An AI agent in construction software is only worth the name if it changes a decision. Over three weeks on a mid-sized DIFC office fit-out, CostGuard raised eleven alerts. Nine led to an action. Two were correctly left alone.
Procurement above allowance, caught before the PO
The most valuable alerts came at the requisition stage. A joinery package was requested at a rate eleven per cent above the BOQ allowance because the specified veneer had moved price. Because the flag arrived before the purchase order, the commercial lead had the option of a variation rather than an absorbed loss.
The two it was right to ignore
Both dismissed alerts were cases where a variation had been approved verbally by the client representative and priced correctly, but the paperwork lagged by a day. The agent had no way to know that — and flagging it was the correct behaviour. An agent that only raises certainties is an agent that misses the expensive cases.
Where it made no difference
Alerts on labour hours were the least actionable. By the time a trade is trending over its priced hours, the schedule usually dictates finishing the work. The value there is not in the current job but in the rate library for the next tender — which is why the agent writes the variance back to the historical rates.
