Can an Engineering or Architecture Firm Sell or License Its Data to AI?
AITrainingDataBroker.com
Engineering or architecture?
Your project files
are worth money
The 4 questions principals ask about licensing their firm's data to AI, answered.
Jimmy Lin
Engineering or architecture? Your project files are worth money
Hello, everyone. If you run an engineering or architecture firm, your servers are full of years of project files: drawings, RFIs, submittals, markups and the emails that tie them all together.
Most principals assume none of it could ever be licensed, because the drawings belong to the client, the work carries their seal, and the projects are private.
Those are fair worries, so in this video I will answer the 4 questions principals ask most, starting with why your files are worth a look at all.
The video
Full script
Hello, everyone. If you run an engineering or architecture firm, your servers are full of years of project files: drawings, RFIs, submittals, markups and the emails that tie them all together.
Most principals assume none of it could ever be licensed, because the drawings belong to the client, the work carries their seal, and the projects are private.
Those are fair worries, so in this video I will answer the 4 questions principals ask most, starting with why your files are worth a look at all.
A study by the Navigant Construction Forum looked at more than 1,300 projects and found 796 RFIs on the average project, and each one took about 8 hours and $1,080 to review and answer.
Every one of those answers is a small piece of expert judgment written down, with a question from the field, the reason behind the fix, and how it was resolved, which is exactly the kind of work AI still struggles with.
Before we get into what that means for your firm, let me tell you who I am.
I'm Jimmy. I have worked in data at Fortune 500 companies, as a data analyst, a data engineer and a software engineer, and I am trained in data science. I am also a Canadian military veteran, where I specialized in data analysis and reporting.
Are you selling your data? We are your broker and technical advisor. We get you the best price, and we guide your team through the technical side, so your data stays private.
Are you buying data for an AI lab? We find the right data for you and see it through to delivery, so you can focus on advancing AI research.
So, the first question is always the same: do the drawings not belong to our client? Under the standard contract forms, often not, because AIA's B101 and the engineers' EJCDC forms say the design firm keeps ownership and copyright of its documents, while the client gets a license to use them for the project.
That said, plenty of clients rewrite those forms, so your own contracts decide, and anything a contract hands to the client, like their site surveys or their own data, is never licensed without their written OK.
The good news is that the drawings are not even the most valuable part.
What AI companies want is the thinking around the drawings, meaning the question that came in from the field, the reasoning your engineer used, the fix that was chosen, and how it played out on site.
The field is still early, since AIA's 2025 research found that only 8% of architecture firms have built AI into their practice, so the companies building AI for your industry still need real examples to learn from.
To see what that looks like, take a single RFI.
Say RFI 112 on the Hartwell Medical Office project at 1420 Pine Street reports that a beam at grid line C-4 hits the ceiling, and Priya Shah, your engineer, answers that the corridor ceiling should drop 4 inches.
Before you license anything, we de-identify your data, which means we strip out the project name, the address, the client and the people, so it becomes Project 17, a 2-story medical office, and Priya becomes Engineer 5.
What the AI company gets is the useful part: a beam that clashed with a ceiling, and the engineer's reason for lowering the corridor instead of moving the beam, which would have meant a new steel order.
We write all of this into the contract before you license your data. And because it is a license, you keep your data and keep using it as you always have.
The third question is about professional duty, because the NSPE Code of Ethics says engineers may not share a client's private business or technical information without their consent.
So we leave out any client whose contract or privacy terms ban it, and when a project is borderline, you ask the client and get their yes in writing first.
Your seal is a separate worry, but the license covers data from past work, and it says the AI company may use it to train AI, not to build from it, so nobody is relying on your old drawings for a new structure.
That still leaves one group of files that is never shared at all.
Some files are never shared, however good the offer, and the first group is anything about security, like access plans, camera layouts and drawings of key public systems such as power, water and data centers.
Defense and export-controlled projects are never shared either, and the same goes for staff HR files and any client data that is marked private or covered by a ban in the contract.
Once those are set aside, most firms still have years of work that can be licensed.
Now, here is where the value sits for most firms: your RFIs and their answers, your submittal reviews, your QA and QC redlines, the code research notes behind tricky decisions, your design change memos, and the lessons-learned reports from closed projects.
What makes this worth more is years of it, across many project types, with a clear record of why each decision was made. On your side, the main job is exporting the data, and we guide your team through it.
You know how a project runs, because the client sets the goals, your team does the design, and nothing gets built until the drawings are sealed and approved. I work the same way with you, as your broker and technical advisor.
As your broker, I bring your data to several AI companies and AI labs, so you get competing offers, and then I work through the terms with you, and you make the final call.
As your technical advisor, I guide your team through the technical side, from what to export out of your project systems and in what format, to how your data is de-identified and how it is delivered.
Nothing moves until your team signs off, and the terms are worked out case by case. I am paid when a deal closes, much like you invoice when a design phase is done.
So, can an engineering or architecture firm license its data? Often, yes, because the reasoning in your RFIs, reviews and redlines is your own work, while client secrets and security-sensitive files are never shared.
If you run a firm with 30 or more people, the data you already have could become a new revenue stream. You can find out if yours qualifies, for free, at AITrainingDataBroker.com.
Thank you for watching, and I will see you in the next one.
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