Construction leaders are bombarded with AI promises, but most lack the framework to separate transformative technology from hype. This guide gives you the exact questions to ask any vendor — across operational fit, technical depth, long-term viability, and data security — so you can invest with confidence and put AI to work where it matters most: on the jobsite.
How to use this questionnaire
- Before your next vendor meeting or RFP, share this guide with your evaluation team and align on the questions.
- During the demo, ask these questions directly. Watch for specificity — vendors with real depth welcome scrutiny.
- After the evaluation, score each vendor against the framework and compare results side-by-side. Let the data, not the demo, drive the decision.
Not all AI is created equal
Before diving into the questions, it helps to know that “AI” covers a wide spectrum:
- White-label wrappers — branded interfaces on top of general-purpose models like ChatGPT or Claude, with no construction-specific intelligence.
- Prompt engineering layers — lightweight construction framing on foundational models, still without industry training at scale.
- Adapted but incomplete — some fine-tuning or custom pipelines, but weak preprocessing of drawings, specs, and schedules.
- Workflow-integrated construction AI — agents trained on real construction documents, triggered automatically, and built to offload tedious project work.
The questionnaire is designed to show you where any vendor sits on that spectrum.
What’s in the full PDF
The downloadable questionnaire expands each question with why it matters, what “good” looks like, and space for a vendor response, organized into:
- Functionality and use case
- Technical depth and construction fit
- Long-term viability
- Commercial model
- Data privacy and security
- Compliance, legal, and risk management
It also includes a simple scoring guide so your team can classify vendors as worth partnering with, worth using only at a lower price, or not worth pursuing.
Download the PDF for your RFP folder, or keep this page open as you work through vendor evaluations.