Used as a clerk, AI can save a superintendent time on the writing, though not on the thinking. A messy paragraph from the field, or a voice memo after a meeting, can become a cleaner draft RFI or a set of minutes you can edit. That is useful. It is also where people get hurt if they treat the draft as finished.

This sits next to “Where AI Helps” and “Where AI Should Not Be Trusted.” Those pieces cover summaries, transmittals, search, and the hard limits: AI cannot tell you which drawing is current, and it should not approve anything. This one is about two specific drafts: RFIs and meeting notes.

Procore and other platforms will sometimes offer writing aids or templates inside an official RFI or meeting tool. The process is the same either way: a clear question or a clear record of what was decided, tied to a drawing or a spec, with a person responsible. A Google Doc, a spreadsheet decision log, and a PDF in Drive or Dropbox can hold that record. No tool excuses an unchecked draft.

Where AI is actually helpful

AI is at its best when you give it your own notes and ask for a cleaner structure, not when you ask it to invent the question.

Good uses:

  • Turning a superintendent’s field note into a draft RFI with a subject line, a drawing or spec reference you already provided, the question, and a proposed path if you offered one
  • Turning a rough meeting outline into a draft of minutes: attendees, date, items, and a first pass at “decision” versus “open”
  • Pulling a list of action items out of notes you wrote, so you can drop them into a decision log

In each case, the source is your notes. The output is a draft. Nothing goes to the designer, the owner, or the file until a person has read it.

What you still have to check

Check these every time, against the drawings, the specs, and what you actually heard:

  1. The drawing and spec references. Models invent sheet numbers and section numbers that look real. If you did not give it the reference, do not trust the one it produced.
  2. The question itself. A polished RFI that asks the wrong thing will get a clean answer to the wrong problem.
  3. Commitments and due dates. Minutes that assign a person or a date the meeting never assigned create a new liability, not a convenience.
  4. Names and companies. Transcription and drafting tools mis-hear trade names and people. Fix them.
  5. Anything that sounds like a change, an approval, or a notice. AI should not be the last word on contract language. If the draft starts to read like a direction to proceed, stop and write that sentence yourself, or talk to whoever owns the contract.

A practical habit: paste the draft into the RFI or the minutes file, then walk it line by line with the source note and the current set open. If you cannot point to the sheet, the spec, or the note for a sentence, cut the sentence.

A simple workflow in tools you already have

  1. Capture the raw note the same day: an email to yourself, a short Doc, or a voice memo you transcribe.
  2. Ask the tool for a draft, and tell it to use only the references you provided.
  3. Edit in a Google Doc in the job folder (05_RFIs or the meetings folder), not in a chat window that will disappear.
  4. File the official RFI or the issued minutes as a PDF, and update the RFI log or the decision log. The Meeting Minutes and a Decision Log meeting-minutes habit and the Meeting Minutes Template template are the paper side of this.

If you want help standing up the logs and the folder this habit lives in, I can set up the job file or keep it on a retainer. I do not let an AI clerk be the official record. The files stay yours.

If you want help, not just a checklist

Some jobs run fine on a clean file and a superintendent who gives the log fifteen minutes twice a week. Others do not: revisions are moving fast, closeout is already behind, or the field simply has no hours left for paperwork.

That is where I come in. I set up the job file, run the logs on a retainer, or prepare closeout before the scramble starts. Your files stay yours, and there is no software contract to sign.

Email travis@builtonrecord.com Get the free Job File Kit