A Pivot Point
The industry is at a turning point. A perfect storm of challenges—aging infrastructure, competitive bidding, the ongoing labor gap—mean contractors are faced with a critical choice: evolve quickly or risk being left behind.
BuildOps Forge 2025 brought together the innovative commercial contractors who are ready to take on this new world. From impactful keynotes to casual conversations over hands of poker, the event zeroed in on what truly matters: finding actionable solutions to the challenges ahead.
Here’s a look back at this year’s highlights, including what we learned—and why it’s more important now than ever as we head into 2026.
Empowering Teams to Do More
A key theme this year was in rethinking AI’s role– not as a replacement for crews but as a tool for empowering teams to do more.
Chris Stanton, Harvard Business School professor, shared a clear message: AI isn’t replacing people—it’s amplifying them.
His research shows that the construction industry still lags far behind other sectors in productivity, but that’s where the opportunity lies. The contractors who embrace smart systems—AI that routes information, predicts issues, and surfaces insights—are gaining a measurable edge.
“You don’t measure labor saved,” Stanton said. “You measure increases in productivity.”
The same sentiment was shared by the customer panel who noted that BuildOps works best when leaders pair bold decisions with deep empathy for their teams. The future of the trades, they said, will belong to companies that can connect people, process, and technology into one unified force.
In other words, the crews that thrive in the coming decade will be those that equip their people with smarter tools—and trust them to use their judgment.
Immediate Impact, With No Excuses
If the trades don’t slow down, the tech can’t either. At Forge 2025 we stripped away the “future talk” and focused on this: what can you do tomorrow?
Breakout talks and power sessions weren’t chalk-talks—they were problem-solving workshops. From streamlining service agreements to deploying AI job health dashboards, contractors left with action plans, not abstraction.
Systems of Record to Systems of Action
In our Forge 2024 product keynote, we laid out the vision: AI that does more than report—it acts. Tools that anticipate. Workflows that shift from reactive to proactive.
The message was heard loud and clear: field techs want tools that understand their work, not just track it.
At Forge 2025, that future came into focus. In his product keynote, Duncan Grazier laid out how BuildOps is transforming from a system of record into a system of action—one that helps contractors predict, prevent, and perform at their best.
From AI-powered job health tracking to CRM+ Reloaded and the new Financial Ledger, every product innovation shares one goal: to free teams from chaos and give them clarity in real time.
Because the truth is simple: the people in the field don’t need more dashboards—they need tools that do the work with them.
The Work That Makes the World Work
Mike Rowe brought the house down at Forge — not with slides or statistics, but with straight talk about what really matters: the people who build and maintain the world around us.
He reminded us that the trades don’t need saving, they need better stories.
Behind every data center, hospital, and high-rise are the men and women who show up, get dirty, and get it done. They’re the ones keeping civilization running, one job at a time.
Rowe challenged us to see the skills gap for what it really is — not a labor problem, but a storytelling problem. When we start talking about this work with the respect it deserves, the next generation won’t just join the trades, they’ll lead them.
Building Forward in 2026
The trades are entering a new era — one defined by courage, clarity, and connection. Contractors aren’t just adapting to change anymore — they’re leading it. From AI-powered insights to smarter workflows and stronger teams, the industry is building momentum that’s impossible to ignore.
At Forge 2025, the same message was heard again and again– the future isn’t about doing more, it’s about doing what matters most. Mike Rowe reminded us that every job, every repair, every system we build is part of something bigger. Chris Stanton showed that technology’s real power lies in amplifying human skill. And Duncan Grazier proved that BuildOps is turning that vision into reality — giving contractors tools that act, not just report.
“BuildOps isn’t just software,” said BuildOps CEO and Co-Founder, Alok Chanani, “It’s a salute to the people building America — those who do the hard work with pride, skill, and heart.”
As we look ahead to 2026, we’re more focused than ever on creating technology that works as hard as the people who use it. Because the trades don’t just keep the world running, they keep it building forward.
If you missed Forge this year, we’d love to see you at the next one.
Until then, keep doing the work.
