The Paperwork Five: a starting order for AI for general contractors, with a prompt for each job

A general contractor's AI shouldn't touch the drawings, the quantities or the contract. It should take the paperwork off your project managers' evenings. The Paperwork Five are the five jobs where that's true today, in the order we'd start them, with a prompt for each that you can paste into the AI tool your company already uses.

The Paperwork Five, in order

1. The daily log. Drafted from the day's notes, photos and crew counts, reviewed by the PM.
2. Estimating support. The AI pulls the scope out of the bid documents into a list. Your estimator still sets every number.
3. Bid follow-up. A drafted note to every owner who went quiet after your proposal.
4. Client and sub updates. A weekly draft of what got done and what's next.
5. Billing chase. The agent spots a pay application that's past due and drafts the reminder for your office to approve.

Think of AI here like a good assistant superintendent: it drafts everything and signs nothing.

Why start with paperwork

Contractors are moving. In the AGC's outlook survey of 951 firms, 61% said they use AI or plan to increase their investment in it, up from 44%, and the most common uses were office and admin work, estimating and preconstruction.

But very few have it built in. A RICS survey of more than 2,200 construction professionals, reported by Construction Dive, found about 45% had no AI implementation, 34% were in early pilots and under 1% had AI fully embedded. One executive quoted there put the problem simply: too many different logins. Paperwork is where you can start without solving that.

Who this is for and what you need first

This is for a general contractor running a handful of projects at once, with PMs who write logs and updates at night. You need:

• Your project software (Procore, Buildertrend or a shared drive) and where daily notes and photos live.
• One AI tool your company has approved for business use, with a rule that no client documents go into personal accounts.
• A reviewer for each job: the PM for logs and updates, the estimator for scope lists, the office for billing.

Job one is the daily log

Start here because the software may already do it. Procore lists a Daily Log agent among its AI agents, alongside RFI, Submittal Review and Contract Review agents, each producing drafts or flags for a person to review. If you're on Procore, try that first.

If not, use this prompt at the end of each day:

You are drafting a daily construction log for [project name] on [date]. Use only the notes, crew counts and photo captions below. List: weather, crews on site and headcount by trade, work completed by area, inspections and results, deliveries, delays and their causes, safety notes, and open questions for tomorrow. Do not add anything that isn't in the notes. Mark any missing item as "not recorded". Notes: [paste]

The PM reads it, fixes it and signs it. The goal is minutes instead of an evening, but measure your own.

Job two is estimating support

The AI reads. The estimator prices. Use it to turn a bid set into a scope checklist so nothing gets missed:

From the bid documents below, list every scope item by CSI division with the sheet or spec section where it appears. Flag anything that looks like an alternate, an allowance, an owner-furnished item or a conflict between drawings and specs. Do not estimate quantities or prices. Documents: [paste or attach]

You'd think the AI should price the job. Don't let it. Quantities, pricing and contract decisions stay with your team, every time.

Job three is bid follow-up

Proposals go quiet. Most contractors mean to follow up and don't. Each Monday, list proposals sent more than seven days ago with no reply, and draft a note for each:

Draft a short follow-up email from [estimator name] at [company] to [owner contact] about our proposal for [project], sent on [date]. Mention one specific detail from the proposal: [detail]. Ask if they have questions or need anything revised. Under 90 words, friendly, no pressure, no discount.

The estimator who wrote the proposal approves and sends it. Our estimate follow-up page shows how the drafts queue up.

Job four is client and sub updates

Owners and subs want the same thing: what got done, what's next, and what's needed from them. One draft a week, from the logs:

From this week's daily logs below, draft a weekly update for [project]. Three short sections: done this week, planned next week, and decisions or items needed from the owner or subs, with dates if they're in the logs. Plain language, no jargon, under 200 words. Logs: [paste]

The PM checks every date before it goes, because a date in an update reads like a promise. More on this in our customer updates page.

Job five is billing chase

This is the one that touches your cash. Each week, compare pay applications and invoices against payments received. For anything past due, draft a reminder:

Draft a polite reminder from [office contact] at [company] to [client contact] that pay application #[number] for [project], submitted on [date] for [amount], is now [days] days past the due date in our contract. Offer to resend the backup or answer questions. No mention of liens, interest or stopping work.

The office approves every reminder. Anything about liens, retainage disputes or stopping work is an owner decision, handled by phone or letter. Our trust page describes the same default for every agent we build: drafts first, sensitive actions wait for approval.

What to watch out for

• Client documents in the wrong tool. Only paste project documents into a tool your company has approved for business data.
• Invented details. Every prompt above says "use only" the material provided. Keep that line, and have the reviewer check names, dates and numbers.
• Dates as promises. Any date in an update or a follow-up is a commitment. A person checks it.

How to tell it worked

Pick one project for a month. Before you start, ask the PM how long logs and updates take each week, and count how many proposals and pay apps went without follow-up. Run the Paperwork Five on that project and ask the same questions at the end. Expand to the next project only if the answers improved.

For more on where AI fits around a GC's work, read how general contractors can use AI. If you'd like the five set up inside your own software, your free AI Operations Audit starts there.