Estimating AI: How DETAY Tech Automated Construction Quoting — 70% Reduction in Estimating Time
DETAY Tech built a custom AI estimating platform for Granite Masterz — a construction company based in California, USA. The platform reads uploaded architectural plans, extracts all estimable elements automatically, applies current pricing, and generates a complete construction quote without manual intervention. Estimating time reduced by over 70%.
The challenge — estimating that consumed the team’s most skilled hours
Granite Masterz specialises in high-end residential and commercial construction projects in California. Construction estimating — producing detailed cost breakdowns for proposed projects — was one of the most time-intensive and technically demanding tasks in their operations.
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Before Estimating AI, every estimate required a skilled estimator to manually read the architectural plans, identify and quantify every relevant element, apply current pricing to each line item, and produce a formatted quote document. For a typical project, this process took three to four hours of senior estimator time.
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At the volume of projects Granite Masterz handles, this represented a significant operational constraint. Estimators were spending the majority of their working week on quote production — leaving limited time for the more complex, judgment-intensive aspects of their role. Hiring additional estimators was expensive and slow.
What DETAY Tech built — the Estimating AI platform
The estimator uploads the architectural plan — typically a PDF or CAD file — through the platform interface. The AI reads the plan, identifies and quantifies every estimable element visible in the drawings, applies the company’s current pricing database to each item, accounts for labour and equipment requirements based on the project type and scale, and generates a complete, formatted estimate document ready for client submission.
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The platform handles the full range of project types that Granite Masterz undertakes — residential renovations, commercial fit-outs, and new construction — producing estimates in the format and level of detail that clients and subcontractors expect.
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The pricing database is editable and updatable by the team, ensuring that the AI’s outputs reflect current material costs and labour rates without requiring technical intervention. The system learns from corrections — when an estimator adjusts a line item, the platform records the adjustment and applies it to similar elements in future estimates.
The result — 70% reduction in estimating time
Estimate production time reduced by over 70%. A process that previously took three to four hours per project now takes under one hour — with the majority of that time spent on review and approval rather than production.
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The same estimating team now handles significantly more projects per week. Quotes are delivered to clients faster — improving conversion rates because clients who receive quotes quickly are more likely to proceed. The estimating team spends less time on mechanical production work and more time on the complex, value-adding aspects of their role.
For construction companies
If your team is spending significant time on manual take-offs and cost calculations from drawings, AI automation is likely to produce strong ROI. DETAY Tech can assess the technical and commercial viability of an AI estimating solution for your specific workflows. The assessment is free and takes 30 minutes.
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