EC&M Editor-in-Chief Ellen Parson covered NECA 2026 in Las Vegas, where OpenSpace CEO Jeevan Kalanithi delivered a session on how spatial AI delivers quantifiable ROI and operational excellence in construction. Kalanithi laid out two defining trends: the rise of agentic AI and visual intelligence as a replacement for laborious text-first methods. His message to electrical contractors was clear: the field data that AI agents need to drive real value already exists on every jobsite, and the contractors who capture it systematically will be the ones who come out ahead.
EC&M is the leading trade publication for electrical contractors in North America, covering design, construction, and maintenance for an audience of professionals who manage technology decisions on some of the largest projects in the country. Being covered in this NECA roundup positions OpenSpace as a peer at the table where electrical contracting’s AI future is being defined. Kalanithi’s session made the case that the missing ingredient in most AI adoption conversations is visual and reality data from the field. Most AI tools today are trained on documents and text. OpenSpace’s foundation, built on more than 110,000 projects and 77 billion square feet of analyzed imagery, is what makes its agents different: they can see and understand what is actually happening on site.
Kalanithi’s three conditions for full AI adoption in electrical contracting are worth dwelling on. Field data must be part of what AI agents can access. Big gains in risk reduction and labor cost are achievable, but only if that data is accurate and consistent. And none of it happens without field workers actually embracing the tools. All three conditions are central to how OpenSpace is built. The platform makes it easy to capture a complete visual record of a project, gives field teams tools they actually want to use in Site Mode and Walk and Talk, and structures that data so AI agents can act on it. For electrical contractors thinking about where to start, the answer Kalanithi gave at NECA is the same one OpenSpace is built on: start with the field. Explore the platform at openspace.ai.
By: Ellen Parson
