYONE CAN USE AI TO BE POWERFUL, BUT IF HARNESSED, IT’S A SUPER-POWER FOR THE BUILT WORLD.?

I am so honored that we won a 2024 AI Breakthrough Award. It’s an incredible achievement, and I couldn’t be more proud of the Crunchers’ hard work. It feels surreal to be the successor to OpenAI, who won the very same distinction last year, and we take this responsibility seriously. ?

Which leads me to the current state of the world:?

The world has lost its mind over AI (2030 AI predictions already?), which has caused so many people to say to me: “You must feel so lucky.”?This is indeed true to an extent, but it is also more complex than just a “yes” here.??

Let’s start with the lucky part.???

We founded Document Crunch 5+ years ago because we knew the industry needed to be better about contracts, and it just so happened that we found a way to leverage what was then a lesser-known technology, AI, to begin executing our mission.??

Candidly, if a better tech existed five years ago, or emerged today, I would not hesitate to pivot. I want to help the construction industry get better outcomes from its contract documents, and the tech is a means, but it is NOT my focus. However, I can get off my high horse for a moment here and acknowledge that it has indeed been great for business to be “one of those AI companies solving real problems” in this new era where everyone is so focused on implementing AI to transform their businesses. I am lucky for many reasons: my health, my beautiful family, my friends, and, of course, because of AI!? It’s hard starting a company, and so I will take this win. ???

However, there is also the more complex part of this new paradigm.??

With this fixation on implementation of AI has come a proliferation of new products and companies. I see an increasing number of solutions, both in construction and other industries, which are “chat” driven, or “GPT for this or that,” or “co-pilots.”?As close as I am to this space, I am even confused and having trouble keeping up. From outside the industry, as has happened in the past, technologists see a cash cow in our “slow to adopt” construction industry. I listened to one such founder the other day describing the problems his company was solving, and I thought, “Dude, did you ChatGPT this whole thesis?”?It just didn’t sound organic or in tune with construction.?These outside-the-industry folks continue to learn quickly that our industry is nuanced. You cannot just stand up some shallow solution and click “apply to construction.” While new entrants continue to want to jump on the construction “gravy-train,” we have gladly welcomed numerous customers to Document Crunch who were first allured to “more general use” solutions that promised the world. These products can feel tone deaf to our industry.?Heck, I am a lawyer who knows this industry inside and out, and I can even be tone deaf. It’s hard to resonate with construction!??

Another tricky part of this new era is industry-focused companies trying to broaden their focus to meet this AI moment: solutions that started out focused on entirely different spaces are now standing up functionalities and inviting customers to “ingest whatever you want,” with the implication that “we can now do it all” or you can “search anything you want.” I totally get why this is the case. It’s a good business move right now! We, too, at Document Crunch see how powerful this new technology can be, and almost daily are being presented with expanded use cases of our platform. It is a siren song for sure!?

So, this is the truth for me.?

I am not a technologist. I don’t care about technology, really. I co-founded this company because I KNEW deep down that our industry could be better at contract compliance. And all of this is why I am taking an opportunity today to re-affirm what is at the core of how we see the world at Document Crunch: We believe the things that AI can do are INCREDIBLE. The technology is indeed POWERFUL. However, we believe it should be harnessed, and therefore, we believe in creating a structured product experience and workflow support to ensure that our industry can better comply with its contracts (both during pre-construction and the day-to-day of the project).???

Allow me to demonstrate an overly simplistic example, which should drive this point home. In the world of construction contracts, liquidated damages are very important.? Our industry commonly refers to these by the shorthand “LDs.”??

Check out what happened when I asked ChatGPT 4.0 to tell me about LDs:???

Once I clarified the context, the LLM got this right, but “clarifying the context” is indeed where I think these more generic solutions are not going to serve our industry well. That is the key to a great product experience: pushing the context and not waiting for someone to pull that context. These little nuances, these little points of clarification, are the EXPERIENCE of working with a purpose-built solution.?

Here is the bottom line.??

Like the picture at the top of this newsletter of the vast sea and the boat in the middle, I understand that now anyone can go anywhere using AI. The world is our oyster here, and there is a massive unlimited blue ocean to navigate. That is exciting and powerful, but I do NOT believe that is what will ultimately drive great outcomes for our industry.???

Things like contract compliance can be complex and nuanced, and I do not believe EVERYONE at a project would know what questions to ask when, or how to interpret the results given. Hence the extra question I had to ask above to get to the right place.?

So, it becomes important to help contextualize or structure solutions in a way that keeps the user experience on the rails or in the swim lanes depicted above. When those lanes are established in a great product experience, the application of things like AI is tantamount to giving someone flippers and googles to swim faster and see more clearly. Or maybe even a jet ski, given how fast technology is evolving!?

I am here to say that we will continue to create swim lanes and not be swayed by the siren song of the big blue ocean.?Document Crunch is going deep into contract compliance, and therefore, we want to stand up a ton of structure around that experience. It is easy to say, “Yes, we can do that, too.” It takes more discipline to say, “We want to be the best in the world at one thing.” That is why you shouldn’t expect Document Crunch to?expand outside of our mandate. I think the other companies playing with this elasticity of tech are ultimately doing themselves and our industry a disservice.?

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