AI trend watch: Togal.ai estimating

It seems the folks over at Togal.AI have a leading grasp on AI-enhanced construction estimating. If you feel your estimating software is growing outdated and lacking, I highly recommend giving these guys a look.

Who are they helping?

Per Togal, these are the current trades they’re focused on, with more to come:

Drywall

Electrical

Flooring

FF&E (Furniture fixtures equipment)

General contracting

Glazing/Windows & doors

Landscaping

Mechanical

Painting & wallpaper

Plumbing

What’s new with their approach?

They realize AI can’t replace human estimators completely, and they don’t try.  Instead, they give estimators both updated manual take off tools, as well as the AI-powered .  The AI tools are intended to help do the heavy lifting of repetitive actions.

The magic green button

Once you create a condition such as “Ceiling paint area”, you manually take-off one room, as shown in this screenshot.  Then pressing the ‘Togal’ button, the ‘AI’ works its magic to takeoff the remaining floor area. 

Result:

You can then fine tune the take off, trim out polygons, break apart conditions, etc.

GPT use in Togal

Togal allows you to speak to your drawings and specs with a Chat GPT 4.0 bot. You can ask it things like “How many fire extinguisher cabinets are there on the first floor?” and you’ll get a formatted response result. 

The GPT bot is not intended to do heavy thinking, but more like the ‘college intern’ helper as Togal’s team put it. It can help quickly find info that may have taken you down a time-costing tangent otherwise.

What does it mean for contractors?

AI buzz has people worried that jobs will be slashed, but I would be more optimistic. Tools like Togal allow estimators to spend less time on tedious bulk takeoffs, and can have more time to ask in-depth questions about specs, scope ownership questions, and have more interaction/input with clients.  GC’s can benefit here in that their subs have more time to help uncover/minimize scope gaps, a critical issue to avoid for all relationships at stake.. 

In this interview with L&L Paint, one of the largest paint contractors in the US, Mike Dekeris estimates around 20% of time saved per bid using Togal’s toolset. Not only does it save time, but makes the estimator feel more involved and present in the bid, beyond just “measuring walls” all the time.

Current drawing limitations

As of April 2024, Togal only supports architectural and architectural RCP type drawings. Once they wrap this up, they plan on adding MEP, civil, landscaping etc.

Impact on the construction industry

Smarter, AI-infused estimating will only improve over time, and I think the optimistic outlook is that this could help bridge the gap between slower estimating practices. Manual takeoffs may struggle to keep pace with fast-tracked job delivery expectations, where less-than-complete design documents require more RFI/emails/calls between teams. 

For trades to create accurate schedules and whole cost estimates, they must understand the scope as much as possible. Tools like Togal may help increase this understanding, and move the needle for everyone. 

Togal.ai website:  https://www.togal.ai/

Disclaimer:  Pangolin is not affiliated with Togal.ai in any way.