Inside BuildOps Forge 2026: All Systems Go

BuildOps Forge 2026 brought commercial contractors to San Diego for three days of keynotes, hands-on learning, and conversations that kept going long after the sessions ended. Here's what we saw, what we heard, and why it matters.

The phone rings, and you go

Alok Chanani opened Forge with a story. Dormatech Mechanical Systems President Mark Mulholland’s phone rings at 2 AM. At a skilled nursing facility for seniors with dementia, a boiler has gone down in the middle of winter.

By the morning, thanks to Dormatech, the boiler is back in operation. For most commercial contractors, the story is touching but far from unfamiliar.

Critical infrastructure, from hospitals and schools to nursing homes and stadiums, needs the trades, and when something breaks it can’t wait. AI runs in buildings, and every data center needs power, cooling, cable, and fire protection that can't go down.

Yet, the industry is dealing with an incredible amount of pressure, from a shortage of people to a surge of demand, and the work still needs to get done.

That's why Forge exists: to serve the doers of the world and give them a room where they can learn from one another. Nobody understands the pressure like someone who has picked up the same call.

Growth without losing a beat

Still, in the face of these myriad challenges, contractors on BuildOps are growing through it all.

Contractors that grow by acquisition are bringing new operating companies onto one platform without losing a beat. A contractor that spent the first two weeks of every month getting its books to agree closed with zero variance for the first time. Service businesses are getting invoices out faster and posting their biggest revenue years.

Our first Torque 2026 Benchmark Report built from a year of data across more than 1,500 contractors, shows the pattern. The top shops collect cash faster and earn more revenue from every technician with leaner back offices, and they aren't getting there by hiring more people. Across the platform, OpsAI usage is up 17x in a year, and customers have billed about $12 billion of work with the year not yet over.

What we're building, so you can be ready for the call

At his first Forge, Chief Product Officer Will Lehrmann joined the stage with his team to walk through what we’re building so that your software is the last thing on your mind when that 2 AM call comes.

Will showed how a won sale in CRM+ becomes a job or project with the right customer, pricing, and assets already attached. Rishabh Dave, Head of Financial Products, showed how Finance Hub codes, checks, and approves every transaction before it reaches the books, so the field and finance finally see the same margin. Chris Karcher, VP of Product for Field Service and Construction, showed how Construction projects stay tied to those same numbers, and Marqui Dixon, Staff Product Designer, showed how Service techs arrive knowing the property's history.

Agents that do the digging

During Forge we announced the next chapter for commercial contractors with Agents.

Service Agents work inside the system that already holds your jobs, contracts, and payments, chasing quotes that went quiet, getting stalled jobs moving, and helping invoices go out right the first time.

But splashy product releases only matter if they actually work in your daily life.

Will introduced Karly Hoehn, VP of Rolls Mechanical, to share how she’s been using Service Agents to find and tackle the work that piles up for her people so the team can take on more of what only they can do.

Related reading: Announcing the First BuildOps Agents

A room full of people who get it

Product news is only part of what brings contractors to Forge. The rest is each other.

Forge 26 brought about 700 attendees to the InterContinental San Diego, double last year. The feedback we heard from 2025 was loud and clear: contractors wanted more chances to connect with each other.

We responded not just with more opportunities to network but with roundtables built around role and perspective, so attendees could get targeted advice for the challenges they're facing.

A CFO's needs are different from a CEO's or a dispatcher's, and women in the trades face battles others don't. It was important to us to make it easier for every Forge attendee to find the people who get it.

At the core of the trades are people-to-people relationships. However much technology empowers people to help themselves, nothing replaces sitting down with a Customer Success manager, walking through your own dashboard, and working through problems that don't fit on a Zoom call. At Forge's Power Stations, attendees held more than 200 of these meetings, and many booked more than one, heading back to do some work and returning with progress. It's what serving the unsung heroes of the trades really looks like.

Where the real conversations happen

Some of the best moments at Forge happened between the sessions. The Welcome Reception on Wednesday night kicked things off, with contractors swapping stories over drinks and sunset views. On Thursday, everyone headed to Petco Park, home of the San Diego Padres, for a night to celebrate the hard work behind every job and to catch up with the peers who know exactly what it takes to get the work done.

Until next year

Forge opened with a phone ringing at 2 AM, and the week was about making sure the people who pick up are ready. Ready with a schedule they can trust, an invoice that goes out on time, and books that close clean. That's what we build toward, from a platform that connects sales, service, construction, and finance to agents that give your team time back.

Commercial contractors left San Diego with something else, too: ideas from peers facing the same obstacles and striving towards the same goals. 

Thank you to everyone who joined us, and to the unsung heroes of the trades.

Keep building.