Sean Phillips is a Senior Strategy & Partners Manager at OpenSpace
Progress tracking has been a holy grail for construction for decades. Builders have always wanted to know exactly how their projects are pacing—what’s done, what’s behind, and where risk is building. The information existed, but it lived in someone’s head, a spreadsheet, or a highlighted plan. And it was never directly tied to reality—anyone could accuse this information as being “just an opinion.” Getting the information out reliably, repeatedly—and tied to reality, to facts, by default—was the problem.
Reality data changed the equation
For the first time, armed with visual data flowing from the field via 360° cameras, drones, phones and more, teams can see planned versus actual in near real time—by trade, by floor, by zone—and spot where work is starting to slip before a small delay becomes an expensive one. This visual data unlocks the power to produce high-level analytics—schedule completion, percent complete, and more—that are backed by data, not opinion. That’s exactly what OpenSpace Track does. It makes that early picture possible: AI-powered, human-verified progress insights, customized to each site’s needs, that accelerate insight and decision-making for the teams executing and managing the work.
Forecasting is the next frontier
Progress tracking is incredibly powerful, because simply knowing where you are is an unlock. Knowing what’s coming is the advantage.
Forecasting takes progress tracking from reactive to proactive. Where forecasting gets complicated is when technology vendors apply the same one-size-fits-all forecasting model to every project on their platform. But every project is unique, and every builder runs their business differently. That’s why OpenSpace Track allows you to define progress on your own terms.
Sidebar: What it means to be an AI-first platform
Our philosophy runs deep: in this new AI-powered world, builders can tap AI tools like Gemini, Claude, and ChatGPT to get work done according to their needs. And in this new world, technology companies need to operate as AI-first platforms, not walled gardens: platforms that enable their customers to tap the data and insights the tech companies help produce in a variety of ways: including making them accessible to AI agents their customers are deploying.
The AI agents OpenSpace has been talking about recently fit this philosophy: agents that can see the site, operate on reality—and agents that can interact with other data and other agents to solve customer problems. We’ll have more to say on this in the future, so stay tuned!
Theory into practice: AI-powered forecasting, built for real jobs
We’re putting this theory into practice to unlock this holy grail of forecasting. It’s actually a pretty simple idea: we are providing “formulas” you can use, today, to take data from OpenSpace Track and create polished forecasting reports, using the AI tools you’re already familiar with, and customizable to your exact needs. We understand that enforcing a rigid forecasting technique on all builders doesn’t work, and we know that AI now allows us to build tools that are incredibly powerful and highly tunable—as long as they have access to the right kinds of data.
The video above is real! Using Claude (or ChatGPT, CoPilot, etc.), you ingest data from OpenSpace Track, add in your own forecasting methodologies, and get the forecasting insights like shown above.
AI is crazy, right? And again, this works because it’s based on the right data, as captured in OpenSpace and OpenSpace Track.
Your questions. Your insight. The right data. Letting you make the call on what to do next.
This is all possible because OpenSpace captures reality clearly: a visual twin of the jobsite, built from every capture, Field Note, and daily log. OpenSpace Track then turns that record into progress and schedule insights, shaped by how you run your operations. OpenSpace creates a reality layer across every project, where every capture and Field Note sharpens the picture of what’s actually built. That data flows into Procore, Autodesk, and the AI tools your team already uses. OpenSpace returns the record. What you do with it is up to you.
Your team is already the sharpest tool on the project
Project teams are sharp, experienced, and close to the work. The super using Field Notes in OpenSpace during site walks to complete the daily log. The project manager bringing what’s actually built to the coordination meeting. The project executive spotting trends from the last three jobs in a single view.
The judgment is already there. What they’ve been missing is a clear record of reality, one they can use to make calls—and in today’s world, to bring directly into the AI tools they already use. We believe the following is true in general, but specifically true when it comes to forecasting: technology should sharpen judgment, not try to replace it.
That’s what OpenSpace is built to deliver. Not to replace your team’s judgement, but to give them data and insight.
And like we said, we aren’t just being theoretical about this: we can provide you a Claude skill or a custom GPT, built to ingest OpenSpace Track data, so that your team can forecast how they want to: ask about pace on a slow trade, what it would cost to add a shift, or where a delay three weeks ago is likely to surface next. (Your teams are sharp, but they’re busy, so consider this a “cheat code” to get started on AI-powered forecasting, right away.)
All to get answers grounded in what’s built and the real details of the job.
Jeevan Kalanithi, our CEO, puts it this way:
“You should never outsource your actual decisions to anyone—including technology companies like us (or anyone else)! Instead, you should partner with technology companies to provide you with the insights to help you make better decisions, faster: based on real data + your wisdom.”
Construction’s AI moment won’t be won by the smartest algorithm that you just set and forget. It’ll be won by teams whose questions are grounded in what’s real, armed with tools that help answer those questions quickly and with trust.
Build on truth. The rest follows!
Learn more
Grab time with one of our experts to learn more about OpenSpace Track. Already an OpenSpace Track customer? Ask your OpenSpace team for a sample of forecasting prompts to use to get the most value out of your progress data right now.
Check out the rest of our AI agent series:
