By Michael Collins, Managing Principal, EquiNova

Housing economics definitely is living up to its reputation as “the dismal science.” We’ve heard several economists speak recently, and all describe the home building and remodeling market as lukewarm at best. Many are reducing their forecasts. But that’s not the only trend we’re seeing. As a trio of executives noted recently, opportunities to innovate and improve are red-hot.

Artificial Intelligence is a big reason why. We’re hearing reports that AI assists are reducing from hours to minutes the amount of time it takes to take information off a house or truss design and start calculating material costs. The biggest change we’ve heard of involves Lowe’s, which used to require 20 days to process a take-off request. Now it needs two. Dealers nationwide are working on ways to cut the time needed for other processes, as well as discover trends and problems that they’d never have time to uncover manually.

As Weyerheauser CEO Devin Stockfish pointed out recently, you can use AI’s time savings in one of two ways: Do the same work with reduced staff, or keep your staff and help them do more. Either way, your sales and profits benefit.

Stockfish and his fellow leaders are refusing to let a tepid economy, fuel prices, tariffs, and other woes push them into hiding. Neither should you–the opportunities are too great