Courtesy of Built Technologies
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If you rent an apartment, you’ve probably “talked” to an AI agent to help you fix your leaky toilet. But what happens if you are a builder and apply for funds from your lender? It’s a much more complicated process – and there’s now an AI agent for that too.
Built Technologies, a construction technology and real estate finance provider that reached a valuation of $1.5 billion in 2021, is taking its proprietary software to the next level by unveiling an AI agent that is in testing with a few of its lending clients. Now, Built says, it’s ready for the broader market.
“We’re trying to improve this ecosystem across the construction real estate value chain,” said Chase Gilbert, CEO of Built Technologies.
This agent is implemented specifically for what is known in the industry as pull requests. Traditionally, when a developer or construction company completes each step of the process, they ask their lender for the next step in financing, the draw. This usually takes days or weeks as loan officers must review documentation, check progress, assess risks and approve disbursements. Now the so-called Draw Agent will take over.
“There is an opportunity to fundamentally serve the ecosystem, and we’ve actually developed technology specifically designed to connect key stakeholders, where everyone is viewing the same information at the same time and can request funds or make a payment with more confidence,” Gilbert said.
Over the past decade, Built has worked with lenders, both bank and non-bank, as well as private credit players, to help them manage capital improvement construction projects and get their money faster and easier from their financing partners.
Clients include US Bank, Citi and Fifth Third. Built also helps pay downstream business partners, like general contractors, subcontractors, architects, attorneys and designers. It was the original software.
Enter AI, and now Built has created what Gilbert calls an integrated teammate that can do all this work and ensure everything is compliant because there is no room for human error. Built has been testing the agent with a few of its lenders, including Anchor Loans, over the past three months.
It now reports 95% faster draw approvals with reviews completed in just 3 minutes, a 400% increase in risk detection compared to human-led reviews, and 100% adherence to each lender’s policies and procedures.
Companies using the new agent have reported a return on investment (ROI) of 300 to 500 percent, even on portfolios as small as around 500 loans, according to Built. Companies arrived at this conclusion by comparing the time and operational cost savings generated by automation with their investment. Lenders participating in the pilot reported seeing significant reductions in manual workload, increasing efficiency without having to hire new people.
Gilbert said the AI agent acts on trillions of dollars of construction data that Built has compiled over the past decade.
“And that’s where AI really shines. It needs a lot of data and context to become intelligent and make decisions, and we certainly have a lot of proprietary data on that,” he said.