Beyond reality capture: why we built the Visual Intelligence Platform

Jeevan Kalanithi is CEO & Co-Founder of OpenSpace

At this year’s Waypoint, we shared something I’ve been excited about for a long time: OpenSpace is evolving into a Visual Intelligence Platform.

That may sound like a big statement—and it is. This is our most transformative set of product and technologies we’ve delivered since we started the company. Let me explain why this shift is important for you, and why it’s such a big step forward for the construction industry.

From pictures to intelligence

When we started OpenSpace, our vision was simple: make it easy to capture what’s happening on the jobsite. A picture is worth a thousand words—and in construction, the right picture can save thousands of dollars (and sometimes a lot more than that!).

And that vision came true! Today, 350,000 builders use OpenSpace. You’ve captured more than 52 billion square feet of projects (that’s bigger than the Grand Canyon!). Everything from skyscrapers to shipyards to schools, and even projects in Antarctica have been managed on our platform.

But here’s the truth: the jobsite is still the most underutilized source of data in construction. Traditional, document-heavy processes just don’t capture the reality of the field. More than that, they can be error-prone, cumbersome, and laborious. So teams don’t engage, and the field ends up being a black box. And it’s a black box not just to stakeholders back in the office, but even to folks in the field itself, who can’t easily track and action what is going on day-to-day, week-to-week, and from start to finish.

The irony is that the field is where all the value is created, where the profits are made—and where the biggest risks and losses occur.

Reality capture helped change that. It allowed builders to collect visual data for future reference. But it was only the first step.

What is Visual Intelligence?

In short: Visual Intelligence turns images into everyday action.

It’s now not just about collecting visuals. It’s first about using AI to understand what’s in those images and place them in the right context. It’s then about reinventing everyday workflows, like punch and observations, to be fundamentally faster and more reliable, because they’re oriented around reality, not just words. Last, it’s about surfacing the insights you need—when and where you need them, from the field to the office to the executive suite.

Here’s how it works:

• Capture everything. Use smartphones, 360° cameras, drones, and laser scanners to document real site conditions—and find everything you captured in one place. If it’s happening on your sites, it’s in OpenSpace.
• Transform into intelligence. Our Spatial AI engine organizes every photo by time and location, and understands what’s in those images. Find what you want quickly, when you need it—and don’t drown in data!
• Take action. When you know what all your images mean and where they are, you can use OpenSpace to make better decisions, faster, from the field to the office. And importantly, insights flow directly into your workflows—whether that’s in OpenSpace itself, through deep integrations with Procore and ACC, or OpenSpace Progress Tracking—so you can act quickly.

I think of it this way: reality capture is like seeing. Visual Intelligence is seeing, understanding, and acting.

But what was really missing from existing reality capture solutions? What did we need to build to go beyond reality capture and become a Visual Intelligence Platform?

Why smartphones matter

Here’s the game-changer: the most important device on the jobsite is already in your pocket. For every drone on a site, you might find five to ten 360° cameras. But you’ll certainly find hundreds of smartphones, and they’re already capturing thousands of images every day. Not only are they capturing so much rich image data, they’re also the first stop for initiating and closing so many workflows that lie at the heart of getting great buildings built.

With the upcoming launch of OpenSpace Field, we’re enabling an image-first way of getting work done that’s faster than traditional methods, and integrated into your existing technology stack.

One of the superpowers that we’re first deploying in OpenSpace Field is our foundational innovation: patent-pending AI Autolocation (built with our Spatial AI). Location is critical for builders—if you don’t know where something happened, you might as well not know about it at all. For outdoor locations, you have GPS—but GPS doesn’t work indoors. AI Autolocation solves this problem: we provide indoor location, in real time, to devices like the smartphone, for anyone on the OpenSpace platform. And the more you capture, the better it gets! It’s hard to overestimate the power of this new innovation. AI Autolocation is a fundamental technology that will be powering our products in so many ways, for years to come, and we’re proud to launch its first application in OpenSpace Field.

Our Spatial AI engine technology also helps power another new feature: AI Voice Notes. Simply talk when you’re doing a punch list to log an issue, or any other time you want to note something. Our AI takes your words and logs everything in a Field Note automatically, and in the right place—filling out the right fields like assignee, due date, and so on. It’s fast and it works.

OpenSpace Field also provides deep integrations to PM tools, simplified ways to log issues visually, an AI-powered image search function, and more.

Overall, OpenSpace Field turns your phone into a true jobsite tool. You can capture reality, add expert observations in the field, and turn it all into intelligence that drives action.

What I’ve loved hearing from customers that have tried OpenSpace Field is this: “This new way of working is great because it’s like the old way of working: see something, huddle, assign it out, and get it done. No endless reports or word-based workflows that zing back and forth on the internet 5,000 times before resolution. See it, deal with it, get it done.”

Why it matters for builders

Construction is complex, high-stakes work. So if you don’t have visibility into what’s really happening in the field, you risk cost overruns, schedule delays, and disputes.

With Visual Intelligence, that changes:

• For GCs, it means clearer communication and fewer surprises
• For trades, it means better productivity and faster payments
• For owners, it means projects stay on track and risks are easier to manage

And for everyone, it means more confidence in every decision, made faster.

The essential triad: ERP, PM & Visual Intelligence

In conversations with our customers, we’ve heard clearly that when you’re looking to consolidate your tech stack, construction technology boils down to three essential systems:

1. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)—where the money lives
2. Project management (PM)—where documents live
3. Field system of work—where the job actually gets done

With Visual Intelligence, OpenSpace has become that system of work—the front end of construction. The place the field team goes first, and the place where data flows upward to make PM and ERP smarter—so you can make better-informed decisions based on reality from the field, to the office, to the C-suite.

A flywheel for your business

Here’s something I love about this shift: the more you use OpenSpace, the more valuable it becomes for your teams:

• The more 360° captures you take, the smarter AI Autolocation gets
• AI Autolocation makes it easier for you to log issues
• The more issues you log (which is super speedy with AI Voice Notes) means more data for accurate progress tracking, better and faster decision making, and ultimately a data layer that can set your business apart
• Better progress tracking results will naturally drive the field to capture the site more often…

And on and on!

It’s a flywheel effect—a compounding cycle that keeps building on itself. And because our technology is simple to adopt and effortless to use, we have massive capture and field engagement, meaning we’re able to scale like no other. Our platform is designed to build more value for you across your entire business (not just on one site), year in and year out—fueling automation and predictive insights.

Always visible, never in doubt

OpenSpace has always focused on making the lives of builders easier. The Visual Intelligence Platform is the next step in unlocking the future of building: giving you the clarity to run projects, portfolios, and businesses with confidence. OpenSpace Field is a huge step in making this vision a reality, but it’s not the only piece of our vision: with recent launches of our next-generation OpenSpace Progress Tracking, OpenSpace Air, and our new BIM Viewer, I hope you can see how we are pioneering a new way to work that is faster, easier and more trusted.

With Visual Intelligence, your work is always visible—and never in doubt.

I’m incredibly excited for what’s ahead, and I can’t wait to see how you use these tools to build better.

Watch Waypoint 2025

As you can see, we announced a lot of exciting things this year, so head to our website for recordings of my talk and all the Waypoint sessions.