Alex is an AI assistant for the people who build: contractors in buildings, civils, infrastructure and mining, and the architects and engineers who design for them. It reads the drawings, programme, bill and contract, insurances included. It answers your site team on WhatsApp or out loud in a live conversation. And it warns the moment the job drifts from what was agreed, or a notice or cover date is about to catch you out.
Built for site managers, project managers, QSs, engineers and architects, and the directors who answer for every job.
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Ironworker at dusk. Photograph by Jason Richard.
This week on site: Level 3 slab poured, Rebar delivery two days late, Variation 14 priced and agreed, Payment certificate 7 issued, Crane inspection due Friday, Façade shop drawings returned, Rain delay: two days claimed, Snag list closed on Block B.
(01) How it works
Add the drawings, the programme, the bill of quantities and the contract to a project. Alex reads every page and builds a model you can play the programme across.
See the modelYour foreman reports the day's work, your SHEQ officer reports safety and quality, and anyone asks a question, all on WhatsApp or by phone in a live voice conversation. Alex turns each day's reports into the job's running picture and answers from the project's own files and your standard operating procedures.
See it on siteDecide inside Alex. The decision, its owner and its reasoning go on the record, and Alex checks the job against it every night until handover.
See the record(02) The model
Alex turns your drawings into a 5D model of the job, the building in three dimensions with time and cost on every element, and plays it forward. The programme gives every element its week, the bill of quantities gives it its cost. Scrub to any week to see what should be standing and what should have been spent, and Alex checks the days reported from site against it.
Week
12 / 42
On site
Frame
Planned spend to date
R10.5m
of R48.6m on the bill of quantities
Alex · on programme
The programme as planned, with the bill of quantities spent along it.
Every wall, slab and column in it is its own element, drawn to scale from your drawings, programme and bill, and tied to its week in the programme and its lines in the bill. Point at the ground-floor slab and ask what it costs to go from 200 mm to 250 mm, and Alex answers from your bill: the extra concrete, the extra reinforcement, the rand difference, and the pour it moves.
For illustrative purposes only.
(03) On site
Nothing new to learn. A WhatsApp message, a voice note or a phone call is the day's report, and the answer comes back from the project's own files before the truck leaves the yard. Or talk to Alex, just like you would an experienced colleague.
AlexAlex's own numberToday
Your team messages or rings Alex's WhatsApp number, and it answers only the numbers you have listed. It never reads anyone's own WhatsApp, never starts a chat, and what you send it stays yours.
Send a voice note instead of typing. Alex transcribes it and replies in the chat from the project's drawings, programme and bill.
For a conversation rather than a message: open a call in the app and speak to Alex as you would to a colleague. It listens, answers out loud from the same files, and keeps a transcript of what was said.
The foreman's quantities, the SHEQ officer's safety and quality checks and the photos that go with them become the day's record. Alex builds those days into the whole project, so an inconsistency or a risk shows up immediately, not at the valuation.
Alex answers the person who messaged it, and never sends a message in your name.
“Icarus”, Empire State Building, 1930. Lewis W. Hine.
(04) Decisions and drift
The pour that moved, the delivery that didn't come, the instruction the engineer gave the foreman, the inspection that wasn't done, the notice that wasn't sent: each one is small, and together they erode your margin until the job makes a loss. Alex holds them all at once, from every report, decision, date and rand in one place, checks the job against them every day, and raises the one that's slipping the moment it slips, with its owner, so nothing is argued from memory at the final account.
Most contractors can't afford a CFO, a commercial director, a lawyer and a head of HR on the payroll. Those who can still can't get them round one table the moment a decision is needed. Alex gives you the whole executive committee, at once and on demand: before you decide, each seat weighs the decision from its side of the job, from the margin and the programme to the contract and the crews, and they reconcile to one recommendation with the reasoning on the record.
Steel is up 11%. Absorb it, or re-tender the frame?
Protects the margin.
Holds the programme.
Tests the supply.
Applies the contract.
Speaks for the crews.
and they reconcile
A straight answer: do this, and here's why.
You always decide. Alex records it with the reasoning, and holds the job to it from tonight.
(05) Who Alex is for
The same record of the job, built from the drawings, the bill and what the site reported today, is worth something different to each of the people around it. Find your path.
Photo by Josh Olalde on Unsplash
Contractors
Established or emerging, in buildings, civils, infrastructure or mining. Alex takes the daily site report on WhatsApp, keeps it against the bill and the programme, drafts the claim, and gives head office the executive team it could not hire.
Photo by Sven Mieke on Unsplash
Architects, engineers and quantity surveyors
Oversight of many projects at once, with no site team of your own to run. Alex reads the drawings, programme and bill, shows what a change to the design does to time and cost, and keeps every instruction on the record.
Photo by Scott Blake on Unsplash
Programmes, incubators and sponsors
Continuous management support for a cohort of contractors, not a mentor once a quarter, with the evidence at programme level: reporting discipline, control, and the jobs they grow into.
Photo by Glenov Brankovic on Unsplash
Funders and developers
Authorised visibility for the length of the project: progress against programme, certified work and cash received, the cost to complete, and the risks as they appear. The minimum necessary, never the contractor's whole business.
(06) Pricing
Pick the plan that best fits your projects and your company. Pay for each live job by its contract value, about half a percent of it over a typical programme, with the site team and up to five people at head office included. Add the company plan for the executive team, and put the model on the jobs you want to see. Nobody on a project is a seat.
For example, a R15m house on its own: one live project in the R10m to under R20m band, the site team and up to 5 people at head office included, nothing else. Or try a scenario:
ZAR · per month · ex VAT
Examples
For one live job and the people on it: the site team reporting in, and the project manager and QS who answer for the programme and the bill.
How many live projects, by contract value
Under R10m
R2,950 a month each
R10m to under R20m
R7,500 a month each
R20m to under R60m
R14,500 a month each
R60m to under R200m
R32,500 a month each
A project is banded by the contract sum on its bill: a R20m job is in the R20m band. If a variation takes it into the next band, the next band applies from the following month. Each price is about half a percent of the contract sum spread over a typical programme for jobs of that size. R200m and over: talk to us.
R7,500 a month for 1 live project
Easy onboarding, project by project
For everyone at head office: the executive team it could not hire, every job in one view, and Alex still working between jobs.
Everyone at head office, for an office of
Every live project already brings up to five people at head office. The company plan gives everyone at head office the executive team, not only the directors: the office manager, finance, the estimators. The band is the number of people who log in, and the seats are yours whether or not every one is filled. Anyone who only reads the emails is free. More than 12 people: talk to us.
No company plan
Easy onboarding, project by project
For the jobs you want to see: a 5D model built from the drawings, to scale, with time and cost on every element, that gives every persona spatial intelligence.
Projects with the model
Of your 1 live project
The model lives on a project: add it to as many of your counted projects as you like.
Not on any project
Easy onboarding, project by project
For a shape none of the plans fit: a price agreed in a conversation, with the plans above as the starting point.
Everyone on the project is included; there is no seat count on site or in the project office. A project is billed monthly for the length of its programme, from the possession certificate to the completion certificate or another recorded end to the contract, and for three months at least; its site roles stay on until Alex has that record. The company plan is monthly, or a year for the price of ten months.
(07) Sign-in and your data
Sign in with your work email and a password or one-time code, or with Google or Microsoft. Alex asks Google and Microsoft only for your name, email address, and profile picture, and uses them solely to create your account, sign you in, and show colleagues who recorded a decision. Nothing else is requested. Your company owns everything it records in Alex, and we never sell it. Read our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.
The AI models that power Alex run with zero data retention and data collection switched off. Calls, voice notes and document reading go through the processors our Privacy Policy names.
A connected mailbox, a WhatsApp chat or a private note is its owner's alone, never shown to a colleague or an admin.
Every drawing, date and rand in one place. Site reports as easy as a WhatsApp message, the whole job in view across every function, and the reasoning behind each decision still there at the final account.
