Bricks And Bytes

Bricks And Bytes
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A show about construction technology, business, and entrepreneurship. Welcome to the Bricks and Bytes Podcast, where we bring together the worlds of construction, technology, and entrepreneurship. We explore the innovative ideas and groundbreaking advancements that are shaping the future of the industry.

  1. 15 hrs ago

    PR for Construction Tech Explained | What Founders Need to Get Right

    "If you were saying, I'm adding AI to the product or we're now agentic, we now have an agentic AI component, it's not really news." Katie Zeppieri said the quiet part out loud. We invited the Founder and CEO of The MicDrop Agency onto Bricks & Bytes to demystify PR for construction tech. Her agency worked with Document Crunch from its early days through to the Trimble acquisition, so she has seen exactly what earns coverage and what gets deleted from a journalist's inbox. A few things that stuck with us: Events are still the number one marketing channel in construction, but only if you do the work before you land at the venue. Muck Rack's research found that the overwhelming majority of AI citations come from earned media. If journalists are not writing about you, ChatGPT is not talking about you either. If you have ever sent out a "we now integrate with X" press release, this episode is for you. Full conversation on YouTube and Spotify now. #bricksandbytes #bricksbytes #constructiontech #construction #aec #ai Chapters 00:00 Intro 01:17 How PR Works in Construction Technology 03:50 PR Strategy Explained: The Communications Triangle 06:44 What Makes a Story Newsworthy? 09:34 Common PR Mistakes Startups Make 10:22 Sponsors 13:23 Why Most PR Announcements Get Ignored 15:44 How to Build Relationships With Journalists 18:38 How Startups Get Featured in Major Publications 21:28 How Speaking at Industry Events Builds Your Brand 24:29 In-Person vs Virtual Events: Which Works Best? 27:36 How Media Relations Builds Long-Term Credibility 28:55 Construction Tech PR Case Study: Document Crunch 30:59 How to Announce a Startup Acquisition 36:11 PR Strategy for Seed-Stage Startups 40:26 Founder-Led Marketing and Personal Branding 45:23 Public Speaking Tips for Startup Founders 48:00 The Future of PR and Marketing 54:16 What PR Will Look Like in 2028 Our Sponsors: BreadCrumb- 50,000+ projects globally. All running safer, faster, with Breadcrumb. - breadcrumb.co 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

  2. 16 hrs ago

    From Palantir to Bricklaying Robots: Inside Monumental’s $32M Raise

    Prototypes and demoware. That was Monumental two years ago, at their $25m Series A. Yesterday they announced a $32m Series B led by Khosla Ventures. In between, their robots laid the entire brickwork on 100 houses, plus canal walls and commercial buildings, as a subcontractor carrying full liability for the work. The day after the announcement, co-founder Salar al Khafaji sat down with us. In his words: "The Series A was basically still like an R&D round... we had some prototypes, we had some like demoware basically." "The Series B was raised off actual success." And the line that will start arguments: "Everyone is obsessed with speed. Speed doesn't really matter." A bricklaying robot company telling you speed doesn't matter. His reasoning is worth the listen on its own. Also in this one: > Why SAM and Hadrian X were too early, and what changed > Day zero to day one of a robot crew arriving on site > The economics vs a traditional bricklaying gang > UK going commercial, US pilots starting this year > Why the entire facade is next. Not in a decade, within a couple of years. 🚨 Industry exclusive. Link in comments. #bricksandbytes #constructiontech #aec #ai #vc

  3. 2 days ago

    The Construction Tech Exec Exposing AI Vaporware

    "I can make you something that looks like it's really expensive, but it took me four hours." Dustin Burns, SVP of Technology at McCownGordon Construction, on the  software demo you just sat through. He built a cost history web app. Their real cost data, region benchmarking, conceptual estimates. One HTML file.  Four hours. His verdict: "And it is vaporware." The point isn't that it was bad. It's that from the outside, you can't tell anymore. So he looks for the ones building their own models, not the ones wrapping someone else's API. Full episode with Dustin Burns is live now. Link below! #bricksandbytes #bricksbytes #aec #construction  #constructiontech #ai #vc Chapters 00:00  Teaser 00:50 The Stress Beard (And Why He Shaves Every Morning) 03:03  Should Construction Companies Build Their Own Software? 05:29  What AI Actually Looks Like Inside a $1B Contractor 08:32  AI Sprawl: Governing Tools Your Team Builds Without You 10:50  Reality Capture, Laser Scanning and Drones on the Jobsite 14:10  Construction Robotics: Building a Robot for Under $5K 16:21  Sponsors 19:21  AI Estimating: When Your Client Prices the Job Without You 22:39  The Silver Tsunami and Construction's Knowledge Transfer Problem 27:29  Voice AI in the Field: Less Typing, More Talking 30:25  Why a Safety Checklist Has No Value to a Superintendent 32:03  Emerging Construction Technology Worth Watching 34:30  How to Actually Sell Construction Software to a GC 36:19  Getting Pitched 10 AI Tools a Week 37:39  How to Spot an AI Wrapper (And Why Most Demos Are Vaporware) 40:05  Construction 2037: What the Jobsite Looks Like in 11 Years 45:16  Humans and Robots on the Same Jobsite 48:03  AI Governance Insurance: The Next SDI? 49:55  Automated Progress Tracking: The Problem Nobody Has Solved Our Sponsors: BreadCrumb- 50,000+ projects globally. All running safer, faster, with Breadcrumb. - breadcrumb.co 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

  4. 6 days ago

    95% of AI Projects Fail. The Data Centre Boom Is Stalling. One Problem Is Behind Both.

    This week's briefing covers three things every construction leader should understand before they sign off on anything this year. David Gal from Samsara makes the argument that three quarters of construction hasn't even started the thing that comes before AI. Not behind on AI. Behind on the step underneath it. He lays out a four stage journey, and most firms are at stage zero, still on the clipboard, still ringing round to find out where the excavator is. One firm he works with lost twenty million dollars of equipment in a single year without knowing it. The cost of not digitising is not zero. You just cannot see the bill yet. Then KPMG surveyed over two thousand senior executives across twenty countries. Nearly a third said they had no idea where their growing AI costs were coming from. MIT looked at corporate AI projects and found ninety five percent of them fail, not on the technology, but on the groundwork nobody did. The AI worked. The organisation around it did not. And the data centre boom, the thing keeping order books healthy while housing sits flat, is starting to slip. Not because the money has dried up. The four biggest tech companies are spending north of six hundred and fifty billion dollars this year alone. It is slipping because the wait for transformers and switchgear has stretched from two years to five. You can have the land, the funding and the chips and still not be able to build. The same problem is underneath all three. And construction, the industry everyone calls backward, already knows what it is. Drop your answer in the comments of this week's LinkedIn post.

    95% of AI Projects Fail. The Data Centre Boom Is Stalling. One Problem Is Behind Both.

  5. 6 days ago

    Manhattan Skyscraper Buckling, Trunk Tools’ $70M, Change Management Over Tech & Why Fintech Backs Construction

    "Real AI is way more about how you do change management than picking the right technology." That is Dr. Sarah Buchner, founder and CEO of Trunk Tools, on this week's Bricks, Bucks & Bytes. A year on from her $40M Series B, she joined the roundtable to explain why the hardest part of construction AI is not the model. It is getting people to trust it. ✅ Why Trunk Tools will not sell you agents unless you let them train your team first ✅ The shift from point solution to a "system of action" that sits on top of Procore and Autodesk ✅ Why a new AI takeoff startup seems to launch every week, and why most break on the last 20% ✅ Her blunt line on vibe coded tools: "Don't come on the market with something that Claude can already do." Plus: a structural engineer breaks down the Midtown column buckling, and SubBase's Eric Helitzer on why a fintech led his $7M Series A. 🎧 Full episode on YouTube and Spotify. #bricksandbytes #bricksbytes #bricksbucksandbytes #aec #construction #constructiontech #ai #vc Chapters 00:00 Intro 00:55 Introduction and Welcome 03:55 Trunk Tools Update and Series B Insights 06:46 Evolution of Trunk Tools: From Co-Pilot to System of Action 09:53 Challenges in Understanding Construction Drawings 12:52 Integration with Systems of Record 15:44 Building Trust in AI Agents 18:44 The Landscape of AI Startups in Construction 27:01 The Surge of AI in Outreach 28:07 Innovation in Construction Technology 32:35 Collaboration vs Competition in AI 34:44 Efficiency Gains in Construction 39:28 The Shift in AI Adoption 43:48 Future of Construction Tech and AI 47:58 Innovations in Construction Technology 49:33 Challenges in Construction Tech 50:16 The Future of Construction Tech 53:29 Structural Integrity and Engineering Insights 01:01:19 Funding and Growth in Construction Startups Our Sponsors: BreadCrumb- 50,000+ projects globally. All running safer, faster, with Breadcrumb. - breadcrumb.co 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

  6. 8 July

    The AI Making Construction Sites Safer

    You can vibe code software in a weekend. You can't vibe code a decade of safety data. That was the throughline with Ben Leach and Andrew Barron of HammerTech. In an AI era obsessed with what's actually defensible, their answer wasn't features. It was data. Ben built the company out of his own frustration on site: "what's the point of sitting in there making sure that all your compliance is up to scratch if people are getting hurt out in the field" In today's episode of Bricks & Bytes, we got into the real competitor (paper and spreadsheets, not rival software), why data centres are raising the safety bar for everyone, and what a solved job site looks like in ten years. Full episode out now. Link below #bricksandbytes #bricksbytes #bricksbucksandbytes #aec #construction #constructiontech #ai #vcChapters 00:00 Intro 01:16 Introduction to HammerTech and Safety Technology 08:59 The State of Safety in Construction 15:25 The Transition from Manual to Digital Safety Processes 24:20 The Future of Reality Capture and Data in Construction 33:34 Customer Onboarding and Implementation Process 42:20 Navigating the Competitive Landscape 48:13 Future of Safety Technology in Construction

  7. 7 July

    The Three Phases of AI Readiness - How Construction CEO's Can Prepare

    "How much money did we spend last year on small equipment?" That's the one question David Gal, VP of Product & Engineering for ConnectedEquipment at Samsara, says stops most construction leaders cold. Most of them can't answer it. And that blind spot is exactly why so many still can't use AI. On today's episode, David walks us through the data maturity curve everycontractor climbs, whether they realise it or not: Phase 0 : clipboards, spreadsheets, and hundreds of thousands of assets nobodycan locate Phase 1 : digitise the fleet, drop accidents, cut fuel Phase 2 : insights, utilisation, proactive maintenance Phase 3 : agents making the phone calls for you His warning: you can't buy your way into Phase 3. Skip the groundwork and the AIhas nothing to stand on. We also get into stolen fleets, autonomous job sites, and why one pane of glassbeats another point solution. Watch the full episode on Youtube and Spotify. #bricksandbytes #bricksbytes #bricksbucksandbytes #aec #construction#constructiontech #ai #vc Our Sponsors: BreadCrumb- 50,000+ projects globally. All running safer, faster, with Breadcrumb. - breadcrumb.co 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 00:35 The Data Backbone Construction Never Built 02:57 Why Construction Operations Are So Hard to Digitize 05:18 The Phases of Digitizing a Construction Business 08:10 What Staying Analog Actually Costs You 09:51 Sponsor 12:52 The Real Cost of Analog (cont.) 14:09 Getting From Phase Zero to Your First Digital Win 17:01 What the Data Reveals Once You Digitize 20:00 Putting AI to Work in Daily Operations 27:32 How AI Is Reshaping Fleet Management 30:15 Where Virtual Assistants Actually Add Value 34:10 Getting Your Team to Adopt New Tech 36:22 What Autonomy Really Means for Construction 43:10 Where Contractors Should Start Tomorrow

  8. 4 July

    Two Things Were Supposed to Save Construction This Year. Neither Showed Up.

    This month's recap covers what June 2026 actually meant for the industry, and it was not what anyone had pencilled in. The cheaper borrowing that stalled schemes were relying on did not arrive. The European Central Bank raised rates. The Fed held. The Bank of England held. And a spike in oil above 125 dollars a barrel, triggered by fears over the Strait of Hormuz, made central banks nervous about cutting at all. On the materials side, US tariffs on steel, aluminium and copper are sitting at 50 percent, with non-residential material costs rising at their fastest pace since 2022. One estimate puts 17,500 dollars of added cost onto a single new American home. Both doors closed in the same month. Then the split that was supposed to be temporary. Data centres are now a bigger construction category than offices. But the thing holding that work back is not money, it is power, and grid connections are running five to seven years behind the builds. The boom is real. The gate is megawatts. Plus a full recap of the three June briefings you may have missed, on safety tech, the AI price war, what happens when AI hands your client the knowledge you used to charge for, and why the first piece of reconstruction technology in Ukraine is not a crane. And some trivia. What Gustave Eiffel built inside the Statue of Liberty, and what a Boston World Cup pitch crew found ten inches underground that nobody had touched in twenty years. The LinkedIn comment thread for this episode is where the conversation is happening. Come and tell us where you land.

    Two Things Were Supposed to Save Construction This Year. Neither Showed Up.
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About

A show about construction technology, business, and entrepreneurship. Welcome to the Bricks and Bytes Podcast, where we bring together the worlds of construction, technology, and entrepreneurship. We explore the innovative ideas and groundbreaking advancements that are shaping the future of the industry.

Information

  • Creator
    Bricks And Bytes
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    334
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Bricks And Bytes
  • Show Website
    Bricks And Bytes

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