riverside edit   kenn, craig, karol karol's studio: Welcome to Roofing Road Trips, the podcast that takes you on a thrilling journey across the world of roofing. From fascinating interviews with roofing experts to on-the-road adventures, we'll uncover the stories, innovations, and challenges that shape the rooftops over our heads. So fasten your seat belts and join us as we embark on this exciting roofing road trip. Hi everybody and welcome to this episode of Riffing Road Trips. I am Carol Wyman, your host today, and I'm sitting down with Ken Fur and Craig Rainey from GP Estimate for a conversation that tackles some of the biggest misconceptions surrounding AI in the estimating process. Ken and Craig, thank you so much for being here today. Yeah, thanks for having us. Yeah, thanks so much. Yeah. Before we get started, Craig, will you introduce yourself? Yeah, absolutely. my name is Craig Rainey. I'm and out of Dallas, Texas. a little bit about me. I grew up in this roofing industry. My dad was a roofing contractor for over forty, fifty years. I've done everything from running service departments to marketing and and sales. So ro roofing's in my blood. I I grew up in the industry. I love this industry. Yeah. And you know, I'd I wouldn't I wouldn't be doing anything doing anything else. Yeah, they say once you go under roofing, you never leave. And I think that might be true. That is true, except for except for when I was a baby, I didn't have a little pacifier. I had a little a little mop. So did my old man was getting me ready to start, you mopping roofs down as soon as I as soon as I was able to walk. So, you know. It's in my blood. That's perfect. That's great. Ken, can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your company? Yeah. my name's Ken Fur. I was a commercial roof estimator for ten years. started actually working at the company that Craig's dad started in Dallas. currently, however, I live in El Paso, Texas, out here in far west Texas. and I said big commercial estimator for about ten years. started at a big company. moved around to couple other companies, some smaller, some smaller, that then got bought by private equity firms. So I kinda had a unique experience in jumping around a little big to small companies. And I saw a lot of I saw a lot of problems. I saw a lot of the same problems that estimators deal with, no matter the size of the company. And just after several years of hearing the same thing over and over from my coworkers and Other people in the industry kind of came up with this idea for a software that I think can make estimators' life a little bit easier. Try to eliminate some of the repetitive, tedious tasks that we all go through and get stuck on, get interrupted when we're in the middle of it and come back to the estimate and go, man, where was I at again? I don't remember. You know. So that was the birth of GP estimate. Well, that's great. And how long ago was that? we started building the software just a little over a year ago. and we we just launched still a soft launch beta phase. we launched in end of August. And IRE'll be our big kind of full hard launch coming out party. Yeah, that's wonderful. Yeah, IRE is a place to showcase that for sure, right? AI That's where he get that's where he got me hooked. Yeah. good. Yeah Yeah, about a year ago. We ran into each other. Yeah. And he was like, Man, I've been I got an idea. Yeah. And he he he showed it to me. I go, dude, this is amazing. This is exactly what the industry needs because we've been hurting in the estimating department for years on it keeps getting better and better. And having Craig a part of this, him coming from more of that owner side, you know, there's e everybody knows what they need for themselves, right? And so I could build something for estimators, but does that cover what project managers need? Does that cover what an owner needs to see out of a job, things like that. And so I think that's a a strong position for us. We've got all different perspectives adding to this software so hopefully everybody is getting what they need out of the software. Wow that's a that's great and what an exciting time for you to be able to move forward with this. I mean and I saw the website the website looks great so Yeah, you should check it out, everybody. But we'll talk about that later. So, you know, one of the things I wanted to ask is, you know, A AI seems to be everywhere right now. So what are some of the biggest misconceptions you're seeing in the roofing and construction industries? Mainly I it's a lot of what AI can do and can't do and what it should do. There's a lot of things that it can do that it shouldn't do, you know. so The biggest thing I I tell people is, everyone's afraid AI is gonna take your job. AI is not gonna replace humans. AI enhances human skills, it does not replace human skills. And anywhere you see AI and they're saying, Okay, this will replace a person, even if it could, you probably don't want it to. So I see a lot of AI phone answering services, a chat bot answers a phone and takes a message, you know? Well you you don't want a chat bot doing that. That's where you Those relationships with your customers, you want to keep that relationship strong. You don't want a chat bot answering the phone even if it can. And not for nothing, but I already have voicemail and caller ID on my phone. It works just fine. I don't need AI to answer the phone for me. Yeah. Yeah. Any thoughts? Yeah. Yeah. the biggest thing is, this is a a relationship driven industry. That's it. Exactly. So you don't want AI answering your phones and having conversations with your customers or potential customers. you want a you know, human in the loop in there actually having conversations and talking to people. Yeah. You're gonna hear us say those words a lot, human in the loop. Yeah. I mean like Ken said, there's little things that AI can do to help make your life better, but it's not gonna replace people. It enhances the skills you already have. It doesn't replace the skills. Yeah. Correct. Well well what's great, it it replaces the things that you don't really want to do, the tedious things, the duplications, the the kind of this can eliminate human error, but like then it gives you the time to answer the phone and to be there, you know, for the customer. So that's exactly right. Yeah. That's exactly right. Yep, absolutely. When contractors hear about new technology, what should they be focusing on rather than getting caught up in the hype of it? I say focus on what your job actually is. Focus on what the technology can actually do, and don't bring a flamethrower to an ice sculpture competition. Yeah. Bring the right bring the right tools to the job. You know, and in ev it's true on the roof, it's true on your computer doing an estimate. Yeah, focus on the deliverables that actually the actual deliver deliverables that you get at the end of the day, not the flashy demo and the bright lights and you know, all the all the fancy marketing. Focus on what is actually delivered to you at the end of the day. Right. And every every position within a company can be utilizing it differently. So you don't want to go out of your wheelhouse and be like, I can do marketing and like you've never done marketing before and you know, so i it it's really kinda knowing knowing your niche and knowing what you're good at and to enhance that is really what you're saying. Yeah. You can give a monkey a typewriter, he's not gonna write Moby Dick. that's so many of these. I love that. Yeah. So great. Yeah. So how has the conversation on estimating evolved over the last few years and what changes are your you paying closer attention to? it's it's more than just coming up with numbers. I I th I think it always has been, but I think People used to maybe get away a lot more with just saying, Hey, it's a thous a hundred thousand dollar roof, that's the number. I think that private equity, we all know that private equity has become a big subject in our industry. they're buying companies up. That's played a big role. you can't just say the roof's a hundred thousand dollars is twenty percent margin and that's all you gotta do as an estimator. So I I say that the job of an estimator is is three three steps. The first step is gathering information. Second step is converting that information into knowledge. And the third step is transferring knowledge. So doing your takeoff, you know, measure the roof 10,000 square feet. That's gathering information. reading the specs is gathering information, knowing your building codes, knowing your warranty requirements, that's gathering information. So, okay, the roof's 10,000 square feet, but converting information to knowledge is okay, how many fasteners do I need for that 10,000 square feet? Well, I need to know what is the wind uplift requirements. How many fasteners per board to meet that wind uplift requirements? That's converting information to knowledge. And then transferring knowledge is then giving a materialist to the project manager, making sure he orders the right number of fasteners, you know, for the estimate and orders the right thing. If it's a hospital, we need low VOC bonding adhesive, for example. That's converting information to knowledge. Making sure the PM orders the low VOC bonding adhesive and not the regular, so you don't have to double order materials, that's transferring knowledge. And getting those three steps right, that helps mitigate losing money on a job, mistakes. It doesn't guarantee you're not gonna make mistakes. But the more granul granular you are in gathering that information, converting that information to knowledge, it also helps you that when a mistake happens, you know you can identify where the mistake was. Was this the crews aren't trained up, you know, maybe that's the TPO crew you put on an EPN PT E PDM job. And so, you know. They're on the wrong system, so they're slower than the estimator expected to be. Or maybe the estimator, hey, he gave us three hours to do a thousand feet of coping cap. Okay, well the estimator needs some training on how to bid coping cap, you know. But you can identify where the problem is when you do make mistakes. So now mistakes aren't problems, it's opportunities to learn and get better. Anything to add, Craig? Yeah, over the over the past few years, with the advancement of AI, you're hearing more and more about how AI can do the whole process for you. And it's I mean, I'm sure it could, but it's gonna miss things. You're not you know, it doesn't know if a building is FM insured, you know, what wind wind rating area a building is in, maybe any special, you know, low flashing height details that need to be done. So could it do could it do it for you? Yes, but I I definitely wouldn't trust it. And the devil's in the details when it comes to to the this commercial roofing, especially. So where do you see the balance between technology and human expertise and the estimating process today? It it's all human expertise. The balance is human expertise using tools, and technology is just a tool, and it's only as good as the human expertise behind it. Like I used the joke earlier about give a monkey a typewriter, still not gonna write Moby Dick. So it's always gonna be human expertise and technology is only a tool to use the for the human to use. Yeah, I mean the human has the experience of Okay, yeah, we're putting down a a sixty mil T PO over a over a metal deck mechanically fastened, but the roof's not wide open. It's in the middle of a roof that's, you know, four hundred yards away. There's power lines overhead, it's over a critical area of the facility, like there's there's the human aspect of it that have having have been there before and done it before that the AI can't take into consideration. Yeah. No. That's a human in the loop, like you said, human in the loop. Right. Well, and I think with GP estimate, you know, you're you're using technology in the right way where you're able to get away from pen and paper for sure. And you're able to really answer those questions about making sure the takeoff is accurate and you know, having kind of the expertise built into the system for that. but you're using humans to focus on what's really important. And that's critical thinking and the relationships, et cetera. Yeah. The AI can do some of the tedious, repetitive stuff, but the human still needs to know what he's doing. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So what challenges are commercial estimators facing that many contractors may not realize? It's i i construction in general, not just estimating. Any job in construction is can be stressful, it can be chaotic. And that's just the nature of the beast. We know that. But I I can certainly say I think a lot of that stress and chaos could be eliminated if everyone was more proactive. You know, each person in the job was more proactive. So that's when I talk about the three steps of doing an estimate of gathering information, get converting information to knowledge, transfer of knowledge. The better an estimator is at doing those three steps, the more proactive. the whole company can be and the less stress and chaos you'll have at the end of the day. And I think for the owners and contractors, creating an environment, establishing SOPs and whatever that help the estimator do those three steps well, that's how we're gonna get better. Yeah. Yep. And and you know, like Ken said, having, you know, SOPs in place because, you know, just like out in the field, you know, we we're s seeing a shortage in, you know, labor out in the field. Well we're seeing a lot the same thing internally too, that there's not a lot of estimators out there with a lot of commercial experience. So being able to help transfer and educate them while Training them how to estimate and walk them through the processes is is is key to a company's survival for sure. It's crucial. So for contractors who are curious about AI but aren't sure where to start, what's the mindset they should bring to evaluating new tools? I say first, don't be afraid of it. you know, you've been using AI for longer than you realize. Like autocorrect on your phone is really just a form of AI, you know. Secondly, I'd say don't trust it completely. You know, keep human in the loop. We've heard us say a million times already. with the example of auto-correct on your phone, you know, that's a form of AI, but never in my life have I meant to text somebody, duck you. I gotta double check the work, you know. That's true. That's very true. It's true. Yeah, I mean and you know, start small. You know, figure out the little meaningful, you know, tasks that it can start knocking out for you. Yeah. And then go from there. you know, one of my colleagues is learning how to use one of the the big the big two or three AI agents out there will remain nameless. They but basically asked it, Hey, teach me how to ask you how f how you can help me. And it was like, Okay, this is the best way for me to help you type scenario. So start small and just go from there. Yeah. Yeah, and I think refining, so like when you realize they didn't answer the question, it's almost like talking to a person and you're like, wait a second. I really was hoping that you would organize that in a different way, maybe chronologically, or you'd do this, or k what are the right steps, not just random. so once you talk to it a little bit, it's really makes it much much more effective too. Yeah, and yeah, and everyone talks about AI hallucination, which is a AI hallucination is AI doesn't know the answer, so it makes something up. And I tell people that really is like artificial humanity. That's what humans do too. You know? Yeah. Yeah. It's it's what's It's only as good as information as fad, right? That's that's right. Yep. Yep, a hundred percent. You know, it you know, speaking of asking you to do little tasks, you know, I'm I'm probably one of the most forgetful per people that I know. So I have an AI agent that sits there and reminds me that's connected to my email and sit there and dings me, Hey, this email came in eight hours ago, was asking for this, and I want to get back to it. Like, that's great. Yeah. So That's a good use of AI, right? That's Yeah. It's like do you want me to draft something? No, absolutely. It's like Yes, draft it and then let me review it. It's like perfect. Mm-hmm. Yep. For sure. You know, so looking ahead, what trends do you believe will have the biggest impact on estimating and pre construction workflows? I I think we're we're on the verge of a really good opportunity throughout the whole industry to really make a a positive change in how the industry works in general. And and technology adoption in general is the key to that. I think a lot of people in the industry historically haven't been super techie people. I think the key to a successful company is being proactive and not reactive, and technology is a great tool to help make it easy for you to be proactive. And now that you know contractors are adopting more technology, I think they're finding that's a lot easier. And it just makes everyone's life at the company a little less stressful. They keep employees longer, you don't have the same turnover, and it's just a better way of doing business. Yeah, I I think in five years, you know, there's not gonna be the same number of AI powered companies out there. AI powered companies out there. I think it's a big push right now, but I think we're gonna see ever I wanna s I don't want to say a bunch of consolidating, but I think there's gonna be partnerships formed and your the people that that got in the industry just because it's you know, sexy and there's money to be made in roofing, they're gonna th they're gonna they're gonna fade out because they I mean they're not of the industry and they're not born of the industry. They don't know what it needs. Yeah, we're seeing a lot more contractors, people with contracting experience getting into creating help create create software for contractors because they know what contractors need. So being able to take a project cradle to grave through one software I think is going to be huge. rather it's you know yeah, our our company mission statement is more signal, less noise. And so talking about being proactive and Craig's talking about with that cradle to grave or call to close, I like to say, like software can be good at giving you high quality signal and it can be good at minimizing noise, but like Craig said about all these siloed softwares, you've got five softwares to do one job, and that's gonna go away, and you're gonna see more of everything in one that can handle call to close, cradle to grave. And that's when you're gonna have better quality signal and let the job's less noisy. Yep, absolutely. So if the audience could take away just one bit of piece of information that we talked about today, what would it be? I I would say embrace technology, use it to your advantage. It can be very helpful. Don't trust computers to do everything. Hire good, talented, experienced people. Technology is your friend and it can help make you more proactive and that's the most important thing to success. Yeah. I would want people to walk away knowing that, AI is out there, the tools are out there, trust but verify, and and realize that you know AI is a tool, it's not the catch all, fix all, but it can definitely make you know your your estimators, your project managers. More efficient and therefore more dangerous. Well said. so for those that wanna get a hold of you for GP Estimate, where can they go? www.gpstimate dot com. G P S T I A T E dot com. You can also email sales at gpestimate.com and that would go to any of us at the company and we'll be right back to you as soon as possible. That's great. and we also have a directory for you at Riffers Coffee Shop. So you can come to that and it will direct you to your website and Yep. Yeah, it it'll be it's it's great. It's it's great to see all that you're doing. I'm I know our please sign up for our booth at IRE too 'cause I think that you know, we'll have a sound stage there. we're excited to see you guys there. Right. and I just wanna thank you t for taking the time today. to to be on our show. Thanks so much for having us. It's been a thrill. Thanks for having us. Really enjoyed it. Yeah. Yes. And until next time, this is Riffing Road Trips. Take care, everyone. If you've enjoyed the ride, don't forget to hit that subscribe button and join us on every roofing adventure. Make sure to visit rooferscoffeeshop.com to learn more. Thanks for tuning in and we'll catch you on the next roofing road trip.