Buildertrend announced in late July its acquisition of BizJet AI, an early-stage artificial intelligence startup with the goal of lightening the workloads surrounding residential construction. This involves helping with tasks such as estimating costs, scheduling timelines and navigating and tracking the various moving parts of a project. 

Buildertrend said it marks the company’s fifth acquisition in its history. 

According to the press release, BizJet AI Co-founders Ruhaab Markas and John Baker will be joining the Buildertrend team to assist with the company’s AI strategy. Markas will serve as vice president of product, specializing in AI, and Baker will serve as a distinguished engineer. 

Omaha-based Buildertrend recently celebrated 20 years of providing software solutions for home and commercial builders, contractors and remodelers. As it explores new technologies and furthers its global reach, the company has shared its ongoing work in developing its own AI-integrated tools and offerings. 

“We’re building on that foundation with Ruhaab and John’s expertise, creating a future where the software doesn’t just track the work, it helps move it forward,” Buildertrend Co-founder and CEO Dan Houghton said, “giving builders more time to focus on growth, their teams and their clients.”

Markas and Baker are based out of Dallas and Seattle, respectively. They both have established careers in software and AI, working for industry giants such as Amazon, Apple and Google. 

The origins of their startup began about a year and a half ago, Markas said, sparked by the difficulties that came with managing the back-office operations of a residential construction company he had invested in. He said he sought to give builders a tool to sift through and present complicated data in simpler terms. 

Markas said BizJet AI went through different organizational structures, scaled to fewer than 10 team members and reached the seed stage of the startup timeline. When faced with the question of whether to raise venture capital, he said a LinkedIn message he had sent to Buildertrend Chief Product Officer Charlotte Bradley about a potential partnership shaped his company’s trajectory. 

In a business climate characterized by the rise of various AI solutions, Markas said access to data is what can push a venture ahead of its competition. He said he knew of Buildertrend’s prominence in the space, and he believed both companies could benefit from one another. 

“If you just take a product and you just try to build some kind of AI capability with no context, no history, no understanding of the business, it’s really going to struggle at the start,” Markas said. 

“If you take that historical data, decades of data, that Buildertrend has, decades of deep understanding of the workflows that builders are utilizing the product for, it just creates this flywheel of sorts that you really could not match otherwise,” he continued. 

Bradley said she is always on the lookout for companies and technologies on the rise in the industry. She said Markas’ background and experience made him stand out for a phone call. Their shared vision finalized the deal. 

Buildertrend declined to share the specifics of the acquisition. At the time of the deal, Markas said, the BizJet AI team consisted of him and Baker and that both would continue to work remotely. 

For insights on how to approach customers in the trades who may be hesitant to adopt AI technologies, Bradley said an important consideration is to show them what they will get out of using the product — the return on investment. 

“There needs to be a benefit for them to use it,” Bradley said. “And that continues and has always been a focus of ours in what we build.”

“I think the best technology is one that you don’t have to learn,” Markas said. “And I think that’s what the AI really allows us to do — to build really seamless experiences that really follow the workflows that our customers are already doing.”