Procore at its Chicago Groundbreak 2023 event this week laid out new and forthcoming functionality, including developments achieved through internal development, partnerships and acquisition.
Several of these announcements had heavy artificial intelligence (AI) elements, including a broad partnership between Procore and Microsoft and a separate partnership with Document Crunch for AI contract insights that are expected to extend deeper into the project phase.
In situations where broader Procore initiatives may potentially overlap with what software vendors in the Procore Marketplace offer, company executives stressed Procore’s platform focus.
“The partnership programs we have are fundamental to our success,” Procore Founder and CEO Tooey Courtemanche said. “We don’t look at it as us and them—we look at it as us. Ultimately what we are trying to drive is value. Our goal is for it to be so our customers don’t even know they are using a piece of our partner’s tech—it is so embedded in the application. We don’t disallow better tools in our product. If they can build a better bidding tool, we want our customers to have access to that.”
Embedded GIS in Procore
Procore also announced its acquisition of Unearth, a geography information system (GIS) mapping solution. According to President for Products and Technology Steve Davis, this GIS capability is on track to be extended deep into Procore.
“We are treating that as a core platform service,” Davis said. “You'll see basically all of our solutions start to have mapping, whether it's RFIs, observations, submittals, images, drawings—all of this will start to light up with regards to GIS capabilities.”
This will be applicable to vertical contractors, but will have even greater benefit to horizontal contractors.
“We've heard this from customers loud and clear, and we're working on projects that are miles and miles long,” David said. “I had a personal visit of a project a couple months ago, among the largest solar projects in the world. I think it spanned over 15 miles. Our ability to provide these capabilities is going to be a huge uplift for our customers.”
AI Copilot for Procore Data
In partnership with Microsoft Azure, Procore will deliver Procore Copilot, a new artificial intelligence-powered conversational and predictive experience that will provide customers the ability to automate time intensive, manual processes across the Procore Platform
Procore Copilot will operate in the background, flagging important information based on data inside Procore. Microsoft is bringing to the table its Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, which would surface insights from its AI inside of Microsoft products Procore’s customers already use.
Procore and Document Crunch
Procore and its partner, leading contract intelligence provider Document Crunch, announced that the Document Crunch product was now an embedded contract intelligence experience. Document Crunch customers can now embed contract insights and project playbook tools in Procore’s digital workspace.
“Our core functionality helps you understand what's in your contract and provide some rationale, with what with what's important, your contract, which really automates two questions that I used to get asked all the time when I was in construction attorney,” Document Crunch Co-Founder and CEO Josh Levy said. “What am I looking for here? Why do I care?
“And the workflows that we support today are in that pre-construction phase where you're either bidding a contract, and you need to qualify or look at the risk in the contract to understand what you're bidding, or you're negotiating that contract. That's a risk review solution, where we help people understand what's in their contract and why it's important. And then what you heard about today with Procore is we really are moving more into project-level solutions.”
Procore Pay Procore also announced the United States release of Procore Pay, a full lifecycle payments management solution that extends the functionality from the acquired Levelset product deeper into Procore. This yields a payments management solution for the extended project team of subcontractors and suppliers, including automated lien waivers.
