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. 1d ago

    Accenture Just Entered Construction. Your Software Bill Is Moving to Per Token. And One 11 Billion Dollar Builder Stopped Innovating on Live Sites.

    This week's briefing covers four things that landed in the same week, starting with a story about an intern, a spreadsheet and eighteen thousand snags. Gene Hodge is Vice President of Innovation at Mortenson, a family owned American builder with 11 billion dollars of revenue and the tenth biggest contractor in America. He started his career printing off punch list items and walking the site with a pen. Twenty three years later, someone still walks the site with a list. His answer to why is that the industry is structurally fragmented, and the way past it is trust, collaboration and simplifying what it takes to build. Mortenson's data centre built the industrialised way, with precast duct bank, prefabricated wall panels and as much made offsite as possible, uses half the on-site labour hours of a non-industrialised one. It took seven years of failures and a 90,000 square foot research and development facility to get there. On AI on site his answer was blunt. It is not making a big impact yet. Then your software bill. Alain Waha, Chief Technology Officer at Buro Happold, was at Autodesk University in Las Vegas and came away with one takeaway. The week was about how Autodesk plans to charge more. The shift he is describing is from per seat licensing to per token, paying for how much thinking the machine does on your behalf. His example is adding a floor in Revit. Today that takes a day of your time. Tomorrow the AI does it and the vendor charges accordingly. The question is whether you would know what you actually bought. Then the quickfire. Diesel hit two pounds a litre on Monday, a record, up 42 percent since January, adding roughly 590 million pounds a year to UK infrastructure costs. Accenture has launched a construction business, 5,000 people built from 11 acquisitions, aimed at owners of airports, grids, data centres and factories. Turner, Kiewit and AECOM have all reported unauthorised access to their systems since July, and 48 percent of construction firms said they are not big enough to be a target. And Bricks and Bytes has announced Groundworks, a robotics event on the 11th of November in London. Drop your answers to this week's questions in the comments of this week's LinkedIn post.

    Accenture Just Entered Construction. Your Software Bill Is Moving to Per Token. And One 11 Billion Dollar Builder Stopped Innovating on Live Sites.

  2. 1d ago

    Autodesk’s Next Chapter: Design to Operations, AI Pricing, Miter’s $40M & Kuro’s €10M

    Autodesk now runs from the first sketch to the maintenance ticket. So who is left to compete? We got back from Autodesk University and put that question to three people this week: Connor Watumull on Miter's $40M Series B, and why payroll was the way into the whole contractor back office. Lea Scherer on Kuro's €10M seed, and how a two year old startup ended up working with Goldbeck and Hochtief Infrastructure. Alain Waha, CTO of Buro Happold, on why AI could push software bills up from here. Episode is live! #aec #constructiontech #ai #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 Intro 01:12 Autodesk University 2026 recap 02:45 Autodesk's plan to own design, construction and operations 04:49 Can startups compete with Autodesk? 07:23 Most internet traffic is now AI bots 08:49 Miter raises $40M Series B 11:15 What is Miter? Construction payroll and workforce software 14:01 Why construction payroll is so hard 16:28 From payroll to field operations and safety 19:04 How construction software startups win customers 20:37 Replacing the construction Franken Stack 22:08 Kuro raises €10M seed for AI for general contractors 23:12 How AI reads construction documents and tenders 26:01 Why Kuro targets Europe's biggest general contractors 28:22 How AI startups stay defensible against ChatGPT 33:09 Building construction tech in Europe vs the US 34:12 Kuro's growth and hiring plans 38:11 Jevons paradox: why software keeps costing more 38:37 Can Autodesk be disrupted? 39:53 Why construction is slow to adopt new tech 41:57 Why switching away from Revit is so hard 43:47 AI as a generational shift in design 46:04 Will AI replace Revit? Snaptrude, Motif and AI design tools 48:11 Should you build your website for AI agents? 52:41 Humans plus AI: the chess grandmaster lesson 53:43 Autodesk AI pricing: from seats to tokens 59:34 Is AI actually creating value in engineering?

  3. 4d ago

    Inside Mortenson’s $10.8B Business: The Bet on In-House Innovation | Gene Hodge

    A few years ago, Mortenson's own leadership group told them they were treating innovation "kind of like a hobby". This year they're No. 10 on ENR's Top 400, running a 90,000 sq ft R&D facility and about to launch a joint venture with Goldbeck. So we asked Gene Hodge, their VP of I4 and Innovation, how he proves the ROI on all of it: "I think anyone asking what's the ROI on innovation is not interested in innovating, most likely." CFOs, we'd love to hear you push back on this one. #construction #constructiontech #aec #ai #bricksandbytes 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 00:00 - Teaser 00:43 - Intro 01:36 - Who is Gene Hodge & Mortenson Overview 02:31 - Quick-Fire Questions: Builder vs Technologist 03:10 - Sponsors 06:19 - Is Most Construction Tech Worth the Money? 06:49 - How Has the Jobsite Changed Since 2005? 07:43 - The Reality of AI on the Construction Site 08:29 - Autonomous Equipment & Robots in 5 Years 09:30 - What Actually Moves the Needle on Projects 10:04 - Mortenson's In-House R&D & Innovation Spending 11:39 - Data Sovereignty: Which Tech Mortenson Refuses to Buy 12:33 - Goldbeck Joint Venture & Industrialised Construction 14:57 - Real-Time Jobsite Visibility vs Manufacturing 16:03 - Standardisation vs Bespoke Client Architecture 17:27 - Data Centres & the Hyperscaler Effect 18:56 - Industrialised Construction Across Resi & Defence 21:19 - Day-to-Day Role & The ROI of Innovation 23:04 - 30 Years After VDC: Why Has Productivity Stagnated? 25:35 - Lessons from 2003: 18,000 Punch List Items on Paper 28:29 - Precast Duct Bank Innovation 30:24 - Building a Corporate Culture of Innovation 32:38 - BLUvera: Scaling Offsite Manufacturing 34:38 - Redesigning the Jobsite Trailer & Field Wellbeing 36:41 - AI Hype vs Real Jobsite Workflows 38:46 - Machine Learning in Pre-Construction & Estimating 40:44 - Measuring AI ROI & Enabling Growth 41:49 - How to Pitch Tech to Mortenson 42:57 - What Keeps an Innovation VP Up at Night 45:19 - Cross-Industry Collaboration & The Future Contractor Model 48:19 - The #1 Tech for 2035: Generative Design & Real-Time Costing

  4. Sep 21

    Autodesk Just Closed the Loop From Design to Operation. The RFI Is Being Erased. And the Master Builder Is Coming Back.

    Autodesk Just Closed the Loop From Design to Operation. The RFI Is Being Erased. And the Master Builder Is Coming Back. This week's briefing comes straight from Autodesk University in Las Vegas, the biggest technology conference in the AEC industry, where Owen was invited as part of the media and analyst cohort. Three things stood out above everything else. First, agents. Autodesk showed agents checking submittals against specifications, comparing subcontractor bids against scopes of work, and tracing the impact of a single RFI through a building model and into the project schedule. But the more important point came from Andrew Anagnost, CEO of Autodesk. He said the agents will get so smart that the whole concept of an RFI gets erased over time. His aim is to spot the problem while the design is still being made so the RFI never happens. His line on what comes next was direct. Transparency is coming for AEC whether AEC likes it or not. The catch, and it is the same one we keep coming back to, is that every demo on that stage worked because drawings, model and schedule all sat in one connected place. Most firms listening to this are not there yet. Second, the platform war. In a live keynote demo a planner, an architect and a civil engineer each worked on the same project from one set of data, carried all the way through from design into construction. That is Autodesk Forma's core argument against Procore. If the design already lives in Autodesk, why move it somewhere else to manage the build. The MaintainX acquisition for 3.6 billion dollars closes the final gap. Design in Autodesk, build in Autodesk, operate in Autodesk. Once an owner is on the platform they can mandate it across their entire supply chain. Several Procore customers at the event said they were looking at making the switch. Third, the master builder. Anagnost said Autodesk set out over a decade ago to automate the making of the model and they are very close. His line was that the act of creating a model is not where the value is created. More people at this year's conference than ever before said the industry is heading back to the master builder, the model where one firm both designs and builds, before architect and contractor became separate jobs. Owen argued that exact point on the show back in April. It is no longer a fringe view. Drop your answers to this week's questions in the comments of this week's LinkedIn post.

    Autodesk Just Closed the Loop From Design to Operation. The RFI Is Being Erased. And the Master Builder Is Coming Back.

  5. Sep 15

    Is Your Construction Data Ready for AI? | The Blueprint for Contractors

    "My data is too messy for AI." We hear it on almost every call. Barry Chiu thinks it's the wrong way round. Consider this a contractor's guide to data and AI. Nobody has clean data at the raw level. Not one contractor. You can't know how bad yours is until it's all in one place and you can put the systems side by side. When you find that job numbers don't match across two systems, that's your first win, not a setback. His line on it: "you're already a step ahead of a lot of people, because people are not even aware of how bad the data is." Waiting until your data is clean means waiting forever. In today's episode of Bricks & Bytes, we sit down with Barry Chiu, CEO and co-founder of Kroo, to unpack why the obsession with "clean data" is holding contractors back from using AI. Full episode out on YouTube and Spotify! Link in comments. #construction #constructiontech #ai #aec #bricksandbytes 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 00:00 Intro 01:12 How the company grew and where it is now 03:39 What AI actually does in construction tech today 06:54 Why construction data is useless without context 09:13 Connecting data across your project systems 10:08 Sponsors 13:09 Real customer examples of unified project data 15:33 Why construction data management is so hard 18:05 AI readiness: what you need in place first 23:24 How to build a strong construction data foundation 24:37 Data permissions and security in construction software 26:24 Should you use third-party data tools? 28:41 Why subcontractors are winning with tech 29:59 Data sovereignty and competitive advantage explained 31:07 How to get real value out of your data 32:59 Questions to ask a software vendor before you buy 34:52 What's next for Crew and AI in construction

  6. Sep 12

    Three Central Banks, 20 Months of Contraction, and an AI That Just Built a House From a Text Prompt.

    This week's briefing covers three things landing in the same week that construction leaders need to understand before they plan anything for the rest of the year. First, interest rates. The European Central Bank raised rates for the second time this year on the tenth of September, to two and a half percent, with markets now pricing more than three further rises over the next twelve months. The US Federal Reserve decides on Wednesday the sixteenth, with traders putting the chance of a rise at around seventy percent. The Bank of England decides the day after, and is expected to hold at three point seven five percent. A hold is not a cut. The scheme that only works if rates come down is still waiting. And the thing pushing rates up, energy, is the same thing pushing material costs up. Construction takes the cause and the cure at the same time. Then the numbers. UK construction has now shrunk for twenty consecutive months, with housing falling to its weakest reading in August. Eurozone construction has contracted for fifty two months in a row, with France posting its steepest fall since lockdown. In the US, the chief economist at Associated Builders and Contractors said the increase in non-residential spending in July was entirely due to data centres. Take them out and non-residential is at its lowest since September 2023. One type of building is holding up the entire market on both sides of the Atlantic. Then OpenAI released a model called Astra on the third of September. In the launch demos it opened a 3D modelling tool, built a house, and exported it into a game engine you could walk around in. It rebuilt the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco overnight from old drawings and photographs. A post on LinkedIn this week asked the question nobody has a clean answer to yet. If the model can produce the design, what is the architect for? The comments split five ways, and none of them are comfortable. Drop your answers to this week's questions in the comments of this week's LinkedIn post.

    Three Central Banks, 20 Months of Contraction, and an AI That Just Built a House From a Text Prompt.

  7. Sep 11

    The Human Extinction by AI Debate, OpenAI's Astra Model, $616M AEC Funding & Why AI Data Centers Fuel Inflation

    Anthropic's own alignment lead says there's a greater than 10% chance AI kills us all within a decade. He was backing up a researcher who'd just quit the company over exactly that. On this episode of Bricks, Bucks & Bytes, we read the entire doomsday scenario out loud: the data centres, the autonomous research, the whole thing. Then we picked it apart. Martin's take: it's a fairy tale that conveniently justifies more regulation. Dustin's take: the AI can't even build its own infrastructure without us, so who's actually building the robots to run it?Bernie Sanders wants to ban superintelligence outright. Anthropic's own safety lead admits nobody has a plan to stop it either way. Full breakdown in the episode.. #ai #bricksbucksandbytes #constructiontech #bricksandbytes Chapters 00:00 Intro01:16 AI Extinction Risk: Are We Really in Danger? 04:19 How AI Could Actually Wipe Out Humanity 07:18 AI vs Architects: The Commoditization Threat 10:18 Can AI Ever Be Truly Creative? 13:11 AI, Laziness and the Erosion of Critical Thinking 16:12 OpenAI's Astra: Designing Full Homes with AI 27:38 $616M Funding Boom in AEC Startups 30:34 Why Foundational Models Threaten Construction Startups 33:17 VCs Pile Into Physical AI and Robotics 35:57 Europe's Construction Industry in Freefall 37:50 Rising Interest Rates Crush UK Housebuilders 41:25 AI, the Fed and the Next Economic Crisis 44:50 Apple's $2,000 Folding iPhone Verdict 🎧 Listen to the Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/3P7JkiN9X3N4Kh6jlDsOgi?si=91JP5nxvQbKStkp8AQdAOg 📩 Subscribe to the Bricks & Bytes Newsletter: https://bricks-bytes.beehiiv.com/🌐 Visit our website: http://bricks-bytes.com/📲 Follow us: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bricks-bytes/ Twitter: https://x.com/bricksbytespod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bricksbytes/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.comEnjoying the insights? Hit that Subscribe button to stay ahead in construction tech, AI, and the future of how we build.

  8. Sep 8

    How A Specialty Contractor Became A ConTech Investor | BarrierCube Ventures, Track3D, and the CFO's Vendor Test

    "I think what dies is when you have someone show up and they don't actually understand the problem they're solving and they can't relate to a builder." That's Brett Dahmer, CFO of Performance Contracting Group, on what actually kills a vendor pitch inside a 60+ office, employee owned specialty contractor. We sat down with Brett for a rare finance side view of ConTech decisions. He walked us through: BarrierCube Ventures, PCG's own venture arm, and why a contractor started writing cheques into startups The Track3D investment, and what happens when you're both a startup's investor and its biggest customer The line KP Reddy gave him early on that he still uses to size up every founder Brett's quick fire answer on ROI in construction tech is worth the listen alone. A vendor once quoted him a figure for a company he knows personally, and it didn't hold up. Full episode live on Youtube and Spotify. #aec #bricksandbytes #construction #constructiontech #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 01:00 Introduction to Brett Dahmer and Performance Contracting 03:53 The Role of Technology in Construction 08:51 Establishing a Venture Arm: Barrier Cube Ventures 11:30 CFO Perspectives on Technology Investments 17:19 Investing in Track Free D: A Case Study 22:43 The Dual Role: Investor and Customer 26:19 Challenges in Selling Technology to PCG 26:49 Understanding the Pain Points in Problem Solving 28:01 The Importance of Humility in Innovation 29:57 Navigating Technology Implementation in Construction 33:12 Consolidation of Technology for Efficiency 35:13 Exploring Robotics and Automation in Construction 37:32 Evaluating New Solutions: The First Questions 40:12 The Role of Empathy in Founders' Pitches 42:40 Reflecting on Investment Trends in Construction Tech 45:37 Challenges of Fragmentation in the Construction Industry

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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
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    363
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Bricks And Bytes
  • Show Website
    Bricks And Bytes