CD NOTES / Fast Forward Scenario

1. Flirting with Oblivion

   Chain Drain interviewee Brad Hargreaves writes on LinkedIn about a surprising takeaway, after attending the Blueprint conference:

   There’s serious appetite for M\&A in proptech right now… It felt like every other company I sat down with was looking to buy startups. And it wasn’t just the big PE groups, either. Plenty of them were operating companies looking to make strategic acquisitions that plug into what they already do.

   These weren’t dumpster divers hunting for cheap acquihires of overfunded, underperforming companies….
   As far as I can tell, there’s one reason for this: data moats.

   Everyone has figured out that features aren’t a defensible moat in a world where AI can build them for you… It’s data that the frontier models don’t have: construction projects and bidding, maintenance requests and tenant complaints, building systems breakdowns, leasing inquiries and tour bookings.

   All the data cruft these unprofitable startups have been generating for years is now gold, and the incumbents are willing to pay real money for it.

   Not 24 hours after Greg texted me about this, I saw an ad on Instagram for Nyne.ai promising exactly that: “6-figure payouts” for data from firms with 20+ W-2s. *BB-9/29/26

2. Learning is how a Firm Survives Disruption

   Ian Keough, CEO of Hypar, writing on LinkedIn about learning loops as the lifeline of firms in the AECO sector grappling with AI-induced change: “If differentiation begins with the first client conversation, Design Technology has to reach beyond production. Systems should help senior planners apply firm expertise to each client and return new knowledge to the practice. The client experience is at stake.”

   In other words, fix the chain drain to save your firm. *BB-9/25/26

3. Survey of Architecture Firms Using AI

   Design blog Dezeen asked 53 leading architecture studios about their use of AI. 26 (49%) replied, one saying that they do not allow it and 25 (47%) actively encouraging it. There’s a split between those that are being proactive by building their own tools and those that are letting it wash over them:

   A key trend emerging alongside the use of these AI tools is the development of in-house AI systems, favoured for their personalisation and data privacy. More than half of the studios that told us they are using AI have created in-house systems, including Foster + Partners, Hassell, Heatherwick Studio, MVRDV, OMA and Gensler. Notably, despite enthusiastic adoption of AI at many studios, only 19 confirmed that they have established AI policies.

   If we had done the survey, we would have asked where the AI leadership is located within these firms: with the CEO, head of IT, a digital team, or some other office? The answer to that says a lot about how an organization is relating to the emergent changes around them. *BB-9/2/26

4. Respect My (Land Use) Authority!

   More than 500 bills introduced in 40 states last year contained clauses pre-empting county land-use authority, according to an analysis by the National Association of Counties, reports Smart Cities Dive. A large minority (38%) explicitly aimed to curtail local control in order to streamline permitting, allow accessory dwelling units (which comprised nearly 40% of all new housing in California last year) or ease parking requirements.

   In the paper, we identified fragmented local, state, and federal regulation as a significant obstacle to the built environment sector’s achieving the economies of scale seen in software or manufacturing. While county officials might be alarmed at state legislatures’ efforts at pre-emption — although less than a third of those 500 bills passed — more harmonized regulations are a welcome development.

   “Often, the problem is a failure to modernize and keep up with the changing times we live in,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said while proposing a statewide zoning measure earlier this year. “It all adds up to bureaucratic red tape that unnecessarily increases costs, delays construction and frequently kills projects altogether.” *GL-8/27/26

5. Here Come the Robot Swarms

   The EU has funded projects under a call for “autonomous robot collectives delivering collaborative tasks in dynamic unstructured construction environments.” This video from lead research Sihao Sun and team at TU Delft provides an example: three drones work together to lift an object, manipulating it impressively with cables through various obstacles on a simulated construction site. Think construction that looks like a slow motion action sequence from a super hero movie. Pretty wild.

   A team including University of Bristol, TU Delft, numerous other european universities, and Foster + Partners will use the funding to apply this technique to “inverted timber fabrication,” which involves making assemblies on the ground plane before lifting them into place. The goal is to make construction safer (by reducing human labor?) and easier to execute (by working on the ground plan). Such automation reads as Fast Forward with notes of Eject. *BB-8/27/26

6. ProCore invests in Reality Capture to the Tune of $845M

   AEC heavyweight ProCore PCOR dropped serious coin on a drone-based reality capture company in a cash transaction. The data DroneDeploy comes with includes 20 trillion (!!!) square feet of site imagery alone, giving the parent company more fuel for training their AI. “DroneDeploy CEO Mike Winn said the acquisition reflects what customers have consistently asked for, that reality capture should be a native part of how they work rather than a separate tool.” This is showing how Fast Forward is disproportionately available to those with access to capital – product-based businesses and only the largest of professional services firms. *BB-7/30/26

7. McKinsey is Betting on Fast Forward

   McKinsey dropped a new report titled “How AI is reshaping the future of the AEC industry” that lines up pretty nicely with our Fast Forward thesis. Included in their recommendations is a suggestion to focus on workflows or domains rather than tasks. This speaks to the capabilities of AI as much as it does the discoordination challenges natural to the AECO sector.

   Here’s a battle coming for leaders of Fast Forward firms:

   “Vendor data rights are another advantage that AEC leaders consistently underestimate. As AI capabilities improve, technology vendors are pushing harder to access project data and the rights to learn from it and reuse it to create new products, or to put guardrails around how their products or software can be used to train proprietary models. They are also increasingly competing to control workflows, learning loops, and business opportunities built on top of project data. Firms that overlook the details of vendor agreements risk giving away too much control and long-term advantage.” *BB-7/16/26