Accuracy at Speed: Faster Takeoffs Decide Who Wins More Work

Tight deadlines, no room for error and plans deep enough to make heads spin. For many estimating teams, this is the norm. And it’s been decades since the workflow has meaningfully changed.

Preconstruction is where many projects are won or lost. The accuracy of a bid determines whether a project is profitable, marginal or a money-loser before it even starts. Yet the takeoff process remains one of the most labor-intensive, error-prone and bottlenecked stages in the entire construction life cycle. That disconnect is costing firms much more than they realize.

Preconstruction & the Productivity Gap

Construction’s broader productivity problem is well documented. Over the last 50 years, the industry has seen virtually no productivity growth. The back office hasn’t been immune to that stagnation.

Manual takeoffs are labor-intensive by design. An estimator works through a drawing set page by page, measuring, counting, tallying and double-checking. For a complex commercial project, that process can consume days or weeks. And while larger firms might have the capacity to hire more estimators, that’s simply not a possibility for smaller contractors.

When estimating teams are stretched thin, speed and accuracy start trading against each other. Move too fast, and you risk errors. Move carefully, and you run out of time to pursue other bids — which can mean a lot of time sunk into projects that you don’t even win.

Errors Are Preventable, Even at Scale

Takeoff errors rarely happen at random. They follow predictable patterns: repetitive manual work, compressed timelines and insufficient review time. The result is familiar to anyone who has managed an estimating team. Common examples include over-ordered materials, under-counted quantities, missed line items or a bid that looked solid on paper and became a margin problem in the field.

The good news is that these mistakes are preventable. Not by adding more estimators — most firms don’t have that option — but by rethinking the workflow itself.

Independent research from the University of Kansas Civil Engineering Department compared AI-assisted takeoffs against a manual takeoff platform. The results were significant. The same takeoff that took two hours and 35 minutes manually was completed in approximately 37 minutes using AI-assisted software — a 76% reduction in time. Accuracy held, with most quantity adjustments being minor and results landing within a 5% error margin.

Critically, the study didn’t test AI working in isolation. It tested an estimator working with AI to review outputs, make corrections and apply professional judgment throughout.

The conclusion was clear: The combination of AI tools with human oversight produces both optimal speed and optimal accuracy. Neither alone achieves what both achieve together.

Bringing Speed & Accuracy to Repeating Layouts

One of the most common and underappreciated sources of inefficiency in commercial takeoffs is the repeating layout.

Consider hotels, apartment buildings, schools, office buildings, healthcare facilities and the like. A large share of commercial construction is built on standardized, repetitive floor plans. Every floor may have the same 40 units. Every unit has the same rooms, finishes and fixtures. And yet in a traditional manual workflow, estimators measure each one individually. Multiplied across a multistory project, that repetition creates dozens of opportunities for small inconsistencies to compound into real errors.

The smarter approach is to treat a repeating layout as exactly what it is: one takeoff, applied many times. Perform a complete, detailed measurement on a single master unit — capturing areas, linear footage, finishes and fixtures — then replicate it across every instance where it appears. Quantities aggregate automatically. Consistency is guaranteed because nothing is recreated by hand.

AI as a Force Multiplier

There is an understandable hesitation among experienced estimators when the conversation turns to AI. The concern is reasonable: Will automation push skilled professionals out of the process?

In practice, the opposite is true.

The goal of AI-assisted takeoffs is to remove the repetitive, mechanical work that consumes their time without requiring their expertise. Counting identical rooms, measuring standard assemblies, aggregating quantities across dozens of sheets — these tasks don’t require an experienced estimator’s judgment. They require speed and consistency.

When AI handles that layer of work, estimators are freed for the tasks that actually demand their skills: reviewing outputs for strategic accuracy, applying knowledge of local conditions and subcontractor pricing, flagging anomalies and making the judgment calls that determine whether a bid is sharp or padded. That’s where experience matters and where competitive advantage is built.

AI in preconstruction offers the leverage that estimators have been craving by putting them in the decision-making seat and accelerating everything underneath it.

The Competitive Takeaway

The firms winning more bids right now aren’t necessarily the ones with the largest estimating departments. They’re the ones moving faster and more accurately through preconstruction.

Speed compounds. A team that can complete takeoffs in a fraction of the time can pursue more opportunities, respond to tighter bid windows and submit with greater confidence. Over the course of a year, that advantage accumulates. This means more bids submitted, more projects won and greater margins protected.

AI-assisted technologies in preconstruction already exist today, and other innovations are likely to ripple throughout the industry. The question for construction business owners isn’t whether to modernize preconstruction workflows. It’s how much longer they can afford not to.