Construction

The construction AI problem Annija Eizenarma would solve first

Cross-company coordination, not internal workflow. What a subcontractor communication hub must do, and the six questions to ask before signing.

Coordination between companies. Asked which AI applications genuinely make sense for construction businesses, Annija Eizenarma — a founder, investor and adviser to technology companies selling into legacy industries — went straight to the communication between a general contractor and every subcontractor on the job. Two products in that category have raised Series B rounds: $40M in July 2025 and $16M in June 2024.

Most construction companies run this layer on email threads, texts, phone calls, shared drives and a project management platform only some of the parties log into. The work gets done. The record of what was communicated, to whom, and when, sits outside any single system.

What did the operator actually say construction needs?

One place where cross-company communication lives. Speaking to Artificial Reality, the AI buyer-evidence podcast hosted by Galina Fendikevich, Annija Eizenarma answered the question about useful AI in construction this way:

"In construction industry, what is important is the interconnectivity with all of the subcontractors and all of the construction companies that are working for them as well. So really important task to work on is how to ensure that this communication with all the other companies that are involved in delivering successful projects are united in a single platform in an efficient way."

The unit of coordination there is cross-company, not internal. A project is a temporary federation of businesses that share no HR system, no CRM and no document standard, which is why internal collaboration tools do not fix it: half the people who need to answer do not work for the company that bought the tool.

What is a construction subcontractor communication hub?

A construction subcontractor communication hub is software that centralizes project communication between a general contractor and its subcontractors, suppliers and field crews — requests for information, change orders, schedule updates, field questions and approvals — in one shared, trackable system rather than in individual email threads, text messages and phone calls.

It is not a project management platform, which is a system of record for one company, and it is not team chat, which is a system of conversation for one company. It is a system of coordination between companies, and its defining test is whether the counterparty who does not pay for it will actually use it.

What should you require from one?

Six criteria. The first four are stated or directly described by Annija Eizenarma; the last two are Artificial Reality's editorial extension of the constraints she identified.

One place for cross-company project communication spanning the general contractor and every subcontractor and vendor on the job, not just internal staff.
Integration with what you already run rather than a replacement for it. Her description of the successful pattern is AI "building and plugging in their existing platforms that they use to provide more convenient communication."
One narrow, provable job first — a single visible coordination failure solved and demonstrated before scope expands.
Plain-language positioning. Her guidance to builders was "as little tech words as possible, more focusing on the solution itself and the end outcome."
Near-zero onboarding burden on the subcontractor side (Artificial Reality inference). If a sub has to open an account and learn an interface to answer a question, the hub gets routed around.
An auditable record of who was told what, and when (Artificial Reality inference). The coordination trail is also the dispute-resolution trail.

Which products are in this category?

Four identified by Artificial Reality as apparently relevant. Not ranked, not tested, and none named or evaluated by the operator. Trunk Tools deploys AI agents on top of a project's existing documentation and tools so field teams and subcontractors get answers without a migration; $40M Series B led by Insight Partners, July 2025. Clearstory is a cross-company change-order network connecting general contractors and specialty subcontractors to share, approve and track out-of-contract work; $16M Series B, June 2024.

Constructable is AI-native construction management for mid-size general contractors, with AI search across project communications, RFIs and submittals plus bid management, backed by Y Combinator (S23) and Khosla Ventures. Assignar coordinates crews, equipment, schedules and field data, founded by a former subcontractor, approximately $45M raised through Series B.

What to ask before you sign

Ask who has to change their behaviour for this to work. If the answer includes subcontractors who are not your employees and are not paying for the tool, ask for a named reference where sub-side adoption held.

Ask whether it reads from what you already have, because a hub that needs clean, complete data on day one fails in an environment that is fragmented by default. Ask which single workflow the vendor would deploy first and what result they expect in 30 days. Ask what the export looks like when a dispute starts.

Then apply the diagnostic Annija Eizenarma treats as more than style: can they explain it without AI vocabulary? A vendor who cannot describe the outcome in your language usually has not spent time in your world. And ask who else in your industry uses it. In this market the referral loop is the real evaluation mechanism, so use it.

Start with the coordination failure that costs you most this month, buy the narrowest product that addresses it, and judge it in 30 days on whether the subcontractors answered inside the system.