Builders FirstSource’s strategic and operational blitz to become homebuilders’ go-to partner for an expanding share of the construction and assembly value cycle is picking up speed, even as the new-home market itself has slowed.
The latest move is a $25.3 million strategic investment in Digs, an AI-powered construction workflow platform that promises to embed Builders FirstSource more deeply into its builder customers’ day-to-day operating systems.
Homebuilders are fighting for deeper local scale, shorter cycle times, lower costs and greater productivity as essential defenses against slower absorption, affordability-constrained demand and margin pressure. Builders FirstSource, meanwhile, is assembling its own version of scale: connecting building products, component manufacturing, digital design, estimating and increasingly AI-enabled workflow tools into a broader end-to-end operating platform.
Its investment in Digs fits squarely into that strategy.
Builders FirstSource is the sole lead investor in Digs’ Series A funding round and has entered into a five-year commercial agreement with the company. Digs uses AI to organize the fragmented plans, specifications, selections, approvals, product information, warranties, conversations and other data generated during the construction and ownership of a home.
The partnership is designed to integrate that capability into Builders FirstSource’s existing digital ecosystem, giving builders a more connected workflow from design and estimating through construction, closing, warranty and ultimately homeownership.
It also marks another step in an important evolution for Builders FirstSource: from building-products distributor to increasingly indispensable operating partner.
That evolution takes on greater significance in today’s market. As builders search for productivity gains that can offset higher land, capital, labor and incentive costs, the competitive contest among their suppliers is increasingly about more than selling materials. It is about who can remove work, time and cost from the building process.
AI now gives Builders FirstSource another tool to do exactly that.
AI tools across the homebuilding workflow
At the center of the partnership is Digs’ ability to connect thousands of otherwise fragmented construction documents and data points into a single source of information. That includes plans, specifications, selections, products, approvals, warranties, conversations and project history.
Ryan Fink, co-founder and CEO at Digs, told HousingWire TBD that the goal of the platform is to cut down on repetitive work like takeoffs and information gathering, while giving builders a more connected digital record of a home from design through construction and warranty.
“If you look at a builder’s workflow, it’s pretty disjointed and broken,” Fink said.
First, Digs ingests disjointed information like plans, change orders, emails, texts and selections, then uses patented AI to structure it all into one uniform platform. Builders can store documents and project information in one place, then use AI to ask questions about the project, including calculations, decisions and information contained in floor plans and other documents. Fink
“Think ChatGPT, but specifically trained on build data and it has access to your specific project,” Fink said, pointing to this feature as a valuable product tool.
Digs also aims to automate traditionally manual parts of the homebuilding workflow, such as material takeoffs and design studio diagramming. According to Fink, AI can generate takeoffs in seconds and then use that information to automate much of the diagramming for design studios, potentially reducing the time spent on those tasks by 80% to 90%.
“This is enabling builders to perform their workflow faster with AI to reduce cycle times and be more efficient and be more cost-effective,” he explained. “Some of the initial numbers that are coming back are that our AI can perform about 700 takeoffs in the time it takes one estimator to perform one.”
Digs additionally targets improvements to the customer and homeowner experience by turning the information gathered into a 3D digital twin of their home. That gives homeowners a way to ask questions about their home, find product information and receive maintenance reminders. It also gives warranty teams more information when a claim comes in, which Digs says can reduce unnecessary warranty tickets and truck rolls.
“With the data around what products are in your home, preemptive maintenance is possible for the first time. So, if there’s a cold front coming on, Digs can notify the homeowner to say, ‘Hey, winterize your hose bibs, and here’s where your hose bibs are,” Fink explained.
The strategic partnership with Builders FirstSource
During an interview with HousingWire TBD in March, Builders FirstSource President and CEO Peter Jackson said that he viewed AI primarily as an augmentor of talent, as opposed to a replacement.
During the interview, Jackson said that AI will complete the less sophisticated work, and the less brain‑power‑driven work of communications, data transformation and input.
“The value, in my mind, is it frees up these talented individuals that are capable of solving the tricky problems or thinking ahead through to the next issue… and candidly, that makes their job more fun when they get to work on more interesting things,” Jackson added.
Builders FirstSource has long been a leader in technology. Jackson argued that the company’s focus on technology evolved following the 2015 acquisition of ProBuild. Leadership saw technology as an undeveloped opportunity in the building products space, which led to the firm’s 2021 acquisition of Paradigm, a software provider.
The partnership with Digs, which will bolster the company’s digital solutions technology offerings, is yet another stage in the firm’s technological evolution. Fink argued that both Digs and BuildersFirst Source are aligned on the value that technology can provide the industry. The two parties have been working together for roughly a year, and are expected to announce the full rollout “in relatively short order.”
“It all starts with the Builders FirstSource team sharing the same vision of where the technology can take the industry, so I think first and foremost we were really equally yoked there on the vision piece,” Fink explained.
For homebuilders, as was evident earlier this month at the HousingWire AI Summit in Dallas, AI is taking major operational and strategic steps every day, far beyond mere talk. America’s homebuilders face non-negotiable stakes in AI adoption at the business and operational level. A host of benefits, such as streamlined land acquisition, improved home and floorplan design, streamlined workflows, stronger marketing and better customer experience, are within reach.
Builders who fail to adapt quickly risk falling behind, and the same holds true for the suppliers that support them.