Construction
AI and automation for the paperwork that slows construction companies down.
Echelon Advisory helps general contractors and specialty subcontractors use AI and workflow automation on the office work around a project: RFIs, submittals, daily reports, change orders, pay applications and subcontractor paperwork. The judgment calls stay with your project managers, estimators and supers. The typing, chasing and re-keying is what we go after.
Get Your Free Snapshot. 12 questions. Free. No call required.
Where the office time goes
The work between the field and the office.
RFIs and submittals live in inboxes.
Questions and packages move by email and spreadsheet, so it is hard to see what is open, who has the ball and what is about to hold up the schedule.
What automation can do: Log each RFI and submittal as it arrives, summarize long packages, draft a first response from the drawings and specs you point it to, and flag anything aging past its due date.
What stays with your people: A project manager or the design team answers every technical question and approves every submittal. Nothing goes out unreviewed.
Daily reports get skipped or written from memory.
When the super is running the site, the daily log is the first thing to slip, and it is the record you need when a delay or a dispute comes up months later.
What automation can do: Turn voice notes and photos from the field into a consistent daily report, file it to the right job, and remind whoever has not sent one in.
What stays with your people: The super still walks the site and signs off on what the report says.
Change orders get agreed in the field and papered late.
Scope changes are agreed on site, and the paperwork catches up weeks later, if it catches up at all. That gap is where billing disputes start.
What automation can do: Draft a change order from a field note or photo, attach it to the job, and route it for pricing and signature so it does not sit in someone's truck.
What stays with your people: Pricing, scope and the decision to proceed stay with your estimator or project manager.
Pay apps and lien waivers are a monthly scramble.
Every draw means pulling the schedule of values, backup and waivers together from several places and chasing signatures before the deadline.
What automation can do: Pre-fill pay application forms from your job cost data, generate the waiver documents your attorney has approved, and track who has signed and who has not.
What stays with your people: Your project manager or controller approves every draw before it goes to the owner or lender. We do not choose lien waiver forms or give legal advice about them.
Sub insurance certificates and licenses expire quietly.
COIs, W-9s and license renewals sit in a spreadsheet that gets updated when someone remembers, and an expired certificate tends to surface at the worst time.
What automation can do: Read incoming certificates, compare them with the requirements in your subcontract, and send renewal reminders before anything lapses.
What stays with your people: Someone on your team decides whether to hold a payment or keep a sub off site. The tool only tells you early.
Sub bids arrive in a dozen formats.
Leveling bids means copying line items out of PDFs and emails into one spreadsheet, usually the night before the number is due.
What automation can do: Pull line items from each quote into one comparison sheet and highlight scope one sub included and another left out.
What stays with your people: Your estimator makes the call on scope gaps and on who gets the work.
How we work
Four ways we plug in.
AI Snapshot
Free
Answer 12 questions about how your business runs and get a short written brief on where AI could realistically help. No call required.
AI Readiness Assessment
$2,500
A structured diagnostic of your workflows, tech stack and team readiness that ends in a prioritized plan for where to begin. $1,500 of the fee credits toward implementation.
Build and Integrate
Hands-on setup of the workflows the plan prioritizes, connected to the systems you already use, with your team onboarded. Quoted per project.
Fractional Chief AI Officer
An ongoing advisor who knows your business, keeps an eye on the tools, and helps you decide what to do next, month over month.
Full service details
Common questions
Will this replace my project managers or estimators?
No. The goal is fewer hours of re-keying, chasing and formatting for the people you already have. Anything that takes judgment, like answering an RFI, pricing a change or awarding a bid, stays with them. If we cannot explain a recommendation to your project manager in plain English, we do not ship it.
We already have project management software. Is this another system to keep up?
Usually not. Most of the work is connecting what you already use, such as your project management platform, accounting system, email and shared drives, so information moves without someone copying it. Where your current software already does something well, the recommendation is to use it and leave it alone.
Our information is spread across email, spreadsheets and people's heads. Can AI still help?
Yes, but the first step is often organizing it, not automating it. The AI Readiness Assessment maps where information actually lives and which workflow is worth fixing first. Sometimes the right answer is a standard form and a cleaner folder structure before any AI is involved.
What happens when the AI gets something wrong?
It will, sometimes. That is why every workflow keeps a person approving anything that leaves the office or moves money. AI drafts, sorts and flags. Your team decides and signs.
Where do we start?
With the free AI Snapshot: 12 questions about how your company runs and a short written brief on where AI could realistically help. No call required. If it points somewhere worth going deeper, the $2,500 AI Readiness Assessment turns that into a prioritized plan.
Who does the work
Echelon Advisory is founder-led. Clients work directly with Joe Chastain to identify priorities and scope the next step.
About Joe and the approach
Other industries we work with
Don't see your industry? The office work we go after shows up in most owner-run businesses. The free Snapshot is the quickest way to find out if it shows up in yours.