How do I get started?
Every contractor asked us the same question. This is the story of how answering it became bigger than one company, and why the institute exists.
- 1
Scelta, boots on the ground900+contractors Scelta has spoken to about AI - 2
The same question, everywhere6chapters in the first contractor AI curriculum - 3
Bigger than one company00associations that have signed the charter
- 01
One company, implementing AI with contractors
Scelta is a company that puts AI to work for contractors. For three years we were in their offices and on their sites, mapping how each company runs before building anything.
The more of that work we did, the clearer it became that the problem in front of us was bigger than any one client.
- 02
Every contractor asked the same thing
AI is here, and contractors know it. But in every office, on every site and after every talk, we heard the same question: how do I get started?
They didn't know how to use it, where to begin, or how to put it into their company. And nobody had set out how it should be done.
“How do I get started?”
- 03
So we wrote it down
Nobody had written a curriculum for how contractors should adopt AI, so Scelta wrote the first one, straight from the work we were already doing.
Six chapters, from the AI Blueprint to Compound, that work the same for one person in a truck and for the largest firm.
- 04
Their members were asking too
We started sharing the framework with construction associations. Every one of them told us the same thing: their members were asking how to get started.
The question wasn't one company's. It was the whole industry's.
- 05
The knowledge is walking out the door
Over the next five years, a wave of retirements will take decades of industry knowledge with it.
Contractors have a short window to keep what their most experienced people know, and turn it into something everyone in the company can use and build on.
Five years to keep what our most experienced people know.
- 06
Never a better chance to do more with the same team
Every business has to keep improving year after year. Today, the way to do that is with AI.
Contractors have never had a chance like this to lower their operating costs and take on more work with the people they already have.
- 07
One company could not solve this alone
To solve this for the whole industry, the work had to grow beyond Scelta. It needed more contributors than one company, and it needed experts and associations to lead it.
The work had to grow beyond one company.
- 08
So we founded the Contractor AI Institute
An open, unbiased institute, led by associations. It certifies experts on a curriculum that its governing board keeps current, based on research from vetted contributors.
Scelta is its first founding sponsor. It wrote the first curriculum and does not control the institute.
How it came together
- 1Three years of work with contractorsScelta maps companies and puts AI to work, one client at a time.
- 2The first contractor AI curriculumSix chapters, written from that work.
- 3The first associationsAssociations take the institute to their boards.
- 4The institute opensThe curriculum, the community and this website go live.
- 5The first certified expertsThe first bootcamp, and the first experts certified through their associations.
- 6The governing board is seatedNational associations from Canada and the US take over governance.
We set out to help one contractor at a time. Every one of them asked us how to get started, and so did every association we met. That question deserved a better answer than one company could give.
So we wrote down what we had learned, and we are handing it to the industry. The institute belongs to the associations, experts and researchers who build it from here. We are proud to be its first sponsor.
The faces of the institute
Help write the next chapter
Bring the institute to your association, or get certified through yours.