Startup Trunk Tools is using AI to reduce construction errors and waste

Homebuilding has long been one of the slowest industries to modernize, and commercial construction isn’t far behind.

Homebuilding has long been one of the slowest industries to modernize, and commercial construction isn’t far behind. Its scale is enormous, and yet it remains one of the least digitized industries in the world.

That lack of innovation in commercial technology contributes to outdated documentation and errors in tasks that then have to be redone as well as administrative drag. It’s a huge drain on time, budgets and materials and can lead to costly delays and unnecessary environmental waste.

All told, it contributes to nearly $1 trillion in lost productivity each year, according to an August 2024 report from McKinsey Global Institute. Historically, construction companies spent an average of less than 1% of revenues on IT, less than a third of what is common in automotive and aerospace, according to the report.

Sarah Buchner learned all this the hard way. The daughter of a carpenter in Austria, she came to the U.S. to learn construction and worked her way up to foreman, superintendent and eventually contractor.

“At the peak, I was running a $400 million high-rise, 600 guys working for me in the job. And on that specific construction side, I had a fatality, which in construction happens, unfortunately, a lot,” she said. “But I was, I think, very young, and couldn’t fully process what was happening.”