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KP Unpacked
KP Unpacked explores the biggest ideas in AEC, AI, and innovation—unpacking the trends, technology, discussions, and strategies shaping the built environment and beyond.
KP Unpacked
AI in AEC: Faster, Smarter Proposals
Proposal writing is the backbone of AEC firms—but it's also a time-consuming and resource-intensive process. In this episode of AI in AEC, Jeff Echols and Frank Lazaro break down how AI-powered tools are transforming the way firms create proposals, saving time, improving efficiency, and boosting win rates.
From ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot to industry-specific tools like Joist AI, WorkOrb, and Uninet’s AI-powered proposal system, we explore how AI streamlines proposal creation by repurposing past content, ensuring consistency, and reducing the workload on technical staff.
Key Takeaways:
- How AI reduces proposal creation time, freeing up billable hours
- Why AI-driven proposals lead to improved consistency and quality
- The best AI-powered proposal tools for AEC firms
- The real ROI: How saving just 12 minutes a day can add up to $6,000+ per employee per year
Tune in to learn how AI can help your firm work smarter, not harder in the proposal process.
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All right, welcome back to KP Unpacked. This is where the biggest ideas in AEC, ai and innovation all collide. There's a Venn diagram. Imagine a Venn diagram of AEC and AI and innovation and this overlap right. It's where you've hatched and you've cross-hatched and you've cross-hatched again. That's where KP Unpacked is. It's powered by KP ReadyCo. This podcast breaks down the trends, the technology, the discussions and the strategies that are shaping the built environment and beyond by now.
Speaker 1:I've said this a number of times. I know producer Ethan gets tired of hearing me say this because he has to listen to it over and over and over as he's producing all these podcast episodes. But you may be used to coming to KP Unpacked and seeing me and KP Ready the founder and CEO of KP Ready Co and also the founder of Shadow Ventures but we're rolling out different versions of this. We could call this AI Unpacked. I'm joined today by my teammate at KP ReadyCo, frank Lazzaro.
Speaker 1:My name is Jeff Eccles. I didn't even introduce myself. My name is Jeff Eccles. I'm a senior advisor here at KP ReadyCo. Frank is also a senior advisor. He is one that heads up our advisory services at KP ReadyCo. Frank is also a senior advisor. He is one that heads up our advisory services at KP ReadyCo, and he's also the author of Finding 12 Minutes Unlocking Efficiency with Generative AI. I love this version of the podcast that we do because I get to learn a lot. It also gives us the opportunity to bring some real world applicable lessons for how AEC firms can choose and apply AI tools in their practices. So, frank, thanks for joining me today. Welcome, I'm glad you're here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, glad to be back. Yeah, it's pretty exciting, I think you know thinking about these tools and things. You know a lot of like what we even do internally, which I think our clients like to hear the fact that, like we're doing what we're preaching right, like you should be doing these things, but we're also implementing and integrating a lot of those things in our own workflow. So it's exciting to have this conversation, so it's exciting to have this conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and testing and throwing out and making mistakes and learning Right In a way, we're doing it, so some of you don't have to. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, it's interesting. I made a. I made a comment to someone recently. I'm like, listen, I have canceled more AI subscriptions than subscriptions I've kept Right, and a lot of it is is because I want to test it. I want to see what it, what it does and how it works and all of those things. So if someone asks me a question, I can easily say back yeah, I tried that, but I prefer this versus that and give them some answers to that. But yeah, I've, I've, I've canceled more than I've kept over the last several months.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it makes a lot of sense when we think about emerging technology. In the previous episode, we were talking about putting together presentations, but at the very beginning of the episode, we were talking about 12 minutes a day, which I want you to briefly explain again, and I mentioned your book that people can find wherever you buy books that 12 minutes a day. I did the simple calculation right and you're going to explain it here. But if you think about an ROI, what's an ROI of using AI? The number that I came up with and I want people to do this calculation for themselves after they've heard Frank explain it, but the number that I came up with is, I think, that your firm can save or find an ROI of $6,000 per year per employee. That's, finding 12 minutes a day to use AI. So tell us what the 12-minute rule is.
Speaker 2:And the cool part about that is is that that is not utilizing AI in any specialty application. It's not about design, it's not about any of that, right, it's all about just the administrative side. So the concept behind 12 minutes is, if you can use generative AI to save yourself 12 minutes per day in any given week, you can save up to an hour of time, right. Kind of take that out through the whole year with vacations and a bunch of other stuff. You're upwards of 40 hours of additional found minutes or time in a given year that can then be converted to billable time, right. So when we think about what most firms think about, right, utilization is a big metric that we track in our industry. How do we manufacture more time? Well, we can't. Right, generative AI completely flips that on its script in terms of like, yeah, you can manufacture time, so it was interesting, you can manufacture that. So I was interesting.
Speaker 2:I was giving a keynote at a conference and a CEO came up to me afterwards and I have a slide that has all the math on it and he says I did this calculation. He says, and there were, I think, about 2000 person, firm or something like that average billable rate of 275. He says I can generate $2.5 million at a 10% capture rate on those hours saved. And then you think about that $2.5 million in just saving 12 minutes per person. Now, granted, that's a big firm, but even at a small firm, you think about a 200-person firm. If everyone saved 12 minutes and you were able to capture just 10% of those back, that's an additional 1,000 hours per year times your average billable rate. Basically, it's your ROI. So that's why you should be doing this. You should be doing it because you can actually generate revenue from it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, in the last episode we talked about faster, better presentations. Presentations are a thing, right, whether it's for clients or for the city, county council or in-house team or whatever it is. It's a thing. But the heartbeat of professional services is really proposals, and when I put on the management consultant hat, I've got a lot of thoughts on proposals and the amount of time that's spent on proposals, and some of that is are we proposing things to the right people, right Ideal clients and things like that, which is not what this show is about. Could we even be pursuing this proposal? Exactly, exactly what's your go no-go process? Do you know what that is?
Speaker 2:That's going to be a whole nother episode, I think. What's your go-no-go process? Do you know what that is?
Speaker 1:That's going to be a whole other episode. I think We'll get there. That's a whole different show. Maybe there's an AI go-no-go that I'd be interested in, but actually there should be. Now that I think about it, in our incubator, about two or three cohorts ago, there was an AI tool that went through a go-no-go process. So there are things out there, okay. So that will be another episode. We'll get to that. Today, we're going to talk about faster, smarter proposals. How much time is your team spending trying to win the work, and not even just the business development aspect, but writing the proposal, which seems really insane? I've been there, done that right. My background is architecture 20, 23, 25 years, whatever. In firms. I've written a lot of proposals and I know I've spent a lot of time writing proposals, the majority of which, if you're not really paying attention, you're not really doing it right, you may be losing right. So you're flushing all that time down the toilet. Why not use AI to create faster, smarter proposals? So how do we do that, frank?
Speaker 2:So you know. It's interesting, though, is that you think about that. What you just said there. You know, even a lot of firms have a hard time capturing what is the true cost of pursuing that work. Oh, yeah, right. So if you think about if you had four people that are on a proposal team and they're all putting in 10 hours each to do that, that's 40 hours of work, people hours that require to get that proposal out the door. And that's a minimum, right, because sometimes you have more than four people. I've been on pursuits where there's 10 people in the room, right, and if everyone's putting in four, five, six, 10 hours, what you're talking about is anywhere from 100 hours to 80 hours to do a pursuit. That's a lot of time. So it's interesting.
Speaker 2:When generative AI first came out and it hit this industry, one of the first immediate things that everyone was was focused on was how do I use chat, gpt to help me do proposals? That was like that, that that was literally nonstop for like the first 12 months that everyone was talking about. How do we do this? How do we, how do I use, how do I use, generative AI to do that? And, interestingly enough, I think a lot of people have figured it out, but what you're finding is that now the maturity level of that is that now you're starting to see goes back to the concept that we talked about in the last episode around. I'm waiting for that specialty app in the AEC industry.
Speaker 2:Proposals is the first place where you're going to see that, because in the last 12 months there are several companies that have popped up that have created products that are totally geared towards our industry, that solely focus on proposals. But that's a huge time savings and when we say that, it's like it's not the marketers, by the way, yes, you don't have a big marketing team and you can make them more efficient, but every proposal requires the technical staff to be on there and they're the ones that are billable. How do you streamline their time, whether it's creation or whatever it is in that pursuit process, to allow them to get back to the billable work, get back to the client work and then basically make the proposal Like why am I spending 40 hours? Can I spend 20 hours? Can I get a proposal out the door in 10 hours? That'll be like. Then you start thinking about okay, can I pursue more work? Now you start seeing the real ROI is that I can get more out the door. I'm taking the billable people and spending less time with them.
Speaker 1:So there's a variety of mechanisms that these tools have really kind of teed up that it's just ripe for efficiency. Yeah, yeah, I'll give you a tangible example. I mean this has got a couple of years of age on this example now, but back in the day it was completely relevant. I was working with a firm again management consultant hat on at that point but I built a calculator for them because they they had started, they'd started to see some decline and we figured out that in one office this is a multi-office firm um, in one office, in in one year they had spent, you know, in the billable hours everything you were just explaining they had spent in you know in the billable hours, everything you were just explaining they had spent a quarter of a million dollars in one year on losses, on proposals that they lost.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you think about that, I mean it is the, the numbers, and, and that's again, that was one office, you know, in a multi-, in a fairly large firm. So over the spread of the whole firm it was upwards of $1.5 million that they had spent on losses. It's amazing, Of course not using any tools like this and other factors, but yeah, it's concrete.
Speaker 2:But what's interesting, though, is I think the smaller firms have a tendency to be impacted by this more in the sense that if you're like, if you're a 100 person firm, or or 75 person firm, pulling 10 of your work force into a proposal seven people, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, could have significant impacts to just revenue being billable revenue anywhere within the organization. Yeah, and we all wear multiple hats, right. So that's the thing you know. So I think that what you'll find is that the smaller the firm you have, the more benefit that you'll gain from some of these tools, simply because you just don't have the staffing to do that. You know, if you're a 2000 person firm and you have 20 people in marketing, all you're doing is throwing bodies at the problem, where you can then sit there and say, well, can I not reduce headcount? But you could sit there and say that I don't have to grow headcount as the business grows because one person can operate like two people, because they have the AI tool. So it's almost like a staffing mitigation tool for a large organization, but it is a game changer for some smaller organizations, because they can operate in a manner that a large, large organization just has the resources to throw at.
Speaker 1:Sure, sure, okay. So large firm, small firm, maybe, if you um are at a smaller firm, you're listening to this and we've piqued your interest, if you are at a smaller firm, you're listening to this and we've piqued your interest. What are some of the tools that are out there that people should take a look at, that they should consider?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so interesting. Chat GPT is probably still a good tool and, jeff, you probably know this as well as I do. Our industry is built on this concept of a go-by. We never create a proposal that's new from scratch. It's always like, well, let's go back to the previous proposal and then we're going to update it. And that's where you really see the power in a lot of these tools is that being able to just repurpose something that we've done previously into something new is really one of the key power tools that the AI really kind of brings to the forefront. Chatgpt does a great job. Now you have to learn ChatGPT and there's some nuances to it that you really kind of get the massage. But when you start realizing that now there are some specialty tools out there one of the first ones that came out was Joyceai and essentially that is an AI, it's an AEC-powered proposal tool and, matter of fact, if you've been to any conference lately, they're sponsoring and they're available and you can see the demos. But it is interesting on how, seeing that tool to sit there and go, wow, it's really purpose-built, it's taking my data and I'm able to kind of get to. Wow, it's really purpose-built, it's taking my data and I'm able to kind of get to that and it's streamlining that process. There are some newer ones out there that are very similar to the Joyce WorkOrb is another one. I've seen them on the speaking circuit. They're constantly sponsoring stuff. Obviously, chachi Petit, copilot again not specialty built, but they're there.
Speaker 2:But then you see other things like and I don't know if you've known this, it was in the news but Uninet, which is basically an ERP and CRM platform, recently bought a GovCon AI proposal tool out of DC. So where does that go? And then you start thinking about like, oh, they're going to integrate that into their CRM. They're going to. So now you start. Now you're starting to see that, matter of fact, open Asset, which was basically an asset company, so it manages my images, it manages this. They just announced their AI tool.
Speaker 2:So now you're starting to see all these specialty tools that are coming out. You had some standalones that were out there, some new standalones that just popped up in the last six months, but then there's some real big key players, particularly on the ERP CRM side, that are now starting to think about how do I integrate that creation tool in a tool that I already know that you're using. So think about the way I look at this, right, and you take like Uninet as an example. If I enter in my opportunity, I score it, I want to pursue it and then I could start creating content off of my own content all within the same platform. That's a lot of power, right? I just streamline my workflow.
Speaker 2:That's where you're starting to see a lot of these things. So there's a lot of good ones out there. I like ChatGPT. That's just you know. I'm kind of like that old school coder. It gives me a lot of flexibility and power to do it. But there are plenty of just you know purpose-built tools and even some existing tools that you wouldn't have expected to be out there, that are really kind of leaning into it.
Speaker 1:All right, that's a good list of tools there, and if you're listening to this, you go oh, what did he just say? I mean, you can rewind, certainly you can back it up, but producer Ethan will also put links to everything that we talk about, including the list of tools, in the show notes, wherever it is that you consume this content, and what I would ask of you out there is, if there's a tool that you use for this that we didn't talk about that Frank didn't mention, go ahead and drop it into the comments here, because it's you know, we're recording this at the end of February 2025. If you're listening to this in April of 2025, there's probably a new tool out there, or three, by the time you're listening to it. So go ahead and drop your either your tool or your question into the comments. Let's let's continue the conversation.
Speaker 1:So we decide on one of these tools, we try out some of these tools and we we start to to get comfortable with them. They can help us speed up our process. Certainly, that's really a lot of what we focused on at the beginning of the show. They can take a lot of the manual effort. You know, when you were talking about the ERP and the CRM. I'm going yeah, absolutely. That makes a lot of sense because that's where all my client information is, or all my prospect information is. So it takes that manual, putting the client in and applying client info and everything in takes that out of it. And you also mentioned that here in the AEC world and in others in professional services we don't create anything from scratch. We go back to the last one we did for that client or a similar client or a similar project type or whatever. So those are some of the pros of using these types of tools. What about on the other side? What are some of the drawbacks, some of the cons of using these tools?
Speaker 2:Yeah, One other pro I don't think we touched on. I want to touch on it real briefly before we jump into the cons. But the improved consistency, right. So having a tool that allows you to consistently create high quality, unique content off of your existing content, that can't be underestimated. I think that that's one thing where you can really use these tools to sit there and say, yep, every proposal that I'm producing is of the standard that I want my organization to have. Some of the cons right Again, I think we've touched on this previously. Right, Some of these tools do require additional subscriptions. Right, it's like it's just one more thing we got to add on to what we're doing, but some of them, you know, I think there's a misconception that these tools kind of replace humans, and I like to use the example of you know, you, you, you, coming from the architecture world, you just giving me AutoCAD does not make me an architect. Right, Like, can I draw a bridge? Sure, Would you, would I drive on it?
Speaker 1:Absolutely not Fair enough.
Speaker 2:But just so, just giving somebody the tool does not make them creative. It also doesn't replace the person, which I think is that that is. A key distinction is that the tool is only as good as the person using it. So you have to be creative to get something creative out of it, if you like. You can't take a non-proposal person manager and then make them a proposal manager just by giving them the AI tool. It'll make their job easier and can they produce something. Yes.
Speaker 2:So some of the cons is that you still need that human to kind of drive the boat right. Yes, there's an autopilot piece to it and a bunch of other stuff, but you still need someone, still needs to have the oversight. They still need to review it. They still need to kind of have that human touch right. Challenge that we have a lot of AI written content is is that it tends to sound mechanical in some ways. So human oversight I think is is, is a it's required. And that's one of those things to where you talk to some firm leaders like well, I can reduce headcount and I'm like not necessarily right.
Speaker 2:The other con is is just giving someone the tool doesn't mean they know how to use it right. So training is important. One of the things that you find with more. A lot of firms that I talk to that when they think of training dollars, it's really for their technical side, their PMs. Right, they'll spend a ton of money to send someone to a PM boot camp, but marketing traditionally hasn't had a lot of training dollars. But that's something that most firms have to think about from a cons perspective, like you're going to have to rethink where the training dollars are coming from and what tools that you're training on, which I think is important. So those are some of the cons, right. Like just giving the tool doesn't mean that you're going to be efficient. You know you got to spend money on the training and you know you still need the humans to kind of help drive the boat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And remember, on the con side, go back to Frank's 12 minute rule. You've probably already made up, or you probably will make up, the that con right, the cost of training, or or, and or the tool in the time, made up by using the tool, so that you know that's something to keep in mind.
Speaker 2:All right, Well, it's interesting. Go back to the firm that talked to me after my, my, my, my one presentation, and he's like you know. I can generate $2.5 million by incorporating AI in the 12 minuteminute concept. He says it may cost me $200,000, but there's not a leader on this planet that wouldn't spend $200,000 to make $2.5 million. Right, exactly. So your ROI is there. You just have to figure out how it integrates into your existing workflows.
Speaker 1:Yep, absolutely Okay. Action steps. If I am a proposal manager or the head of marketing or maybe a business developer in an AEC firm, what's my takeaway? What do I need to do this week to take action and realize what I can do with some of these tools?
Speaker 2:So firstly, right off the bat, one you have to get out of the mindset of the only tool out there is a chat GPT, right. There are other tools out there that are easier to implement and integrate and some of them are purpose-built. So you got to get in the mindset that the world, the generative AI world, does not revolve around chat GPT and that's not saying that I'm not being negative on it, because I tend to use it every day myself. It has and it can do what you want it to do. But just realize that the one key takeaway is you know, open your horizon and understand that there are other tools out there that may be better suited for what you're doing. And I'm not going to repeat this almost every episode Start with the problem what are you trying to solve?
Speaker 2:And then focus on the tool. Don't start with the tool, don't be a hammer in the search for a nail. Understand what you're trying to do and then go purchase the appropriate tool to do that. Your horizon and understand that there's more tools out there than ChatGPT. The second key takeaway is, if you haven't already started thinking about it, start thinking about training. How do I not only train the marketers to use these tools, but you got to remember you have non-marketers that are also part of the proposal process and all this other stuff. How do you train them? How do you train that engineer to trust and and use chat, gpt, co-pilot, any of the other proposal tools that we talked about so that they can be more efficient as well? So, one, broaden your horizons and, two, think about how you're training your whole organization.
Speaker 1:There you go. This is how you can use AI to create faster, smarter proposals. And I don't know, maybe you hear that and you go.
Speaker 1:I don't know, do I need that? Yes, you need that. Just take our word for it If you haven't already figured that out. You need faster, smarter proposals. Maybe some other organizational processes in place as well, but here's a great list of tools Joist, ai, workorb, uninet, proposal AI, chatgpt, microsoft Copilot. Again, all the links for everything that we talk about will be in the show notes down below. Thanks to producer Ethan. Add the tools that you use or the questions about these tools that you have in the comments for wherever it is that you are consuming this content right now.
Speaker 1:Frank and I will be back again next week with another AI Unpacked. This is another version of KP Unpacked, the podcast that is where the biggest ideas in AEC and AI and innovation. They all collide together right here at this intersection, and this is where KP Unpacked is. It's powered by KP ReadyCo. This podcast breaks down the trends, the technologies, the discussion, the strategies that are shaping the built environment and beyond. As always, I'm joined by my teammate, frank Lazzaro here at KP ReadyCo. Frank is also the author of Finding 12 Minutes Unlocking Efficiency with Generative AI. Go find that on Amazon or wherever you purchase books. Frank, thank you for this.
Speaker 2:Great to have you back on Looking forward to next week.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, this is a fun one. I enjoy this. Thank you to all of you that are listening or watching, wherever it is that you're listening or watching. We'll see you again next week. Thanks, everybody.
Speaker 3:Want to explore the AI tools we covered today or need help integrating AI at your firm? Reach out at kpreadyco slash contact. Not sure where to start? Take our free innovation assessment at kpreadyco slash dial. No-transcript.