AI for your architecture firm: more time for design and clients, less paperwork. We find the tasks in project management, tendering and site supervision that are a good fit for AI, train your team, and build and run the right software.
Minutes for every design team meeting, qualifications in bidders’ covering letters, interim invoices to check against measurements and the contract: that costs hours every week. If your team redesigns after a change request before the additional fee is agreed, the redesign often goes unpaid.
Architecture firmsOverview Page 1 of 2
AI Værk is your 360° partner for AI in mid-sized companies.
You work directly with us, the two founders, from the first question through to live operation. Together we pin down where AI can take work off your hands, and then we implement it.
We know the day-to-day work in architectural practices: minutes of design team meetings, tender comparisons and change requests from clients. Your industry is where we start. From there, we support you in whatever you plan to do with AI.
You can start wherever you are: with an early idea, a workflow that takes too long, or a finished plan for us to implement.
Justus August and Elias Arndt
About us-
01
Consulting and AI audit
In a free initial call of about 30 minutes, we listen. In the €500 AI audit, we review your workflows, data and software, then agree with you where to start.
Pricing and AI audit -
02
Workshops and training
Your team practises on real tasks from their own day-to-day work and learns to use AI tools safely and check the results.
Workshops -
03
AI assistants and chatbots
Your team or your customers ask, your company knowledge answers: with sources, and only with what the person asking is allowed to see.
Internal AI assistants -
04
Process automation
Recurring workflows run on their own from intake to result, connected to the software you already use.
Process automation -
05
Custom development
We build custom software where off-the-shelf products fall short, for example a client portal where your clients see drawing revisions and sign off their choice of finishes.
Custom development -
06
Operations and maintenance
We host, monitor and maintain the software and extend it when your workflows change.
Operations and monitoring
Data protection and hosting at every step. You decide where software and AI run: on your premises, on a dedicated server in a German data centre, or through a cloud AI service hosted in the EU. Anyone who processes your data signs a data processing agreement first. Private AI
Where AI takes work off your team’s hands
Minutes of the design team meeting
After the regular design team meeting, the project lead dictates their notes. The software turns them into minutes with decisions and actions for each party, carries over outstanding items from the previous minutes and flags what is overdue or still has no deadline. The project lead checks them and sends them to the distribution list.
Bids checked against the bill of quantities
The software reads the bidders’ unit rates, even from PDFs and scans, matches them to the items in your bill of quantities and passes them as a GAEB file to your tendering software, which builds the tender comparison. It flags calculation errors and rates it could not read reliably for your team to check. Qualifications, alternative bids, substituted products and missing documents are listed alongside, as the basis for your award recommendation.
Change requests through to invoicing
Every change request in the minutes or an email becomes a change record. If the project lead judges that it triggers repeated basic services under the HOAI, Germany’s fee scale for architects and engineers, the software drafts the notice to the client before your team starts redesigning. A list shows the firm’s management what has been notified, agreed and invoiced.
Illustrative use case
From change request to fee proposal
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01
The request in the meeting
On a block of 14 flats, the developed design (HOAI work stage 3) has been approved and the building permit application is in progress. At the client meeting, the client asks for two flats on the top floor to be combined into one. The project lead records the request in the minutes.
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02
Change record and notice to the client
The software opens a change record and uses the drawing register and project folder to propose what is affected: top floor plan, sections, living area calculation, cost estimate, parking provision statement and fire safety strategy. It also names the consultants who need to update their designs: the structural engineer and the building services engineer. The project lead confirms the list. The same day, the draft notice is ready, and the project lead checks and sends it: the change repeats basic services from the developed design and permit stages, a fee proposal follows, and redesign starts once the client has accepted it.
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03
Fee proposal from your time records
From your time records, for example in untermStrich, the software shows the hours earlier projects took in the affected HOAI work stages. The project lead uses them to estimate the redesign effort, and the software calculates the fee proposal under your contract with the client, as a percentage of the work stage fee or at an hourly rate. The firm’s management signs it off, then it goes to the client.
You decide where drawings and project data are kept.
Competition entries, fee proposals and client contracts are confidential, and the names and addresses of private clients fall under the GDPR.
- A data processing agreement under the GDPR, signed before the software sees real data.
- Your data is never used to train AI models.
- Every access is logged. You see who opened what, and when.
Working with your design software
Room data comes from the IFC export, provided the rooms are set up in the model, and the drawing register from an export from your CAD software. That way the software proposes which drawings and areas a change affects. Where a program offers an interface or a GAEB import (the German exchange format for bills of quantities), the results go straight there. Otherwise your team copies them across from a work list.
Product names mentioned are trademarks of their respective owners. Mentioning them implies no partnership with the vendors and no endorsement by them.
Working safely with AI: training for project leads and office staff
Your team practises on a typical email a client sends shortly after moving in: what the software takes over, what the AI gets to see and what the project lead decides. The toggle shows how names and addresses stay protected.
“Hello, we moved into the house three weeks ago. In the upstairs bathroom the wall next to the shower is damp at the bottom, along the silicone seal. Who is going to sort this out? Can you let us know by Friday? Best wishes, Person 4183Thomas Berger, Address 5527Lindenweg 12, Husum”
- Your server inserts placeholders
- Sent encrypted
- Cloud AI processes it
- Your server puts the names back
Only your server knows which placeholder belongs to which person.
- Message arrives
- The AI on your server works with the full message
Nothing leaves your office.
Record the defect
Log it as a case with its location, ask the client for photos and check whether the defect is already in the acceptance record.
Clarify who is responsible
Damp along the silicone seal points to the joint or the waterproofing, so the tiler; a leaking pipe points to the plumbing contractor. Also check whether retention for defects is still being held.
Notify the contractor
With the client’s authority, notify the contractor of the defect in writing with a deadline, and by Friday give the client a date for a site visit.
Questions before getting started
Does the AI do our design work?
No. Design, detailed design and model stay with your team and in your CAD software. The software takes on the writing around the design: it drafts the building specification from your standard clauses, summarises statements from consultants and authorities, and turns the conditions of the building permit into a checklist for the detailed design.
Does it work with GAEB and our tendering software?
Yes. The software reads bills of quantities as GAEB files. From bids that arrive as PDF or Excel files it creates a GAEB bid file (X84), which RIB iTWO, NEVARIS, ORCA AVA, CaliforniaX and other tendering programs import into the tender comparison. It flags deviations and values it could not read reliably for checking. If a bid already arrives as X84, it reads the covering letter and attachments for qualifications and substituted products.
Can AI help with applications for public contracts?
Yes. For contracts under the VgV, Germany’s regulation on the award of public contracts, the software reads the contract notice and lists the minimum requirements for suitability and references, the selection criteria with their weighting, the required documents and the deadlines. From your project archive it proposes reference projects that meet these requirements. It pre-fills the contracting authority’s forms and the project sheets for your references with data from the archive. Your firm decides which projects go into the request to participate.
Can AI help with site supervision?
Yes, for example with invoice checking. The software compares each cumulative interim invoice with the contract, measurements and approved change orders. It flags quantities the measurements do not cover, unit rates that differ from the contract, work billed under both a contract item and a change order, and missing deductions such as earlier interim payments, discounts or retention. It compares change order quotes with the rates in the contract bill of quantities. Your site supervisor signs off the invoice.
What does getting started cost?
The initial call is free. If the task is already clear, we move straight to a proposal. If a closer assessment is needed, the AI audit costs €500, fully credited towards implementation with AI Værk. If we find no useful AI application, the audit fee is waived; previously agreed expenses remain payable. Our proposal lists setup, licences, hosting and support separately.
How long does your project lead spend on the minutes after a project meeting?
In the free initial call, tell us how a project runs at your firm, from preliminary design to site supervision. We will show you where AI saves time, what that costs and how it connects to your tendering and practice management software.