Agentic Workflow
An agentic workflow is a business process in which AI agents handle defined steps, such as intake, extraction, and record updates, while people review the work at checkpoints. A preconstruction team might use one for bid intake or CRM upkeep.
Why it matters in construction
An agentic workflow assigns the repetitive steps in a process to an agent and keeps the judgment calls with people. It changes the process across its handoffs instead of adding an AI feature to one screen.
Bid invitation intake, proposal leveling, CRM activity logging, weekly pipeline updates, and closeout collection all fit the pattern. They involve a lot of reading and transcription, with a few decision points where a person needs to weigh in.
How it works
- Map the process. Write down each step from trigger to outcome. For bid intake: the invitation arrives, the details are extracted, the job is checked against go/no-go criteria, an opportunity is created, an estimator is assigned, and the team schedules a review.
- Assign ownership. Identify which steps belong to the agent, which require a person, and which produce a draft for someone to review.
- Define handoffs. State what the agent produces at each checkpoint and what a person must do next. A precon director might approve a scored summary with sources before the job moves to “Pursuing.”
- Set failure rules. If the agent cannot find a bid date or a sub is missing from the database, it should flag the issue rather than guess.
- Track the results. Log actions, measure time from invitation to decision, and record overrides. Frequent overrides point to a step that needs work.
- Expand carefully. As a step becomes more reliable, the team can allow the agent to do more before review.
People should spend their time where their judgment changes the outcome. Agents are most useful on the reading, transcription, and routing around those decisions.
Example in practice
For example, a commercial GC receives about 35 invitations to bid a month. A coordinator spends two days a week entering them, chasing missing bid dates, and building a weekly list for the precon meeting.
The agent reads each invitation, populates the CRM, scores it against the rubric, and flags missing information. Each morning, the coordinator reviews the queue. The precon director receives a ranked list with scores and sources instead of a spreadsheet of names. The coordinator can spend more time on sub outreach for pursued jobs.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between an AI agent and an agentic workflow?
An agent is the software that does a task. An agentic workflow is the process design around it: which steps the agent owns, where a person checks the work, what triggers the next step, and what happens on failure.
Where should the human checkpoints go?
Anywhere the action is hard to undo or expensive to get wrong. Approving a bid, sending a proposal to an owner, committing staff to a project, and awarding a sub are typical review points. Logging activity and drafting summaries usually are not.
Do we need to redesign our process to use agents?
Usually, you first need to write it down. Many precon processes exist as habit. An agentic workflow requires clear steps, inputs, and decision criteria.
Go deeper
- From the blog Agentic: What It Means, and What It Means for Construction A working definition of agentic AI for construction teams, plus the utility versus security tradeoff every GC should understand before buying.
- From the blog The Days of Manually Updating Your CRM Are Over CRM hygiene was a preconstruction discipline — logging calls, updating bids, chasing estimators. With a preconstruction AI agent, that category is gone.
- From the blog 5 Estimating Workflow Fixes that Actually Save Time (Not Just Rearrange It) Discover 5 estimating workflow fixes that actually save time for general contractors—not just shuffle tasks around. Practical tips for estimating and bid leveling.