May 13, 2025 • 30 mins
Artificial intelligence might sound like science fiction, but for builders and contractors, it's rapidly becoming an essential tool reshaping how we construct homes and manage projects. In this eye-opening episode, General Contractor Donnie Blanchard and host Eric Smith demystify AI in construction, showing how it's already transforming job sites across America.
From project planning that creates comprehensive schedules in minutes instead of weeks to autonomous equipment that prevents costly errors, we explore the practical applications that make AI valuable rather than threatening. Imagine drones conducting aerial surveys in hours instead of the months traditional methods would require, or design software generating dozens of custom home options based on your specific requirements.
As Donnie explains, "The key word is instantaneous. You can put your information in there and it will see that house from start to finish in less than a minute." We discuss how AI integrates with everything from documentation management to multi-language communication on diverse job sites, all while acknowledging where human expertise remains irreplaceable.
Perhaps most surprisingly, as AI disrupts other industries, construction might benefit from an influx of tech-skilled workers seeking new career paths. "In my world, people crab all the time about not finding good people," Donnie notes, suggesting that displaced tech workers could find fulfilling careers bringing AI expertise to building trades.
Whether you're a contractor looking to stay competitive or a homeowner curious about how your next building project might leverage these technologies, this conversation offers valuable insights without the technical jargon. As one contractor's wife aptly described it, think of AI as "glorified spellcheck" – it takes what we know and just makes it work faster for us.
Check out thecarolinacontractor.com for more resources on incorporating AI into your building projects and to submit your own questions through our Ask The Contractor feature.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to the Carolina Contractor Show with
your host, general ContractorDonnie Blanchard.
And welcome to the CarolinaContractor Show.
My name is Eric Smith.
I do inside sales for HomeBuilder Supply in Wilson and
Greenville.
Across from me the lovely, thetalented General Contractor
Donnie Blanchard, owner of SureTop Roofing, also owner of
(00:27):
Blanchard Building Company.
So what is the CarolinaContractor Show all about?
We kind of gave you a hintthere.
We'd like to talk about yourhouse and DIY projects in the
inside and the outside andthings like that.
The website's the best place tostart thecarolinacontractorcom.
We also got links to YouTube.
We got some videos up there.
We've got our Ask theContractor or ATC button.
If you have a question aboutyour house and you want a
(00:49):
general contractor to answer it,donnie's the one that will do
it.
Just click on that button, askyour question and he'll give you
an answer.
We once in a while do a show.
That's nothing but answers toquestions people have sent into
the show.
Also, donnie is on the newseason, season two, of 50-50
Flip that debuted last month onHulu.
It's getting ready to come outon A&E Network.
So if you want to catch him,just look for that show 50-50
(01:12):
Flip and that's been a nicebreak not having to film Correct
Donnie, oh my.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah, that was a long seven months last year and I
really didn't know what to dowith myself when it was over
because I actually had some freetime, more time with the kids
and actually had a personal lifefor the first time in that many
months.
But yeah, it was an experienceand definitely is paying off.
I get calls literally every dayabout it and people say, hey,
man, saw the show, love it.
And I think really the reasonthat it turned out so well is
(01:38):
that we got some perfect housesfor flipping and we turned a few
of those into absolute gold.
So when you see what the houseswent from and to, I'm pretty
proud of myself and the team.
We pulled it off and you don'tnormally see flip houses like
that because folks do the bareminimum to make the most money
and basically because these wereall on TV that went out the
window.
So hats off to the team.
(01:59):
We just made some magic.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
And again, we're not a house flipping show.
But one thing you did do on theshow that people can check out
are some of the small changes.
So for a DIY person, there werelittle things you came up with
and did on the show to improve aproperty inside and out.
And people tune into that show50-50 Flip and you can get some
ideas of little updates you cando.
What's the actual wording?
Donnie, for the you put framingon a wall in a house Accent
(02:23):
wall.
Those look great.
That for the you put framing ona wall in a house Accent wall.
Those look great.
That's something that when Isaw them, I went.
Now I understand why they'repopular, because they really
make a room that is otherwisebland pop.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
It's so cheap too.
You basically buy one by fours,and if you have a table saw you
can rip the one by fours inhalf and they make a product
called basswood and basswood isprobably the slang, but that's
what we've always called it.
And basswood is very expensive.
You can use it for face frames,for cabinets and so forth, but
if you're only depending on theaccent wall that you're going
for, in most cases you can rip aone by four right down the
(02:52):
middle, so half of three and ahalf inches, and normally that
makes a really good stock to doan accent wall with.
Yeah, it's really cool.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
So, again, check that out.
50-50 flip with our own, donnieBlanchard.
But let's jump into today'sshow, because it sounds kind of
techie, it sounds kind of geeky,not very sexy, but it's
actually very interesting.
And we're not going to go intothe weeds, so to speak.
We're going to talk about AI,artificial intelligence.
You've heard a lot about it inthe past few months, in the past
year definitely, and you'veheard things like ChatGPT and
(03:20):
Genesis, which is Google I thinkit's called Genesis.
I've already forgotten Gemini,which is Google's AI, and a lot
of people are kind of fearing AI, and so I asked AI to give me
up a made up quote, and it cameback with you can either use AI
as a tool to make your job andlife easier or you can fear AI
(03:41):
and it will replace you, abrahamLincoln.
So AI has a sense of humor in away.
But AI I mentioned Gemini byGoogle it also can have a
built-in bias.
We won't go into the details ofthat, but you can have.
The creators of AI still giveyou I won't say necessarily
incorrect information, butinformation that is slanted, and
we think of AI as being neutral.
(04:02):
I guess you would probablyagree with that.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
It should just give the facts and nothing but the
facts.
Man, yeah, that's the hope isthat it's neutral, but I think
that that was a very importantthing with Gemini to expose up
front, because definitely hadsome biases.
And, you know, ai is just whatwe're putting into it, so the
way it makes decisions is theway that we inputted the data to
make those decisions, and Idefinitely think that that's
something that needs to beheaded off, and neutral is a
must.
You know you can't have.
We've seen political biases,religious biases, basically take
(04:29):
over the world and be sodivisive nowadays that, with AI
being the next big thing, biaswould definitely, definitely be
a bad thing.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
You know, donnie, I'm glad you said that, because
that goes right into the factthat there are basically three
types of AI, and the one we'remost familiar with now today is
the most basic and it's callednarrow AI and that's basically
what chat, gpt and those do youtype in a question or an idea
and it's going to help youeither answer the question or
kind of summarize your idea, andthat works great.
(04:59):
The next stage is called generalAI and that is a machine that
has the ability to perform anyintellectual tasks that you can
do as a human.
And then super intelligent AIthat would surpass human
intelligence in every way.
That's like Skynet andTerminator and self-aware,
concrete and things like that.
But I want to stress, thebiggest, techiest, geekiest
(05:20):
brains in the business say thatgeneral AI and super intelligent
AI really aren't somethingthat's around the corner, or the
majority don't even think it'spossible.
They really don't.
They think we're kind of atwhere we are with AI, as in its
thinking it's programmed by ahuman this belief that it can
surpass the human.
It's only going to collect theinformation that humans across
(05:41):
the globe input into it.
Japchat, gpt, for example,every time you put something in,
it stores that and then startsto learn from questions, but it
still pulls the answers fromhuman input.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Didn't you tell me that when we were digging up
info for this show that youbasically started playing around
with the program and you wereasking it questions about the
basic definition.
So before we get into thedetails, that'd probably be good
to put out there.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Yes, this is what I asked AI.
I said the official definitionof AI is this a field of
computer science that focuses oncreating intelligent machines
that can think and learn likehumans.
Then I asked AI to describeitself and it said at its core,
ai is about creating algorithmsand systems that can perform
tasks that would normallyrequire human intelligence.
This includes things likerecognizing speech,
understanding natural language,identifying objects and images,
(06:30):
making decisions and solvingproblems.
Very unsexy, but that's how AIthinks.
It's just.
It's bland and technical and itdoesn't have to be to use it.
And what we want to do today isfocus on the uses of AI in the
world, specifically inconstruction and right before
you jump into it, it's alreadyall around you and you may not
know it.
We've got healthcare.
(06:51):
Ai is utilized.
Finance We've got it inautomotive Self-driving cars,
tesla that's based on the lowestlevel of AI.
Retail why do you search for acool-looking Fender Stratocaster
and then the rest of the day,ads for it pop up on your phone
and on your computer?
That's AI working right there.
Manufacturing, making theability to manufacture a product
(07:11):
go much faster or smoother, orthe commercialization and moving
of it.
Amazon they're known for theirwarehouses.
They're very super efficient,but a lot of people might not
realize that AI is in theconstruction business, so today,
what we wanted to talk aboutwas with people like Donnie who
are general contractors andbuild who's using it, who can
benefit from using it, and theremight even be builders and
(07:34):
contractors and workers that areeither scared of it for
whatever reason or just going toblow it off, and we both think
that that could be a mistake.
One key application in this,though we'll start off with
Donnie, with AI is projectplanning and scheduling.
When you get ready to do aproject, to build a house,
there's a lot of stuff you haveto do.
A lot of it is based on yourexperience of doing it, but I'm
(07:56):
sure there's lots of things thatAI could take care of for you
almost instantaneously beforeyou start building.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yeah the key word being instantaneous, because you
can put your information inthere and the start date and
just a few other factors that itwould need, and it will see
that house from start to finish.
It's pretty amazing.
What used to take me weeks incollege when I was learning how
to use a project managementsoftware takes chat, gbt or the
program that you're using lessthan a minute to come up with a
whole construction schedule.
(08:23):
It actually takes historicaldata of weather patterns and so
many things that come into playduring a construction phase and
it incorporates those into thetimeline.
So definitely going to beadvantageous for someone like
myself.
Being a custom builder, we justkind of go with the flow, we
watch the weather from week toweek, but if you're talking
about somebody who has multiplemultifamily units going and the
(08:45):
investors are barking at thebuilder and they really have to
keep things reported toeverybody up to chain and keep
everything on a timeline, I meanthat's a whole job in itself.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
So basically it's taking another person's job and
simplifying it to the nth degreewhen you get out of the office,
so to speak, and you have theplans and the permits and AI
helps you remember you need apermit for this and that you're
on the job site.
That's where I'm kind of lostof.
The benefits of AI Are a littleeasier to AI, but where it's
(09:15):
being incorporated on the jobsite.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
The most that I'm seeing and this has been in play
for years, it just keepsgetting better every year is
autonomous equipment operation.
So meaning if you have abackhoe out there on the boom of
the backhoe you have a roboticcontrol.
(09:38):
And I'll use my dad's businessas an example.
When he goes out to dig afooting for a house, he's the
first guy on the site besidesthe surveyor when he does his
excavation.
Someone who would beinexperienced would dig a hole
that would be way too deep.
Or if they over dig nobodythinks through this unless
you've been in a contractortrade and a footing guy but he
could cost that contractor andhomeowner because the cost gets
(09:59):
passed on, could cost themhundreds, if not thousands of
dollars by over digging andthings.
And so they make something thatgoes on the boom of a backhoe
that you control part of it.
But when you're pulling thatback and taking the scoop of
dirt out, it will not let you go, but so low.
And I've seen things all oversocial media as far as remote
controlled skid steers andthings like that.
So it's coming and, that beingsaid, I really feel like there's
(10:22):
always going to be a variablethat you need a human being to
take care of, because you know amachine maybe has 100 different
potential outcomes and it canthink through something the best
it can, but man, there's justno substitute for the human
element.
So I don't know that that willtake over completely, but I
think that other ways that it'sadvantageous are incorporating
into drones aerial surveys.
(10:43):
Drones can monitor progress andbasically detect potential
hazards on a job site.
If you have a drone fly over ona multifamily job site, for
instance, there might be thingsthat you would catch from the
air that you might not see fromthe ground.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Speaking of drones, when I first met you with what
are we going on five years nowyou talked about using a drone
to fly over a house and get anidea of a roof.
So maybe I'm wrong here, but itseems to me you could take that
drone and, with AI and thecameras and stuff, be able to
fly it over a roof and it wouldbe able to measure the roof
accurately, give you an idea ofwhat you need and stuff like
(11:17):
that.
So can drones use AI to makeyour job easier, say, in
replacing a roof?
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Well, they could, and I think that that was pretty
primitive technology for a droneand now the satellite
technology has far surpassedthat.
So they have services, and mostpeople are familiar with Eagle
View.
But they have services that tapinto satellite views and
instead of going job site by jobsite and flying a drone over,
that satellite will tell youevery square inch of the house.
I can have siding measurements,roof measurements, perimeter
(11:45):
measurements, anything that Imight need to do an estimate,
and I don't even have to stepfoot on the job, which I'm more
of personable kind of guy, and Ithink that if you're gonna work
for somebody, that job sitemeeting is a must.
So but I do think in terms of aquick estimate for siding
roofing, it just makes things alot easier.
Where AI does incorporate intothe drone world is in surveys.
So Jay Lowe that we had on, Idon't know, a year or so ago, he
(12:07):
bought a drone that wassomewhere to the tune of $90,000
or $100,000.
Very expensive, and what thatdrone would do is topography
maps.
So what used to take Jay?
I think he said in the field onthe show that he could survey
out 50 foot by 50 foot squaresand if he had to do a whole golf
course or a topo map for alarger plot of land.
It would take him two weeks andhe said what used to take him
(12:30):
two weeks takes him about 10minutes with this drone.
So I think he mentioned hecould survey or he could fly
over and record an entire golfcourse in about an hour and for
a surveyor that was a severalmonths long job.
You have to plot everything,record everything, go back to
the office, actually put it intoa computer, for the computer to
put it on paper to relay to theclient and all that's changed.
Only a handful of surveyors inour area have the drone with the
(12:53):
AI capability for topographymaps but it has definitely
changed the game for those guys.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
How would AI maybe assist in the design phase on
the property?
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Oh, that's a good question In terms of the design
phase, that is, still it's beingdeveloped.
I've seen a few apps that havetaken their stab, and then I
watched the basically the demovideo and saw that a lot of
these things they're still kindof slow to operate and I think
that that is going to be areally, really big deal in the
next few years.
(13:22):
But right now, kind of theprimitive part of the AI.
But if you're one of thesefolks who want to see your house
in 10 different designs and youcan send a picture through an
AI app and usually those arepaid apps, by the way so if you
don't do this for a living, Idon't think it would be a great
investment to have a monthlysubscription to something,
unless that is what you're into.
As far as remodeling or gettingnew ideas for your house, where
(13:45):
I do think it's cool is if youcan pull that off and get an AI
generated recommendation for adesign on a remodel for your
house or even on a newconstruction, for colors and so
forth.
It gives you so many options.
If you hire a designer, thatdesigner is going to give you
maybe two options, three options, and if you don't like any of
them, then you've already beenthrough the whole process, and
(14:09):
the cool thing about the AI isthat it'll crank out 10 designs
if that's what you ask it to do,and some may be far out, but
some may be dialed in to exactlywhat you want.
So I like the part about moreoptions.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
I guess then you could take multiple design ideas
and literally not literally,figuratively into AI, place them
on the property and then youwould have 360s that the
homeowner could go and see whatwould the house look like from
all angles and I guess also, asa builder, could see all the
angles and views you would havefrom a potential house.
A dozen plans and take care ofit in an afternoon Right.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
I think I may have sent you the post on Instagram
and it was about constructionbeing a big part of AI, or AI
being a big part of construction, rather.
And then, when you click to thenext slide over, it showed a
barcode on the permit box at thejob site and the barcode was
linked to the set of plans.
And I can't tell you how manytimes a subcontractor will be on
the job and they take yourstructural engineered, stamped
(14:59):
plans and they throw them intheir truck and take them home
with them on accident becausethey're just looking at the
plans.
But then you've got aninspection the next day and the
inspector's like, dude, whereare your plans at?
Or the sub that follows inbehind them hey, we don't have
any plans on the job.
And if you're in the middle ofsomething you kind of have to
stop what you're doing becausethey're at a standstill until
they have those plans.
But I think it's a really neatthing and a very simple thing to
have that barcode.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
And I did want to follow along.
Everybody listening theCarolina Contractor is on IG and
social media and we put upthose links for each other and
you're free to stalk us and findit out.
But that little QR code thatyou would scan for the
construction site was veryamazing, because the guy was
moving his phone and he couldsee where future structure
pieces would be sitting, andthen he'd move it backwards so
(15:46):
he could see almost half thebuilding constructed right above
him before he's even put up anLVL or a truss or anything he's
like.
Oh, I know where that's goingto go.
That was a pretty amazing thingthat they're starting to do.
What challenges does IA face,though?
In a construction industry,every new technology has some
sort of issue.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
If I had to say, I would guess implementation and
basically establishing a datastandard.
So you know, from state tostate they're going to be
different codes.
And you know construction guys.
No secret, they're not the mostcomputer savvy, and rightly so.
You know that's a job forsomebody else, but you know
getting somebody who's used toswinging a hammer or doing
things with a pencil and paperand they're setting their ways.
(16:26):
I think that getting thosefolks to be on board with the
implementation of all these AIproducts or AI driven products
is going to be the biggest dealof all.
Eventually and I think youmentioned this earlier
eventually you're either goingto have to get on board or get
left behind.
And getting on board doesn'tjust mean the contractor.
He's got to get the investors.
If there are investors involved, he's got to get the inspectors
, the homeowners.
But investors, inspectors,homeowners, contractor all being
(16:50):
on the same page is a big deal.
So I believe that gettingeverybody on that same page
before the project gets kickedoff is probably the best plan to
have in place.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
It's kind of like Android and Apple.
They're both great products,but there's proprietary things
there, that down to the chargingcords except I think now in
Europe they're changing thatwhere they don't speak to each
other.
And AI would be pretty uselessif you have 10 different things
in the contracting or buildingprocess that it could do but
they won't talk to each otherand you have to use all 10.
(17:20):
I guess, like apps, they got tomake money somehow and they're
going to not share thatproprietary information.
At first, agreed for sure.
I thought of something else,donnie.
We've talked, we've done showson it before 3D printing.
So with AI and 3D printing Iguess you could be at a job site
and you have some part break,some piece that's missing I'm
not talking a major piece likean LVL, but a piece of equipment
(17:43):
even malfunctions LVL, but apiece of equipment even
malfunctions and instead oflosing a whole day, you could
have AI and a 3D printer printyour replacement part on the job
you nailed it and that'sexactly how it would be used.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
I just think that the 3D printing thing already had a
pretty good foothold, dependingon the area you live in.
But using it in more practicalapproaches like that you know
small parts, or if you have afixture and you pull it out of
the box and it's got a brokenpart and you can just
manufacture that on site, Ithink that it'll be super useful
.
So that was a great way to spinthat, because I definitely
think that's realistic.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Now, if you had a magic wand, aside from
proprietary issues with AI, canyou think of anything you would
love to see AI be able to takeover that would make your life
easier in building a house?
Or have I put you on the spot?
Speaker 2 (18:27):
No, if I had to say and I love my architect, great
guy, love the engineer, I workwith great guy but I do think
that if AI were going to beutilized for something that
really contributed to the endgame, it would be whole house
design and they may have thisout there and I just don't know
it yet but I think whole housedesign for a family, say, of
three.
If you can go in there and giveAI exactly what you want hey,
(18:49):
we want a four bedroom house,you know.
We want bonus room, we want akitchen with an island in the
middle and you can be thatspecific.
Part of the magic of learninghow to use AI is learning how to
ask the question, or rathertell it what you want, and the
first few days I toyed aroundwith it, learning how to word
things, but it is so intuitive.
You basically can say hey, Iwould like for you to design a
(19:09):
house for a family of three andwe'd like an extra bedroom with
a large closet.
We want granite countertops inour kitchen, we would like no
second story.
So that's going to contributeto the footprint size and you
basically can say hey, I want toaim this at a family where the
dad is 30 and the mom's 28.
Or if it's handicapaccessibility as something that
you were looking for, you couldsay, design this for an elderly
(19:30):
couple, and it's so smart thatit will do exactly that, and I
think for the end game, thatmade my life specifically easier
.
A custom designed house havingyour own fingerprint of a floor
plan is a special thing, and youdon't have to sit down for
months with an architect toachieve that, and I'm sure
they're going to get there ifthey don't already have that,
but that's definitely thecoolest thing to me.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
And I'm not saying architects are lazy, but they
have a certain style.
So when you go in to submitideas to an architect, he's
going to kind of pull from a fewbasic designs and maybe you
bring in something you saw andhe pulls a little from there and
a little from here.
But AI, when it comes to thosedesigns, is going to pull from
thousands, tens of thousands ofideas.
(20:08):
And I guess the other advantageis an architect in the
traditional manner has to do allthe math and the calculations
to determine if the client wantsthis.
We're going to have todetermine trusses and LVLs and
structure and foundation.
Where AI, like you said, giveme a four bedroom house with a
bonus room, a garage andoverlooking the lake that the
(20:29):
property's on, give me 20designs, it will figure out all
the engineering to make itpossible.
Where humans might have saideither A, it's not possible or
that's going to just take toomuch of my time, I'm going to
give them this more cookiecutter design.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah, I agree with that, and I think that where the
human element may still holdprecedence over the AIs, that
you're always going to need thatengineer stamp.
That being said, you knowthere's several things that I
run into where maybe I don'tneed to worry the engineer with
a dumb question, and I do thinkthat it's almost like having an
engineer at your fingertips.
It's kind of like Jarvis fromIron man.
You know you could ask anythingand it was detailed analysis
(21:04):
and you've got that now at yourfingertips.
So instead of making the calland waiting for that engineer to
give you a quick answer on whatshould be a quick answer, you
may have to wait several daysfor that and just kind of get in
line.
And I think that if you have aquestion that doesn't
necessarily need a stamp for theinspections department, that
that'll be definitelyadvantageous for somebody that
does what I do.
Another thing I was thinkingabout for the radio show.
(21:25):
I started doing my homework onhow can we use it to help with
the radio show and I was amazed.
I mean, I guess the first thingand I think we talked about
this last week off the air thatyou can create an avatar that
looks and sounds exactly likeyou.
It will actually mimic yourvoice and your facial
expressions, your hand gestures,and I mean that's kind of scary
.
But now that we've taken theCarolina Contractor Show to
video, you know what, if we weresick one day or you know, I
(21:48):
sounded like terrible inDecember when I had a cold, you
know I listened to that showagain and thinking, gosh, we
shouldn't have even aired that.
But you're not feeling up to upto the challenge of recording
that day.
You know it's kind of cool thatyou can have an avatar do it
for you.
The other thing that really blewme away is that we can
translate our shows into Spanishand it will actually make our
mouths move to the Spanish wordsand I just think that's way far
(22:09):
out and so cool, because a lotof Spanish speaking people who
happen to be bilingual listen toour show and I think that's
pretty cool that if you're notbilingual, it's a way that we
can get the show out there to alot more people.
That's a really neat thing.
And I can't tell you that wehave a lot of Hispanic workers
and basically those people arefamily and I would love to be
able to speak to them in theirnative tongue and it's one of
(22:31):
those things where I just thinkit would improve communication
all the way around on the jobsite.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
And I don't think it's a bad thing if you're
dealing with a complex buildingor mathematics or something
where it's almost required forthe build to go along as planned
that you need to communicatequickly and clearly, and AI can
do that for you.
That's also a safety thing.
I mean AI can be at a job sitewe talked about drones or
(22:54):
satellites and it would be ableto you kind of alluded to this
earlier look at a property andsay, hey, you've got a river on
this side of it, but you need toconsider a floodplain.
That you might not necessarilyget or thought about when you're
building, but just generalsafety.
And oh, I guess let's go backto COVID era, donnie.
The inability to get supplieswas massive.
(23:16):
Now we've kind of recovered,but could you see AI assisting
you at keeping tabs on inventoryand finding who's selling
shingles for less that week orOSB, or, if you're running low,
making sure the job doesn't stopbecause you can't get material?
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Oh yeah, resource allocation has been a big part
of my world and COVID, or say, ahailstorm, hits especially on
the sure-top roofing side ofthings.
Inventory is a real issue.
So we don't like it when welike the work that comes when a
hailstorm hits, but it bringspeople in from all over the
country.
You know the Midwest, texas,florida.
Everybody comes to work thathailstorm and then get out of
town but they put a pinch on oursupply and you know that that's
(23:54):
everything.
I don't.
I don't know how that's goingto work and I know that I have
some inside sales folks who arejust wonderful and I can call
them and say, hey, you know, Ineed a green or a red roof, and
can you find me those shingles?
And I think that that processis only going to be streamlined
and be that much easier for theinside sales folks.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
You also talked about at the beginning of the show
that AI can help you do some ofthe paperwork and access permits
and things like that.
What other ways can AI'sdocu-management help a builder?
Speaker 2 (24:22):
I just think that they will.
They'll help the builder byprobably lessening the need for
an office staff, because it'sgoing to do the job of two or
three people and it's going tokeep a schedule.
It's going to keep timelineprojections better than a person
would.
But, all that being said, Idon't know if I ever will buy
into that all the way, becauseyou have to have a person to
(24:42):
input that data, so you've gotto give it that data to process
and you know it's going to cutthat person's roll down
significantly.
So you're basically askingtaking somebody from full-time
to part-time is what I'm tryingto say, and it still requires a
person to give it the facts.
So I don't know that that'llever completely take over, but
it's definitely going to makethings easier, all right.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Last thing on this, when we talk about AI and
construction is the CEO's beenissued, the job's done, pulled
off the site, everybody's happybecause they got an AI-assisted
build house and it went well.
You'd want to look back.
We sometimes think the phraseperformance review is a bad
thing, but a good boss will do aperformance review to help
improve process, find out fromhis people on the ground what
(25:23):
works well, what doesn't, wherethey can make changes.
Do you see any way AI canimprove that interaction you
have one-on-one or with a crewin general, when the job's done,
to say, hey, what can we do todo this better?
Speaker 2 (25:34):
I think if it improves communication along the
way, that's going to make for abetter end result.
And I do think that allowing ahomeowner or the contractor or
maybe a subcontractor, to keeptabs on that schedule, keep tabs
on that schedule, keep tabs onthe projection I think when you
set expectations and set thoserealistically, I think that's
the big deal with AIs it's goingto keep your project on
schedule better, but it's alsogoing to keep everybody in the
(25:55):
loop.
So there may be days when Ihave something to tell a
homeowner and I'm exhausted.
At the end of the day, I've got17 calls to return it's 530
already and maybe I didn't tellthat homeowner what we did that
day.
So you know, we've been veryproactive about utilizing
smartphones and just thetechnology we have now just to
shoot them a picture.
Hey, this is what happenedtoday.
Hey, this inspection went greattoday, just so you know.
And this is what's next nextweek.
(26:16):
So not having to worry aboutany of that anymore would be a
dream.
But, like I mentioned on thelast point, I don't know how you
get there without some sort ofhuman element to input that data
.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
I would agree with that.
I think if you could send me atext or a note, and even if AI
automated it, that said, hey, wefinished up this part of the
house today or tomorrow we'replanning on doing this.
Or I'd like to meet with yousometime this week to talk about
the color of the exterior doorthat you want to see, or if you
want it to be a six panel orwhatever.
(26:45):
I can definitely see how youcan integrate it, as long as
it's not something you depend on100% to do all your
communication with your clients,because I know it through the
sales side of it, you know itfrom the building side.
When people can see the otherhuman being, they're much more
comfortable in that relationship.
Maybe in the future some peoplewouldn't care if all they got
was stuff on a phone.
They might be fine with that.
(27:06):
But I don't think we're closeto that and AI is not going to
be a replacement.
Again, an assistant, right,yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
I think the end game that will probably affect us in
the immediate is that a lot ofcomputer folks are going to lose
their jobs to AI and it's sosad, but they got to find a
place to go and of course we'vedone whole shows on this.
But We've done whole shows onthis, but we in my world people
crab all the time about.
We can't find good people, wecan't find somebody with a legit
license, we can't find peoplethat want to come to work every
day.
And if a lot of those computerfolks are smart and really want
(27:32):
a big change because they justgot burned by AI, it's going to
push them to construction.
You can get into constructionat any age.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
And it would be a nice thing to see to have a lot
more competent folks in thelabor force.
And for all that talk abouthard to find help these days, to
just go away, we talked off theair.
The CEO of NVIDIA, which hasmade a gazillion dollars with AI
, recently said that computerprogrammers are not the job of
the future.
He said it's people that takeAI and use it out in the real
world.
So what you just said makesperfect sense.
If you know AI, if you'rewell-versed in it, learn a
little bit about construction,learn how you can implement that
with a construction degree oreven just certifications, and if
(28:11):
you can give the owner of acompany an incentive to say you
hire me, I'm going to improveyour building process, it's
going to go faster, be safer,it'll cost less for everybody
involved and in the end, yourcompany is just going to grow.
You've moved out of working infront of a computer in an office
and you're out in the sunshineand you're using this new tool
to make everybody's life easier.
(28:33):
Again, you can fear it and it'sgoing to take over.
Or you can say thanks for thehammer, thanks for the saw, I'm
going to go do something withthis now, and we shouldn't
really fear AI.
Science fiction makes it scary,but what you and I have crammed
, we've taken crash courses inthe past few weeks on AI.
We've learned a lot and it's awonderful thing.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Agreed All the way around.
Very well said.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
All right.
Well, we hope you enjoyedtoday's show on AI.
We'll put some of this stuff upon the website.
There is so much about it thatcan be beneficial.
Again, I'm not scared of AI.
I'm scared about thatself-healing cement we've talked
about for years.
But the Terminator Skynet thingreally isn't something to sit
around and worry about.
Look at AI as a tool, as mywife said.
(29:14):
Look at it as spellcheck.
It's glorified spellcheck.
It took what we put into it andjust made it work faster for us
.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
That was a great analogy.
Shout out to Kim.
She is the smarter half by far.
She great analogy.
Shout out to Kim she is thesmarter half by far.
She's also a hell of a cook.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
I'm glad you admitted it on the radio.
Again.
We'll put the information up onthe website,
thecarolinacontractorcom.
You check out our other socialmedia IG, facebook.
We got stuff on YouTube.
More of these shows are goingto be popping up with the videos
so you can watch it.
And you can just download itand listen to podcasts if you'd
rather do that.
Please stay in touch by goingto the website or contacting us
through that social media, alsobecause we love hearing from you
(29:47):
and give us some ideas, andthis show was not done
completely by AI, but it didassist us and you wouldn't have
known.
Donnie's not real.
As he said, he's just a figmentof AI's imagination.
So again, hit the website andwe hope to have you.
Tune in next week on theCarolina Contractor Show.
Have a great day everybody.
Tune in next week on theCarolina Contractor Show.
Have a great day everybody.
Thanks for listening to theCarolina Contractor Show.
(30:09):
Learn more atthecarolinacontractorcom.
Welcome to the Carolina Contractor Show with
your host, general ContractorDonnie Blanchard.
And welcome to the CarolinaContractor Show.
My name is Eric Smith.
I do inside sales for HomeBuilder Supply in Wilson and
Greenville.
Across from me the lovely, thetalented General Contractor
Donnie Blanchard, owner of SureTop Roofing, also owner of
(00:27):
Blanchard Building Company.
So what is the CarolinaContractor Show all about?
We kind of gave you a hintthere.
We'd like to talk about yourhouse and DIY projects in the
inside and the outside andthings like that.
The website's the best place tostart thecarolinacontractorcom.
We also got links to YouTube.
We got some videos up there.
We've got our Ask theContractor or ATC button.
If you have a question aboutyour house and you want a
(00:49):
general contractor to answer it,donnie's the one that will do
it.
Just click on that button, askyour question and he'll give you
an answer.
We once in a while do a show.
That's nothing but answers toquestions people have sent into
the show.
Also, donnie is on the newseason, season two, of 50-50
Flip that debuted last month onHulu.
It's getting ready to come outon A&E Network.
So if you want to catch him,just look for that show 50-50
(01:12):
Flip and that's been a nicebreak not having to film Correct
Donnie, oh my.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah, that was a long seven months last year and I
really didn't know what to dowith myself when it was over
because I actually had some freetime, more time with the kids
and actually had a personal lifefor the first time in that many
months.
But yeah, it was an experienceand definitely is paying off.
I get calls literally every dayabout it and people say, hey,
man, saw the show, love it.
And I think really the reasonthat it turned out so well is
(01:38):
that we got some perfect housesfor flipping and we turned a few
of those into absolute gold.
So when you see what the houseswent from and to, I'm pretty
proud of myself and the team.
We pulled it off and you don'tnormally see flip houses like
that because folks do the bareminimum to make the most money
and basically because these wereall on TV that went out the
window.
So hats off to the team.
(01:59):
We just made some magic.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
And again, we're not a house flipping show.
But one thing you did do on theshow that people can check out
are some of the small changes.
So for a DIY person, there werelittle things you came up with
and did on the show to improve aproperty inside and out.
And people tune into that show50-50 Flip and you can get some
ideas of little updates you cando.
What's the actual wording?
Donnie, for the you put framingon a wall in a house Accent
(02:23):
wall.
Those look great.
That for the you put framing ona wall in a house Accent wall.
Those look great.
That's something that when Isaw them, I went.
Now I understand why they'repopular, because they really
make a room that is otherwisebland pop.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
It's so cheap too.
You basically buy one by fours,and if you have a table saw you
can rip the one by fours inhalf and they make a product
called basswood and basswood isprobably the slang, but that's
what we've always called it.
And basswood is very expensive.
You can use it for face frames,for cabinets and so forth, but
if you're only depending on theaccent wall that you're going
for, in most cases you can rip aone by four right down the
(02:52):
middle, so half of three and ahalf inches, and normally that
makes a really good stock to doan accent wall with.
Yeah, it's really cool.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
So, again, check that out.
50-50 flip with our own, donnieBlanchard.
But let's jump into today'sshow, because it sounds kind of
techie, it sounds kind of geeky,not very sexy, but it's
actually very interesting.
And we're not going to go intothe weeds, so to speak.
We're going to talk about AI,artificial intelligence.
You've heard a lot about it inthe past few months, in the past
year definitely, and you'veheard things like ChatGPT and
(03:20):
Genesis, which is Google I thinkit's called Genesis.
I've already forgotten Gemini,which is Google's AI, and a lot
of people are kind of fearing AI, and so I asked AI to give me
up a made up quote, and it cameback with you can either use AI
as a tool to make your job andlife easier or you can fear AI
(03:41):
and it will replace you, abrahamLincoln.
So AI has a sense of humor in away.
But AI I mentioned Gemini byGoogle it also can have a
built-in bias.
We won't go into the details ofthat, but you can have.
The creators of AI still giveyou I won't say necessarily
incorrect information, butinformation that is slanted, and
we think of AI as being neutral.
(04:02):
I guess you would probablyagree with that.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
It should just give the facts and nothing but the
facts.
Man, yeah, that's the hope isthat it's neutral, but I think
that that was a very importantthing with Gemini to expose up
front, because definitely hadsome biases.
And, you know, ai is just whatwe're putting into it, so the
way it makes decisions is theway that we inputted the data to
make those decisions, and Idefinitely think that that's
something that needs to beheaded off, and neutral is a
must.
You know you can't have.
We've seen political biases,religious biases, basically take
(04:29):
over the world and be sodivisive nowadays that, with AI
being the next big thing, biaswould definitely, definitely be
a bad thing.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
You know, donnie, I'm glad you said that, because
that goes right into the factthat there are basically three
types of AI, and the one we'remost familiar with now today is
the most basic and it's callednarrow AI and that's basically
what chat, gpt and those do youtype in a question or an idea
and it's going to help youeither answer the question or
kind of summarize your idea, andthat works great.
(04:59):
The next stage is called generalAI and that is a machine that
has the ability to perform anyintellectual tasks that you can
do as a human.
And then super intelligent AIthat would surpass human
intelligence in every way.
That's like Skynet andTerminator and self-aware,
concrete and things like that.
But I want to stress, thebiggest, techiest, geekiest
(05:20):
brains in the business say thatgeneral AI and super intelligent
AI really aren't somethingthat's around the corner, or the
majority don't even think it'spossible.
They really don't.
They think we're kind of atwhere we are with AI, as in its
thinking it's programmed by ahuman this belief that it can
surpass the human.
It's only going to collect theinformation that humans across
(05:41):
the globe input into it.
Japchat, gpt, for example,every time you put something in,
it stores that and then startsto learn from questions, but it
still pulls the answers fromhuman input.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Didn't you tell me that when we were digging up
info for this show that youbasically started playing around
with the program and you wereasking it questions about the
basic definition.
So before we get into thedetails, that'd probably be good
to put out there.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Yes, this is what I asked AI.
I said the official definitionof AI is this a field of
computer science that focuses oncreating intelligent machines
that can think and learn likehumans.
Then I asked AI to describeitself and it said at its core,
ai is about creating algorithmsand systems that can perform
tasks that would normallyrequire human intelligence.
This includes things likerecognizing speech,
understanding natural language,identifying objects and images,
(06:30):
making decisions and solvingproblems.
Very unsexy, but that's how AIthinks.
It's just.
It's bland and technical and itdoesn't have to be to use it.
And what we want to do today isfocus on the uses of AI in the
world, specifically inconstruction and right before
you jump into it, it's alreadyall around you and you may not
know it.
We've got healthcare.
(06:51):
Ai is utilized.
Finance We've got it inautomotive Self-driving cars,
tesla that's based on the lowestlevel of AI.
Retail why do you search for acool-looking Fender Stratocaster
and then the rest of the day,ads for it pop up on your phone
and on your computer?
That's AI working right there.
Manufacturing, making theability to manufacture a product
(07:11):
go much faster or smoother, orthe commercialization and moving
of it.
Amazon they're known for theirwarehouses.
They're very super efficient,but a lot of people might not
realize that AI is in theconstruction business, so today,
what we wanted to talk aboutwas with people like Donnie who
are general contractors andbuild who's using it, who can
benefit from using it, and theremight even be builders and
(07:34):
contractors and workers that areeither scared of it for
whatever reason or just going toblow it off, and we both think
that that could be a mistake.
One key application in this,though we'll start off with
Donnie, with AI is projectplanning and scheduling.
When you get ready to do aproject, to build a house,
there's a lot of stuff you haveto do.
A lot of it is based on yourexperience of doing it, but I'm
(07:56):
sure there's lots of things thatAI could take care of for you
almost instantaneously beforeyou start building.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yeah the key word being instantaneous, because you
can put your information inthere and the start date and
just a few other factors that itwould need, and it will see
that house from start to finish.
It's pretty amazing.
What used to take me weeks incollege when I was learning how
to use a project managementsoftware takes chat, gbt or the
program that you're using lessthan a minute to come up with a
whole construction schedule.
(08:23):
It actually takes historicaldata of weather patterns and so
many things that come into playduring a construction phase and
it incorporates those into thetimeline.
So definitely going to beadvantageous for someone like
myself.
Being a custom builder, we justkind of go with the flow, we
watch the weather from week toweek, but if you're talking
about somebody who has multiplemultifamily units going and the
(08:45):
investors are barking at thebuilder and they really have to
keep things reported toeverybody up to chain and keep
everything on a timeline, I meanthat's a whole job in itself.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
So basically it's taking another person's job and
simplifying it to the nth degreewhen you get out of the office,
so to speak, and you have theplans and the permits and AI
helps you remember you need apermit for this and that you're
on the job site.
That's where I'm kind of lostof.
The benefits of AI Are a littleeasier to AI, but where it's
(09:15):
being incorporated on the jobsite.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
The most that I'm seeing and this has been in play
for years, it just keepsgetting better every year is
autonomous equipment operation.
So meaning if you have abackhoe out there on the boom of
the backhoe you have a roboticcontrol.
(09:38):
And I'll use my dad's businessas an example.
When he goes out to dig afooting for a house, he's the
first guy on the site besidesthe surveyor when he does his
excavation.
Someone who would beinexperienced would dig a hole
that would be way too deep.
Or if they over dig nobodythinks through this unless
you've been in a contractortrade and a footing guy but he
could cost that contractor andhomeowner because the cost gets
(09:59):
passed on, could cost themhundreds, if not thousands of
dollars by over digging andthings.
And so they make something thatgoes on the boom of a backhoe
that you control part of it.
But when you're pulling thatback and taking the scoop of
dirt out, it will not let you go, but so low.
And I've seen things all oversocial media as far as remote
controlled skid steers andthings like that.
So it's coming and, that beingsaid, I really feel like there's
(10:22):
always going to be a variablethat you need a human being to
take care of, because you know amachine maybe has 100 different
potential outcomes and it canthink through something the best
it can, but man, there's justno substitute for the human
element.
So I don't know that that willtake over completely, but I
think that other ways that it'sadvantageous are incorporating
into drones aerial surveys.
(10:43):
Drones can monitor progress andbasically detect potential
hazards on a job site.
If you have a drone fly over ona multifamily job site, for
instance, there might be thingsthat you would catch from the
air that you might not see fromthe ground.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Speaking of drones, when I first met you with what
are we going on five years nowyou talked about using a drone
to fly over a house and get anidea of a roof.
So maybe I'm wrong here, but itseems to me you could take that
drone and, with AI and thecameras and stuff, be able to
fly it over a roof and it wouldbe able to measure the roof
accurately, give you an idea ofwhat you need and stuff like
(11:17):
that.
So can drones use AI to makeyour job easier, say, in
replacing a roof?
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Well, they could, and I think that that was pretty
primitive technology for a droneand now the satellite
technology has far surpassedthat.
So they have services, and mostpeople are familiar with Eagle
View.
But they have services that tapinto satellite views and
instead of going job site by jobsite and flying a drone over,
that satellite will tell youevery square inch of the house.
I can have siding measurements,roof measurements, perimeter
(11:45):
measurements, anything that Imight need to do an estimate,
and I don't even have to stepfoot on the job, which I'm more
of personable kind of guy, and Ithink that if you're gonna work
for somebody, that job sitemeeting is a must.
So but I do think in terms of aquick estimate for siding
roofing, it just makes things alot easier.
Where AI does incorporate intothe drone world is in surveys.
So Jay Lowe that we had on, Idon't know, a year or so ago, he
(12:07):
bought a drone that wassomewhere to the tune of $90,000
or $100,000.
Very expensive, and what thatdrone would do is topography
maps.
So what used to take Jay?
I think he said in the field onthe show that he could survey
out 50 foot by 50 foot squaresand if he had to do a whole golf
course or a topo map for alarger plot of land.
It would take him two weeks andhe said what used to take him
(12:30):
two weeks takes him about 10minutes with this drone.
So I think he mentioned hecould survey or he could fly
over and record an entire golfcourse in about an hour and for
a surveyor that was a severalmonths long job.
You have to plot everything,record everything, go back to
the office, actually put it intoa computer, for the computer to
put it on paper to relay to theclient and all that's changed.
Only a handful of surveyors inour area have the drone with the
(12:53):
AI capability for topographymaps but it has definitely
changed the game for those guys.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
How would AI maybe assist in the design phase on
the property?
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Oh, that's a good question In terms of the design
phase, that is, still it's beingdeveloped.
I've seen a few apps that havetaken their stab, and then I
watched the basically the demovideo and saw that a lot of
these things they're still kindof slow to operate and I think
that that is going to be areally, really big deal in the
next few years.
(13:22):
But right now, kind of theprimitive part of the AI.
But if you're one of thesefolks who want to see your house
in 10 different designs and youcan send a picture through an
AI app and usually those arepaid apps, by the way so if you
don't do this for a living, Idon't think it would be a great
investment to have a monthlysubscription to something,
unless that is what you're into.
As far as remodeling or gettingnew ideas for your house, where
(13:45):
I do think it's cool is if youcan pull that off and get an AI
generated recommendation for adesign on a remodel for your
house or even on a newconstruction, for colors and so
forth.
It gives you so many options.
If you hire a designer, thatdesigner is going to give you
maybe two options, three options, and if you don't like any of
them, then you've already beenthrough the whole process, and
(14:09):
the cool thing about the AI isthat it'll crank out 10 designs
if that's what you ask it to do,and some may be far out, but
some may be dialed in to exactlywhat you want.
So I like the part about moreoptions.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
I guess then you could take multiple design ideas
and literally not literally,figuratively into AI, place them
on the property and then youwould have 360s that the
homeowner could go and see whatwould the house look like from
all angles and I guess also, asa builder, could see all the
angles and views you would havefrom a potential house.
A dozen plans and take care ofit in an afternoon Right.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
I think I may have sent you the post on Instagram
and it was about constructionbeing a big part of AI, or AI
being a big part of construction, rather.
And then, when you click to thenext slide over, it showed a
barcode on the permit box at thejob site and the barcode was
linked to the set of plans.
And I can't tell you how manytimes a subcontractor will be on
the job and they take yourstructural engineered, stamped
(14:59):
plans and they throw them intheir truck and take them home
with them on accident becausethey're just looking at the
plans.
But then you've got aninspection the next day and the
inspector's like, dude, whereare your plans at?
Or the sub that follows inbehind them hey, we don't have
any plans on the job.
And if you're in the middle ofsomething you kind of have to
stop what you're doing becausethey're at a standstill until
they have those plans.
But I think it's a really neatthing and a very simple thing to
have that barcode.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
And I did want to follow along.
Everybody listening theCarolina Contractor is on IG and
social media and we put upthose links for each other and
you're free to stalk us and findit out.
But that little QR code thatyou would scan for the
construction site was veryamazing, because the guy was
moving his phone and he couldsee where future structure
pieces would be sitting, andthen he'd move it backwards so
(15:46):
he could see almost half thebuilding constructed right above
him before he's even put up anLVL or a truss or anything he's
like.
Oh, I know where that's goingto go.
That was a pretty amazing thingthat they're starting to do.
What challenges does IA face,though?
In a construction industry,every new technology has some
sort of issue.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
If I had to say, I would guess implementation and
basically establishing a datastandard.
So you know, from state tostate they're going to be
different codes.
And you know construction guys.
No secret, they're not the mostcomputer savvy, and rightly so.
You know that's a job forsomebody else, but you know
getting somebody who's used toswinging a hammer or doing
things with a pencil and paperand they're setting their ways.
(16:26):
I think that getting thosefolks to be on board with the
implementation of all these AIproducts or AI driven products
is going to be the biggest dealof all.
Eventually and I think youmentioned this earlier
eventually you're either goingto have to get on board or get
left behind.
And getting on board doesn'tjust mean the contractor.
He's got to get the investors.
If there are investors involved, he's got to get the inspectors
, the homeowners.
But investors, inspectors,homeowners, contractor all being
(16:50):
on the same page is a big deal.
So I believe that gettingeverybody on that same page
before the project gets kickedoff is probably the best plan to
have in place.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
It's kind of like Android and Apple.
They're both great products,but there's proprietary things
there, that down to the chargingcords except I think now in
Europe they're changing thatwhere they don't speak to each
other.
And AI would be pretty uselessif you have 10 different things
in the contracting or buildingprocess that it could do but
they won't talk to each otherand you have to use all 10.
(17:20):
I guess, like apps, they got tomake money somehow and they're
going to not share thatproprietary information.
At first, agreed for sure.
I thought of something else,donnie.
We've talked, we've done showson it before 3D printing.
So with AI and 3D printing Iguess you could be at a job site
and you have some part break,some piece that's missing I'm
not talking a major piece likean LVL, but a piece of equipment
(17:43):
even malfunctions LVL, but apiece of equipment even
malfunctions and instead oflosing a whole day, you could
have AI and a 3D printer printyour replacement part on the job
you nailed it and that'sexactly how it would be used.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
I just think that the 3D printing thing already had a
pretty good foothold, dependingon the area you live in.
But using it in more practicalapproaches like that you know
small parts, or if you have afixture and you pull it out of
the box and it's got a brokenpart and you can just
manufacture that on site, Ithink that it'll be super useful
.
So that was a great way to spinthat, because I definitely
think that's realistic.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Now, if you had a magic wand, aside from
proprietary issues with AI, canyou think of anything you would
love to see AI be able to takeover that would make your life
easier in building a house?
Or have I put you on the spot?
Speaker 2 (18:27):
No, if I had to say and I love my architect, great
guy, love the engineer, I workwith great guy but I do think
that if AI were going to beutilized for something that
really contributed to the endgame, it would be whole house
design and they may have thisout there and I just don't know
it yet but I think whole housedesign for a family, say, of
three.
If you can go in there and giveAI exactly what you want hey,
(18:49):
we want a four bedroom house,you know.
We want bonus room, we want akitchen with an island in the
middle and you can be thatspecific.
Part of the magic of learninghow to use AI is learning how to
ask the question, or rathertell it what you want, and the
first few days I toyed aroundwith it, learning how to word
things, but it is so intuitive.
You basically can say hey, Iwould like for you to design a
(19:09):
house for a family of three andwe'd like an extra bedroom with
a large closet.
We want granite countertops inour kitchen, we would like no
second story.
So that's going to contributeto the footprint size and you
basically can say hey, I want toaim this at a family where the
dad is 30 and the mom's 28.
Or if it's handicapaccessibility as something that
you were looking for, you couldsay, design this for an elderly
(19:30):
couple, and it's so smart thatit will do exactly that, and I
think for the end game, thatmade my life specifically easier
.
A custom designed house havingyour own fingerprint of a floor
plan is a special thing, and youdon't have to sit down for
months with an architect toachieve that, and I'm sure
they're going to get there ifthey don't already have that,
but that's definitely thecoolest thing to me.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
And I'm not saying architects are lazy, but they
have a certain style.
So when you go in to submitideas to an architect, he's
going to kind of pull from a fewbasic designs and maybe you
bring in something you saw andhe pulls a little from there and
a little from here.
But AI, when it comes to thosedesigns, is going to pull from
thousands, tens of thousands ofideas.
(20:08):
And I guess the other advantageis an architect in the
traditional manner has to do allthe math and the calculations
to determine if the client wantsthis.
We're going to have todetermine trusses and LVLs and
structure and foundation.
Where AI, like you said, giveme a four bedroom house with a
bonus room, a garage andoverlooking the lake that the
(20:29):
property's on, give me 20designs, it will figure out all
the engineering to make itpossible.
Where humans might have saideither A, it's not possible or
that's going to just take toomuch of my time, I'm going to
give them this more cookiecutter design.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah, I agree with that, and I think that where the
human element may still holdprecedence over the AIs, that
you're always going to need thatengineer stamp.
That being said, you knowthere's several things that I
run into where maybe I don'tneed to worry the engineer with
a dumb question, and I do thinkthat it's almost like having an
engineer at your fingertips.
It's kind of like Jarvis fromIron man.
You know you could ask anythingand it was detailed analysis
(21:04):
and you've got that now at yourfingertips.
So instead of making the calland waiting for that engineer to
give you a quick answer on whatshould be a quick answer, you
may have to wait several daysfor that and just kind of get in
line.
And I think that if you have aquestion that doesn't
necessarily need a stamp for theinspections department, that
that'll be definitelyadvantageous for somebody that
does what I do.
Another thing I was thinkingabout for the radio show.
(21:25):
I started doing my homework onhow can we use it to help with
the radio show and I was amazed.
I mean, I guess the first thingand I think we talked about
this last week off the air thatyou can create an avatar that
looks and sounds exactly likeyou.
It will actually mimic yourvoice and your facial
expressions, your hand gestures,and I mean that's kind of scary
.
But now that we've taken theCarolina Contractor Show to
video, you know what, if we weresick one day or you know, I
(21:48):
sounded like terrible inDecember when I had a cold, you
know I listened to that showagain and thinking, gosh, we
shouldn't have even aired that.
But you're not feeling up to upto the challenge of recording
that day.
You know it's kind of cool thatyou can have an avatar do it
for you.
The other thing that really blewme away is that we can
translate our shows into Spanishand it will actually make our
mouths move to the Spanish wordsand I just think that's way far
(22:09):
out and so cool, because a lotof Spanish speaking people who
happen to be bilingual listen toour show and I think that's
pretty cool that if you're notbilingual, it's a way that we
can get the show out there to alot more people.
That's a really neat thing.
And I can't tell you that wehave a lot of Hispanic workers
and basically those people arefamily and I would love to be
able to speak to them in theirnative tongue and it's one of
(22:31):
those things where I just thinkit would improve communication
all the way around on the jobsite.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
And I don't think it's a bad thing if you're
dealing with a complex buildingor mathematics or something
where it's almost required forthe build to go along as planned
that you need to communicatequickly and clearly, and AI can
do that for you.
That's also a safety thing.
I mean AI can be at a job sitewe talked about drones or
(22:54):
satellites and it would be ableto you kind of alluded to this
earlier look at a property andsay, hey, you've got a river on
this side of it, but you need toconsider a floodplain.
That you might not necessarilyget or thought about when you're
building, but just generalsafety.
And oh, I guess let's go backto COVID era, donnie.
The inability to get supplieswas massive.
(23:16):
Now we've kind of recovered,but could you see AI assisting
you at keeping tabs on inventoryand finding who's selling
shingles for less that week orOSB, or, if you're running low,
making sure the job doesn't stopbecause you can't get material?
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Oh yeah, resource allocation has been a big part
of my world and COVID, or say, ahailstorm, hits especially on
the sure-top roofing side ofthings.
Inventory is a real issue.
So we don't like it when welike the work that comes when a
hailstorm hits, but it bringspeople in from all over the
country.
You know the Midwest, texas,florida.
Everybody comes to work thathailstorm and then get out of
town but they put a pinch on oursupply and you know that that's
(23:54):
everything.
I don't.
I don't know how that's goingto work and I know that I have
some inside sales folks who arejust wonderful and I can call
them and say, hey, you know, Ineed a green or a red roof, and
can you find me those shingles?
And I think that that processis only going to be streamlined
and be that much easier for theinside sales folks.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
You also talked about at the beginning of the show
that AI can help you do some ofthe paperwork and access permits
and things like that.
What other ways can AI'sdocu-management help a builder?
Speaker 2 (24:22):
I just think that they will.
They'll help the builder byprobably lessening the need for
an office staff, because it'sgoing to do the job of two or
three people and it's going tokeep a schedule.
It's going to keep timelineprojections better than a person
would.
But, all that being said, Idon't know if I ever will buy
into that all the way, becauseyou have to have a person to
(24:42):
input that data, so you've gotto give it that data to process
and you know it's going to cutthat person's roll down
significantly.
So you're basically askingtaking somebody from full-time
to part-time is what I'm tryingto say, and it still requires a
person to give it the facts.
So I don't know that that'llever completely take over, but
it's definitely going to makethings easier, all right.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Last thing on this, when we talk about AI and
construction is the CEO's beenissued, the job's done, pulled
off the site, everybody's happybecause they got an AI-assisted
build house and it went well.
You'd want to look back.
We sometimes think the phraseperformance review is a bad
thing, but a good boss will do aperformance review to help
improve process, find out fromhis people on the ground what
(25:23):
works well, what doesn't, wherethey can make changes.
Do you see any way AI canimprove that interaction you
have one-on-one or with a crewin general, when the job's done,
to say, hey, what can we do todo this better?
Speaker 2 (25:34):
I think if it improves communication along the
way, that's going to make for abetter end result.
And I do think that allowing ahomeowner or the contractor or
maybe a subcontractor, to keeptabs on that schedule, keep tabs
on that schedule, keep tabs onthe projection I think when you
set expectations and set thoserealistically, I think that's
the big deal with AIs it's goingto keep your project on
schedule better, but it's alsogoing to keep everybody in the
(25:55):
loop.
So there may be days when Ihave something to tell a
homeowner and I'm exhausted.
At the end of the day, I've got17 calls to return it's 530
already and maybe I didn't tellthat homeowner what we did that
day.
So you know, we've been veryproactive about utilizing
smartphones and just thetechnology we have now just to
shoot them a picture.
Hey, this is what happenedtoday.
Hey, this inspection went greattoday, just so you know.
And this is what's next nextweek.
(26:16):
So not having to worry aboutany of that anymore would be a
dream.
But, like I mentioned on thelast point, I don't know how you
get there without some sort ofhuman element to input that data
.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
I would agree with that.
I think if you could send me atext or a note, and even if AI
automated it, that said, hey, wefinished up this part of the
house today or tomorrow we'replanning on doing this.
Or I'd like to meet with yousometime this week to talk about
the color of the exterior doorthat you want to see, or if you
want it to be a six panel orwhatever.
(26:45):
I can definitely see how youcan integrate it, as long as
it's not something you depend on100% to do all your
communication with your clients,because I know it through the
sales side of it, you know itfrom the building side.
When people can see the otherhuman being, they're much more
comfortable in that relationship.
Maybe in the future some peoplewouldn't care if all they got
was stuff on a phone.
They might be fine with that.
(27:06):
But I don't think we're closeto that and AI is not going to
be a replacement.
Again, an assistant, right,yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
I think the end game that will probably affect us in
the immediate is that a lot ofcomputer folks are going to lose
their jobs to AI and it's sosad, but they got to find a
place to go and of course we'vedone whole shows on this.
But We've done whole shows onthis, but we in my world people
crab all the time about.
We can't find good people, wecan't find somebody with a legit
license, we can't find peoplethat want to come to work every
day.
And if a lot of those computerfolks are smart and really want
(27:32):
a big change because they justgot burned by AI, it's going to
push them to construction.
You can get into constructionat any age.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
And it would be a nice thing to see to have a lot
more competent folks in thelabor force.
And for all that talk abouthard to find help these days, to
just go away, we talked off theair.
The CEO of NVIDIA, which hasmade a gazillion dollars with AI
, recently said that computerprogrammers are not the job of
the future.
He said it's people that takeAI and use it out in the real
world.
So what you just said makesperfect sense.
If you know AI, if you'rewell-versed in it, learn a
little bit about construction,learn how you can implement that
with a construction degree oreven just certifications, and if
(28:11):
you can give the owner of acompany an incentive to say you
hire me, I'm going to improveyour building process, it's
going to go faster, be safer,it'll cost less for everybody
involved and in the end, yourcompany is just going to grow.
You've moved out of working infront of a computer in an office
and you're out in the sunshineand you're using this new tool
to make everybody's life easier.
(28:33):
Again, you can fear it and it'sgoing to take over.
Or you can say thanks for thehammer, thanks for the saw, I'm
going to go do something withthis now, and we shouldn't
really fear AI.
Science fiction makes it scary,but what you and I have crammed
, we've taken crash courses inthe past few weeks on AI.
We've learned a lot and it's awonderful thing.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Agreed All the way around.
Very well said.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
All right.
Well, we hope you enjoyedtoday's show on AI.
We'll put some of this stuff upon the website.
There is so much about it thatcan be beneficial.
Again, I'm not scared of AI.
I'm scared about thatself-healing cement we've talked
about for years.
But the Terminator Skynet thingreally isn't something to sit
around and worry about.
Look at AI as a tool, as mywife said.
(29:14):
Look at it as spellcheck.
It's glorified spellcheck.
It took what we put into it andjust made it work faster for us
.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
That was a great analogy.
Shout out to Kim.
She is the smarter half by far.
She great analogy.
Shout out to Kim she is thesmarter half by far.
She's also a hell of a cook.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
I'm glad you admitted it on the radio.
Again.
We'll put the information up onthe website,
thecarolinacontractorcom.
You check out our other socialmedia IG, facebook.
We got stuff on YouTube.
More of these shows are goingto be popping up with the videos
so you can watch it.
And you can just download itand listen to podcasts if you'd
rather do that.
Please stay in touch by goingto the website or contacting us
through that social media, alsobecause we love hearing from you
(29:47):
and give us some ideas, andthis show was not done
completely by AI, but it didassist us and you wouldn't have
known.
Donnie's not real.
As he said, he's just a figmentof AI's imagination.
So again, hit the website andwe hope to have you.
Tune in next week on theCarolina Contractor Show.
Have a great day everybody.
Tune in next week on theCarolina Contractor Show.
Have a great day everybody.
Thanks for listening to theCarolina Contractor Show.
(30:09):
Learn more atthecarolinacontractorcom.
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