No shared view of the firm
Delivery, capacity, money, pipeline, and follow-up stay disconnected until someone rebuilds the picture.
We connect the systems behind the work so your team can see what’s moving, stuck, profitable, or at risk.AI operations for AEC
The process doctors.— a client
Give your best people more time for the work only they can do.
Clearworks finds and fixes the processes, handoffs, systems, and busywork slowing your firm down—using AI where it actually helps.
A 30-minute first conversation. Bring a workflow or question—no preparation needed.
How much of your team’s time goes to busywork every year?
This estimates the time your whole team spends each week looking for information, creating recurring reports, scheduling meetings, following up, kicking off projects, entering the same information more than once, and formatting documents or drawings.
team size×hours per person×working weeks×cost per hour
Across the team, that adds up to about
1,104hours each year27.6workweeks of staff time
11.5team-days each month
$93,840of staff time each year
You will not get all of this time back. The useful next step is to find the few recurring tasks responsible for the biggest share.
Does this sound like your firm?
Ask four people where a project stands. You’ll get four different answers.
Most of us have just gotten used to being our own secretary. Every handoff, report, decision, and follow-up depends on someone rebuilding the picture.
Production work gets rebuilt
Views, sheets, schedules, visuals, and reviews repeat work the firm already knows how to do.
We turn the way your best people already work into reusable workflows, automations, and AI tools.Decisions disappear in handoffs
Markups, RFIs, submittals, field updates, and changes lose context or a clear next owner.
We keep project information, decisions, and next steps together as work moves between people and platforms.We start by learning how the work really happens. Then we redesign what’s broken, build the systems, and stay to keep improving them.
Twenty hours a week of manual finance at one studio—about $85,000 a year of a director’s time at Los Angeles rates. A full day every Monday rebuilding a report at another—about $35,000. Half a hire, doing work nobody hired them for.
Hours from Clearworks audits; cost at BLS Los Angeles median wages, fully loaded.
Before we work together
Will we work well together?
The best work happens when your team is ready to look honestly at how the work gets done—and stay involved in changing it.
You’ll get the most from Clearworks if…
- You’ll show us how the work really happens
- You’ll name a point person—we carry the rest
- You want help implementing—not another deck to file away
Clearworks probably isn’t what you need if…
- You only want a generic AI demo or tool list
- Your team can’t be involved in the discovery
- You want us to make your firm’s professional or business decisions
Where Clearworks works
Across the project. Behind the firm.
Clearworks improves the workflows that connect drawings, financials, operations, management, and growth.
On the project
Never rebuild the same sheet twice.
Repeatable sketch-to-render, automated sheets and schedules, searchable details, and a set checked for gaps before issue. The architect still authors, approves, and seals.
Every decision lands with a next owner.
Meetings, markups, site walks, RFIs, submittals, and field changes become reviewed records—source, decision, and accepted update kept where the work is managed.
Behind the firm
See burn, unbilled work, and risk while there’s still time.
Project and financial data in one view: capacity, budget burn, commitments, unbilled work, reconciliation exceptions, delivery risk.
Requests get an owner. Knowledge stops living in one head.
Capture work from meetings, Slack, and email; route it; assemble recurring reports; document standards and approval thresholds; depend less on the founder or one key person.
Win the work the team can actually deliver.
Leads, context, next actions, and ownership in one shared view, weighed against real capacity. Your people keep the relationships and the decisions.
Clearworks builds the workflow, data, automation, and review layer—the visibility behind the firm, not just software. Your team keeps the professional judgment and the decisions.
The gap we keep finding
Buying the tool was the easy part.
People are already using ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, and whatever they found last week. Someone still has to decide who owns it, who checks the work, and what happens next.
Who owns it
Someone has to own the workspace, the settings, and which controls are right for your firm.
Who checks it
Someone has to train the team, review the work, and keep the answers current as tools change.
What's next
Someone has to decide what deserves attention next, instead of letting the tool list grow on its own.
How Clearworks works · five steps
See the work. Choose what matters. Build the change. Make it stick.
GUIDE is how we move from learning what your team really does to helping them own a better way of doing it.
G
Gather
The real pictureTrace the workflow, the tools people already use, who owns them, where the data goes, and what the team is ready to change.
U
Uncover
The Busywork AuditName the constraint, the useful AI opportunity, and the adoption, security, or governance gap that could keep it from working.
I
Install
Build the workflow and its foundationSet up the tool or workflow with the access, data boundaries, review gates, ownership, documentation, and a clear place for the accepted result to live.
D
Deepen
Adoption and ownershipTrain people in the real work, run the workflow, fix where it breaks, and leave the firm with a playbook and an internal owner.
E
Evolve
Embedded, monthlyReview usage, administration, training, and the roadmap. Improve what exists and build the next thing only when it earns its place.
Free resources for the question you have nowModern AEC Firm Playbook →State of AI in AEC Research report →AEC AI Workflow Atlas →Everything →
Three ways to work with Clearworks
Choose the help you need now.
Start with one workflow, map the whole operating picture, or bring in a longer-term implementation partner.
01
Blueprint
2–3 days · one workflowOne recurring workflow, mapped—with the first fix specified, not yet built. A small, bounded first step.
What you getA map of how the workflow really runs, where it breaks, who owns each handoff, and the first fix, specified and ready to build.If the Blueprint doesn’t surface something worth fixing, it’s on us.02
Full Busywork Audit
3–4 weeks · up to 15 interviewsThe full picture before deciding what to standardize, connect, automate, or leave alone.
What you getA firm-wide view of where time and money are being lost, what the team is working around, and what to address first.Started with a Blueprint? Its fee credits in full toward the Audit within 30 days.03
Implementation Partnership
Ongoing · monthly, after the AuditTurn the findings into working systems your team owns—not a report to file.
What you getStart with the full Busywork Audit, then keep Clearworks alongside the team to implement workflows, connect systems, train people in the real work, and help the changes stick.Questions before the first conversation
You do not need to know what the solution is yet.
Do we need an AI strategy first?
Start with the work. The useful strategy becomes clearer once the firm can see the real friction, the evidence behind it, and the decisions that matter.
Do we need to know which tool we want?
Start with the job the firm needs to improve. Clearworks compares whether to use what you have, buy, connect, or build—based on the workflow, data, permissions, review requirements, cost, and who will own it.
How advanced does our team need to be?
You can begin with one real workflow. Clearworks meets the firm where it is, helps the team build practical fluency, and adds standards and governance as the work becomes more capable.
Will this disrupt active projects?
The work is designed around live operations. Clearworks learns from what is already happening, bounds the first change, and keeps the team’s responsibilities and review points clear.
Can we begin with one workflow?
Yes. The Blueprint is specifically for a bounded, documented workflow when the firm wants a useful first move before committing to a full audit.
What happens after the audit?
You can use the roadmap internally. Clearworks can stay involved through an Implementation Partnership or scope a specific build when the evidence shows one is warranted.
Evidence, with the labels intact
A useful finding is specific enough to act on.
Clearworks keeps identified opportunities, implemented changes, and realized outcomes clearly labeled.
$150–200K
Estimated annual opportunity surfaced through the Busywork Audit; realization depends on the firm’s implementation choices.
“Working with Clearworks helped us not only identify but also clearly name some of our biggest challenges.”
Identified
Documented from interviews and workflow evidence, with a clear operating hypothesis.
Team received
A shared picture of the friction, priorities, and next moves leaders and staff can weigh together.
What comes next
The firm chooses what to pursue; Clearworks guides, builds, teaches, or helps run the change.
What the audits keep findingFirm types and roles, not names · one finding per firm
Architecture & design firm
Director of operations
Director of operations
A fixed-fee engagement doubled in duration without a change order or an added fee.
12 → 24 wksIdentified · $0 added
Design-build firm
Construction manager
Construction manager
Every Monday, the weekly project report is rebuilt by hand from information already scattered across Slack, schedules, and to-dos.
~1 day/wkStaff-estimated
Design-build firm
Design coordinator
Design coordinator
Pending selections and orders live in one person’s memory, with no shared status or reminder. Individual orders stay stuck.
Half a yearObserved
General contractor
Project managers
Project managers
No shared project-level status. Institutional knowledge is held by individuals, so new hires ramp slowly and leaders ask people instead of systems.
No shared viewObserved
Client proof · Alloi · design-build, Los Angeles
“The process doctor.”
What Marcos Santa Ana, Alloi’s founder, called Clearworks when he described the work back to Josh. The rest, in his own words.
In his words · before
“Processes unclear, roles not defined.”
In his words · why he said yes
“AI is mandatory. Josh is super grounded and practical.”
In his words · what he told his partner
“Josh will be the right person for the job, considering his experience working with architects for the past 20 years.”
Busywork Audit · mapped
Made the hidden work visible.Mapped how work actually moved through the firm—where handoffs stalled, which weekly workflows consumed the most time, and where too much depended on one person.
Workflow Workshop · built live
Automated a recurring workflow costing the team approximately 30 hours per month of staff time.The team built and tested the workflow live, then put it into use with people checking the result.
Implementation Partnership · shipping now
Keeps the improvements moving.Clearworks now releases working workflows, training, and system updates throughout the month—so the firm keeps improving instead of filing the audit away.
About the founder
I’ve loved buildings my whole life. Then I learned how much invisible work it takes to deliver them.
I built and sold LA Creative Technologies, an IT and operations company with a deep focus on architecture and design firms. I also co-founded AIA Los Angeles’ Technology in Architectural Practice committee. The through-line has stayed the same: find the expensive friction everyone has normalized, then make technology serve the people doing the real work.
25 years in technology and operations · Built & sold LA Creative Technologies · AIA LA TAP co-founder
