OBZDN Field Notes
AI for the trades, written from the truck.
Free, in-depth notes on putting AI to work in construction: what to adopt first, what breaks in the field, and what the frontier actually means for a crew of five or a GC running twenty subs. No gate, no fluff. If it wouldn't survive a jobsite, we don't publish it.
New notes every two weeks, and every one goes out to subscribers of JosueBuilds, the founder's weekly newsletter on AI in the built world. Short takes daily on X.
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Three pillars, plus the annual paper.
Playbooks tell you what to do. Pitfalls tell you what we've seen go wrong. Trends tell you what's coming and whether it matters yet.
The Jobsite Record: what AI actually changed in the field, fall 2026
The annual edition. Labor math, the capture shift, the fine print on the big numbers, a 90-day plan, and a five-question vendor test.
PlaybookYour first AI employee: a 30-day plan for a five-person trade shop
Week by week: pick the leak, wire the phone, set the handoff rules, measure what changed.
PitfallsWhy most contractor AI pilots die in month three
It's never the model. It's the six things around it: ownership, data, handoffs, the office manager, the invoice, and the demo that oversold.
TrendsWhat frontier AI models can and can't do on a jobsite in 2026
A builder's translation of the current state of the art: voice, vision, agents, on-device. What's real, what's demo, what to wait on.
In progress
- The 2026 LA Trades AI Adoption Report. An original survey of Los Angeles contractors. If you run a shop in LA County, take the 5-minute survey and get the report first.
- AI readiness checklist for GCs. One page. Print it, walk your office with it.
- Questions to ask any AI vendor before you sign. Including us.
Why this is free, and why you should trust it.
We build and run AI systems for contractors. Everything here comes out of that work: what we tried, what broke, what a real crew put up with and what they didn't.
It's free because the trades have been sold enough software by people who've never been on a jobsite. We'd rather earn trust by being useful first. If a note helps you do it yourself, good. If it makes you want to do it with us, the rate sheet is public.
When we cite a number, we say where it came from. When it's our opinion, we say that too.
Josue Hernandez, Founder