Startups are paying thousands for AEC conference booths and asking what they actually got for it.

AEC conference season is here, and almost nobody we talk to is coming home from these events happy.

On this week's Bricks, Bucks & Bytes, Dustin told us where Ediphi's event budget is going next year:

"I don't think we're gonna be spending money on these conferences."

Also on the episode:

• Why startups are skipping booths for side events and hyper-local customer hosting

• Autodesk promotes its Media & Entertainment lead to EVP of AEC

• Schneider Electric buys PTC for $22.6B in cash

• Data centre planning slows while institutional work grows, and the $4.2T question hanging over AI infrastructure

• Andrés Mitnik, CEO of Strong by Form (€5.8M Series A), on timber floors that compete with concrete

• Alex Michalatos, CEO of Buildcheck ($12M Series A), on AI design review for GCs

Is the big vendor conference still worth it, or is the side event the real event now?

Episode out on Youtube and Spotify. Link in comments.

#aec #constructiontech #bricksbucksandbytes #bricksandbytes

Our Sponsors:

Aphex is the multiplayer planning platform where construction teams plan together, stay aligned, and deliver projects faster – check out aphex.co

Archdesk - “The #1 Construction Management Software for Growing Companies - Manage your projects from Tender to Handover” check archdesk.com

Chapters

00:00 Teaser

01:23 Event season is here

02:18 How to survive conference season

05:57 Are construction conferences still worth it?

09:08 Autodesk's new head of AEC, Diana Colella

11:12 Schneider Electric buys PTC for $22.6B

17:01 Is data centre construction slowing down?

18:23 Is AI a bubble? The $4.2 trillion question

23:13 Help to Buy and the housing affordability problem

24:04 Strong by Form calls in from Berlin

24:24 Can wood replace concrete floors?

27:14 Timber vs concrete: the real cost comparison

31:08 Is mass timber sustainable? Reuse vs recycling

34:15 Why new building materials struggle to scale

36:24 Buildcheck calls in

37:27 How AI checks construction drawings for errors

42:21 How Buildcheck prices AI design review

46:04 AI design review vs BIM clash detection

48:40 How construction tech startups win over GCs

This week’s briefing covers three things that landed in the same week and all point at the same uncomfortable gap between what AI promises and what it actually delivers.

Suffolk, one of the biggest contractors in the US, published a white paper with MIT’s Center for Real Estate and MIT Media Lab this week. They took a real building, a 118,000 square foot multi-family block in San Francisco that finished in 2024 at 179 million dollars, and ran six AI levers across it simultaneously. Design automation, offsite manufacturing, permitting, scheduling, labour and subcontracting, and supply chain. The model took 28 million dollars out of 128 and seven months out of 30 on the construction phase alone. The unlevered return to the developer goes up by 5 to 6 percentage points, which the paper says can be the difference between housing getting built and housing not getting built at all.

Then the authors themselves. The per lever gains come from early stage pilots and should be treated as directional rather than construction validated benchmarks. The six levers only compound if data flows between them, and the paper says that needs a shared data infrastructure layer the levers themselves do not provide. The practitioners in the room ranked robots last despite academic studies being the most optimistic about them, because the studies measure performance in controlled conditions and practitioners are pricing in what it costs to create those conditions on a live site. Suffolk calls its own model a first pass. The work to prove it runs in 2027.

Then the market as it actually stands. Gardner and Theobald describe it as selective not cheaper. 69% of contractors say they are more selective than a year ago. MEP is the pinch point with 68% reporting tighter availability. In the US, contractors have absorbed roughly half the material cost rises from this year and JLL expects the rest to land in bids before year end. And on labour, UK right to work rules extended to the self employed and subcontractors from October 1st with fines of 60,000 pounds per worker. In the US, immigration enforcement is discouraging legal workers from reporting to sites in a workforce already 300,000 to 400,000 short.

Drop your answers to this week’s questions in the comments of this week’s LinkedIn post.

Can a CEO tell you what their company bought last year?

In today's episode we have Eldar Sadikov, CEO of Field Materials. He says most contractors can't, and he estimates 15 to 20% of materials spend gets lost to the mess.

• Around 25 to 30% of purchases are will calls, bought on the fly with no planned buyout behind them

• He reckons 50% or more of contractors still pay suppliers by cheque

His bar for a good CEO: "the CEO should be in the position to go and query this."

Episode live on YouTube & Spotify. Link in comments.

#aec #constructiontech #ai #bricksandbytes

Our Sponsors:

Aphex is the multiplayer planning platform where construction teams plan together, stay aligned, and deliver projects faster – check out aphex.co

Archdesk - “The #1 Construction Management Software for Growing Companies - Manage your projects from Tender to Handover” check archdesk.com

Chapters

00:00 Intro

00:48 Why Is Material Procurement Broken in Construction?

04:50 What Are the Hidden Problems Behind Construction Material Procurement?

09:05 How Much Do Material Procurement Issues Cost Construction Projects?

14:27 How Does the Construction Material Procurement Workflow Work?

16:22 Sponsor Message

24:36 How Does Field Materials Solve Construction Procurement Challenges?

34:59 Who Are the Key Stakeholders in Construction Procurement?

36:12 How Will AI and OpenClaw Change the Future of Procurement?

36:26 How Does Onboarding and Implementation Work for Procurement Software?

38:47 What Does a Day in the Life of a Project Manager Look Like With Procurement Software?

40:39 Who Are the Customers for Construction Procurement Software?

42:59 How Do You Measure ROI on Procurement Software in Construction?

46:43 What Role Will AI Play in Construction Procurement?

49:38 How Do You Evaluate Construction Procurement Software?

53:05 Why Do Procurement Software Implementations Fail?

56:57 Where Do Major ERP Players Fit in Construction Procurement?

1:00:48 What Is the Future of Construction Tech?