2025: One Giant Step
We’ve all heard AI mentioned at least a dozen times a day for the past year or so, but 2025 was the year it truly meant something. Step after step, breakthrough after breakthrough, AI has been reshaping what’s possible across our industry and within MBP. We’ve hit that point on the technology curve where progress no longer feels incremental, it’s actually exponential.
We’ve become more focused this year on understanding what AI actually is: not magic, not a shortcut, but the math of words. And when you combine that math with our team’s expertise, context, and creativity, you get real results. Not someday. Today.
This year, we leaned into rethinking processes, reducing inefficiencies, and making life easier for both our team members and clients, all while not letting it reduce the quality of our product.
Task-Specific AI
We’ve gone from “AI might help with this someday” to “AI can help us build this now.” Custom task agents now create:
- Tailored contract summaries
- Reformatted resumes, job postings, and job descriptions
- Automated metadata for thousands of files (so finding the “right” document no longer requires detective work)
- Invoice and receipt data extraction that eliminates hours of manual review
These tools are built around the exact tasks MBP team members perform every day. And they’re quietly transforming the way we work behind the scenes. As more MBP team members become aware of what AI can do, our Innovation Team receives an increasing number of requests for tools that support and enhance daily workflows.
Agentic AI
2025 is also the year that AI became a teammate. We now rely on agentic tools that can support our workflows directly, such as:
- A product that analyzes construction contract documents, specifications, and more to allow team members to query and extract contract requirements within seconds
- A proposal preparation platform that contains all MBP resumes and historical proposal data and can dissect RFPs, draft proposals, and generate marketing materials
- MBP’s own agents, including:
- Inspector Assistant Agents for different teams to quickly find relevant information across any manual, guide, contract, codebook, or specifications
- Quality Assurance Agents for specific MBP work products that compare against our standards and previous work products
- Project-specific Agents that use knowledge exclusive to project data to answer questions, provide backup, and brainstorm with us
- A Search Engine Agent for the thousands of captured lessons learned across the firm
Every day, MBP utilizes agents to help us read drawings, interpret specifications, review schedules, rewrite documentation, and flag risks. They don’t replace our expertise; they amplify it. They flag any inconsistencies and reduce rework. And most importantly, they free us to focus on what we do best: work with our clients to achieve better project outcomes.
Software and Custom Tool/App Development
You don’t need to be a software developer to build software anymore. You just need curiosity, a workflow challenge, and a willingness to experiment. With the help of AI-powered low-code tools, we have built solutions that would’ve required entire development teams just a few years ago:
- Automatic resume generators
- Drone fleet management tools
- Complex dashboards that allow us to visualize data in ways that previously required external consultants
We have significantly narrowed the knowledge gap, resulting in a more efficient, creative, and empowered team.
2026: No Longer Stepping, But Leaping
If 2024 was about AI adoption, and 2025 was about AI acceleration, then 2026 will hold even more promise:
- AI agents become standard tools on every project
- Internal apps evolve from “pilot” to “platform”
- QA/QC for schedule reviews and contract reviews becomes more automated
- Data is better integrated through our PMIS, dashboards, schedules, and field capture tools
- Historical information and data insights are within reach through a simple search
We’ll see tasks that are repetitive or time-consuming move into the background, allowing us to stay focused on our human judgment, coordination, and problem-solving.
It is encouraging to our MBP team to utilize AI tools in ways that not only generate greater efficiency in their work but also deliver valuable insights. As we head into 2026, the plan is simple. Continue to use these tools deliberately, refine the processes surrounding them, and stay focused on delivering better outcomes for our clients through well-executed work.
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