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By Trevor Davies
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A Florida-based startup has developed an AI System that it says can potentially save the construction industry millions by avoiding contract disputes as projects take shape.
Claims Intelligence, developed by Florida company Contract Dispute Analytics, is designed to identify issues by working like a legal assistant, ready to check project communications and pick up on words and phrases associated with disputes.
It can flag references to additional work, unforeseen conditions, interruptions and delays, then alert the project team to have a rethink, according to its makers.
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Contract Dispute Analytics founder Richard Nasrawy, an attorney who told Newsweek he has 20 years experience in the construction contract sector, said: "Often, contractors are so keen to get the work done for the client, they don’t stop to assess extra costs.
"They don’t realize how much extra work outside the contract they are taking on. And on a large project that could easily mean millions of dollars of work done for free, in effect.
"I’ve seen contractors go bankrupt because they have inefficiently dealt with disputes as they arise."
Nasrawy seized on the development of AI to develop a system which could head off potential disputes before they become unavoidable, and prevent such traumas.
If successful, software of this kind could contribute to substantial savings across the construction industry.
Deluged by Documents
Existing products in the sector also offer combinations of contract analysis, notice tracking, event capture, evidence assembly, deadline monitoring and AI-assisted claims drafting.
Construction disputes are becoming increasingly document-heavy. Berkeley Research Group (BRG) says a typical case can involve thousands of emails, daily reports, meeting minutes and change orders, with some disputes generating 10 times more records than five years ago.
The firm estimates expert-led AI could cut time and costs for some repetitive review tasks by up to 85 percent. BRG cites an example in which reviewing 100,000 project emails manually would take several lawyers seven weeks and cost about $216,000. AI-assisted review could reduce that to four business days and roughly $27,000.
Those estimates relate to retrospective document review rather than Claims Intelligence. However, they illustrate why construction firms are increasingly turning to AI to analyze large volumes of project records.
BRG says it also develops internal AI tools for extracting facts from construction-dispute files.
According to Nasrawy, the distinguishing feature of Claims Intelligence will be an ability to monitor routine project communications proactively, rather than requiring users to first identify a potential claim and submit records for analysis.
Nasrawy said the market has several adjacent products rather than a direct one-to-one rival. He cited Document Crunch, Procore/Procore AI and InEight as related offerings, but said Claims Intelligence is differentiated by its focus on proactively identifying potential claim issues in routine project communications before they become formal disputes.
"I've directed developers to add an option for automatic folder scanning, so the system can periodically scan the selected project folder without the user manually initiating each scan," he added.
He said the platform helps users link emerging issues to contract requirements, notice obligations, supporting documentation and potential cost or schedule impacts, rather than replacing broader project management or contract management systems.
Not Just for Constructors
Nasrawy has been keen to point out constructors are not the only people to benefit from his app.
"I have worked for years in state government, later worked as a consultant to government agencies, and have also served contractors through Contract Dispute Analytics in managing construction claims and disputes," he says.
"That background is part of what shaped the development of Claims Intelligence as a tool that can be useful to more than one side of the project relationship.
"Owners, agencies, consultants, and other project stakeholders can also benefit from identifying potential claim issues as they occur."
Earlier warnings could give all parties more time to clarify instructions, preserve records, adjust work plans and resolve disagreements before they develop into prolonged delays, additional costs or formal disputes.
The financial exposure to contract issues can be considerable.
Global risk-mitigation consultancy HKA’s Eighth Annual CRUX Insight Report examined more than 2,200 distressed construction and engineering projects in 114 countries. Together, the projects represented $2.433 trillion in capital expenditure and $95 billion in claimed costs.
Sums in dispute averaged 33.4 percent of distressed contract budgets. Extensions requested by contractors averaged 65.8 percent of planned schedules, equivalent to nearly two-thirds of the time initially allocated to complete the work.
If earlier alerts reduced even a small portion of missed notices, duplicated work, document searches or unresolved misunderstandings across many large projects, the cumulative savings could be significant.
'Claim Blindness' and Seeing Around Corners
Nasrawy has called the failure to recognize an event's possible contractual significance "claim blindness."
The engineer and attorney, who also speaks of years of transportation-sector experience, founded Contract Dispute Analytics in 2024, and believes AI tools can increase visibility, helping clients to in effect see around corners.
He highlights a gap between executing a project and administering its contract.
A person may recognize that unexpected work has occurred without realizing that it could prove impossible to charge for it without taking swift action, reducing the profit margin of a project, or even plunging it into a loss, he said.
Extra work can also push completion dates outside the contracted end date, incurring penalties, as well as more costs.
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Screenshot of the Claims Intelligence dashboard, supplied by Richard Nasrawy
A routine email might therefore acquire significance much later. By then, personnel may have moved on, memories may have faded and the relevant information may be dispersed among schedules, meeting minutes, photographs and thousands of other messages.
So a prompt from Claims Intelligence could potentially save the company millions of dollars.
The following is an example given by Nasrawy: "A roadway reconstruction and widening project where delayed utility relocation affected the contractor’s access to work. The issue developed through routine emails, coordination updates, and schedule discussions. The contractor had to argue with the owner agency regarding whether proper notice of the claim was provided. By the time it became a claim, the parties had to reconstruct the timeline, analyze critical-path delay, and sort through concurrent weather and holiday impacts. The contractor spent valuable resources arguing the claim and ended up settling for a fraction of the cost incurred."
Claims Intelligence is designed to catch those warning signs earlier, while the project team still has time to preserve notice, document impacts, and resolve the issue before it becomes a larger dispute.
David Jewett, a project manager for Florida-based Masci General Contractors Inc, said he oversees multimillion-dollar municipal and heavy civil projects and gets hundreds of emails a day, and the biggest risk is missing early signs of delays, extra work or unclear direction.
Jewett, who helped independently test Claims Intelligence, said: "Sometimes an owner gives new direction and it’s easier for a project manager to just fix the issue to keep the job moving; but later, that same email or conversation can become critical, and it’s much harder to go back and document it.
"Claims Intelligence helps flag those issues immediately so I can act before they turn into costly disputes.
"The project-focused AI assistance was especially valuable as it gives exact spec references instead of generic AI answers pulled from unreliable sources online. I volunteered to test the platform because I see real potential for it to improve efficiency, reduce risk and become an essential tool for project teams."
How It Works
Contract Dispute Analytics tells users to first upload a project contract so the software can identify relevant obligations and notice requirements.
The system then analyzes project communications, when prompted to scan them as they progress, for references to issues such as extra work, unforeseen conditions, stop-work instructions, delays or potential cost and schedule impacts.
If a communication appears relevant, the platform is intended to alert users and assist with preparing a notice for human review before it is issued.
Newsweek managed to verify the existence of the app and carry out a basic test of uploading a contract and scanning emails mentioning delays and an inability to meet Florida building regulations, and when asked to scan the emails, the system flagged these potentially costly issues.
The company stresses that human judgment remains essential. Contract interpretation, causation, entitlement and damages typically require consideration of schedules, drawings, specifications, correspondence and professional legal or technical advice.
Developed over the last few months with Second Life Software, the system is now up and running. Claims Intelligence offers four subscription tiers based on token usage, which the company says equates roughly to the volume of emails that can be scanned and analyzed:
- Essential: $49 per month, including 30,000 tokens, enough to scan about 300 emails.
- Team: $149 per month, including 120,000 tokens.
- Business: $399 per month, including 400,000 tokens.
- Enterprise: $999 per month, including 1.2 million tokens.
Pricing scales with usage, with higher tiers providing larger token allowances for organizations processing greater volumes of project communications.
Darius Smith, founder of Second Life Software, and Katia Smith, the company's co-founder describe the system as human-focused. For them, the opportunity is not to replace professionals responsible for decisions. It is to build systems that make the evidence easier to find and the warning signs harder to miss.
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