Who Owns Your Data Owns Your Intelligence

In May 2026, Procore embedded Datagrid into the platform and released five native AI agents — Deep Search, Submittal Reviewer, RFI, Daily Log, and Contract Review. As Procore's SVP of AI & Data Thiago da Costa framed the strategic direction: "Most AI tools in construction today behave like chatbots on top of disconnected data. Our approach is different."

This is playing out across the industry. Every major platform is moving to native AI that locks you into their ecosystem.

Step back and the bigger picture comes into focus. The real battlefield isn't the AI model. It's the data, and who controls it. Platforms are racing to own the intelligence layer above their data because that's where the value moves next. If Procore owns the agents that reason about your project data, they own your operational decisions.

This mirrors what happened with BIM. Vendors promised open, collaborative workflows. Competitive data concerns produced closed platforms and walled gardens. Same cycle, new layer.

What exists today for firms that don't want to be on the wrong side of that cycle is one good question, asked of every vendor: can I export my data and run AI from another provider? For firms that can't build their own system, data portability is your escape hatch.

If you're on Procore or any platform, the question to ask is exactly that. If the answer is no, you're renting someone else's intelligence on your own data.

For firms that own their data plus their system, optionality is built in. For the ones locked into platforms, it's not. That gap will matter in 3-5 years.

Start thinking about data portability the way you think about interoperability. Because the firms that own their data will have choices. The ones locked in won't.