Tooey Courtemanche
Founder and CEO at Procore
Since founding Procore in the early 2000s, when artificial intelligence as we now know it was in its infancy, Tooey Courtemanche has been looking at ways to streamline every activity for general contractors in ways that improve the construction process.
If you take into account the number of countries into which the proptech firm has moved over the years, you might say his company has achieved that goal, especially as it continues to expand into even more overseas markets in recent months.
Procore’s financials tool is one aspect that has become popular among its global users in the last year. The platform handles everything from bidding to contract management to invoicing, which means funds are transferred to specialty contractors faster. On average, general contractors pay out up to 90 days after getting an invoice, which Procore says it has reduced now that the company offers a paperless service.
“We’ve been very focused over the last 12 months on this concept of connectability,” Courtemanche said. “At the project level, a lot of folks working together have never worked together before and don’t work for the same company, so connecting everybody really does matter.”
Procore has also struck a partnership with Microsoft to expand its capabilities with AI.
Because construction is a data-driven industry, Courtemanche started seeking ways to help Procore’s users cut back on the time they spend just looking for information in their own records, something that consumes about 18 percent of their time, according to the CEO. The result was an AI-powered offering introduced this year called Copilot.
“With the advent of AI and large language models, we can now gain access to that information very, very quickly without having people sort through a whole bunch of different information,” Courtemanche said. “Copilot is essentially that, which is a partner that is sitting beside you aggregating information, so when you need it, it’s at your fingertips.”
Once Copilot reaches its cruising altitude, Courtemanche expects AI to take over every aspect of the platform.
