CICA AI was an AI-powered co-pilot for construction professionals, designed to streamline compliance reviews across specs, drawings, contracts, and bids. As CTO, I led a team of 3 from concept through development.
Discontinued. We didn't secure funding and the team pivoted to other opportunities.
The problem we tackled
- 12.5 hours/week wasted on manual compliance checks (FMI Construction Tech Report '23).
- $200-300K average change-order cost from missed specs (Dodge Analytics).
- 5+ platforms juggled per project team (Autodesk Report '22).
Features
- Automated technical review against ground-truth documents.
- Intelligent issue flagging before problems escalate.
- AI co-pilot for custom, conversational document reviews.
- Document conversation interface for natural queries.
- Exportable markups and compliance reports.
Who it was for
- Government agencies: validate GC proposals against regulations.
- Private developers: verify GC bids and spec alignment.
- General contractors: streamline submittal and cost proposal reviews.
- Estimators: level bids without manual doc diving.
- Consultants & owner's reps: automated audit trails and alerts.
My role
As CTO, I led technical architecture, AI/ML pipeline development, and product engineering for the platform, working closely with my co-founders on product strategy and investor pitches.
Outcome
Despite strong market validation and a working prototype, we didn't secure funding and decided to pivot. The experience deepened my expertise in AI document processing, construction tech, and early-stage startup operations.