The Greater Vancouver Board of Trade's 2025 AI report is the most comprehensive look at B.C. business adoption we've got. The headline numbers are everywhere: 68% of B.C. businesses haven't considered AI, and 69% of the holdouts can't identify a clear use case.
For trades and construction businesses, both numbers are misleading.
The GVBOT report treats every sector the same
When a marketing agency says it can't find an AI use case, it usually means the team hasn't sat down to think about it. The use cases are obvious. That gap closes within a quarter.
When a trades business says the same thing, it means something different. The owner is thinking about the field: the value is in physical execution, and the bots can't pour concrete. That part is correct.
The mistake is treating both responses as the same problem.
Where AI actually fits in a trades or construction business
The use cases in a trades business don't live in the field. They live in the friction around the field.
The proposal that takes three days. The estimator who's the only person who knows how to price a particular type of job. The closeout package cobbled together at midnight before the invoice goes out. The RFI sitting in someone's inbox for a week. The change order that never got formalized.
That's where time and money are leaking. The GVBOT AI report doesn't say any of this because it's a survey of self-reported barriers, not an operational analysis. So when a B.C. contractor reads the report and sees the 69% number, what they hear is confirmation there might not be a use case for them.
There is one. It's just not where they're looking.
What an AI readiness assessment actually surfaces
After running assessments with trades and manufacturing firms across B.C., the pattern is consistent. The use cases that surface tend to cluster in the same areas: pre-construction work like estimating, proposals, and bid analysis; project administration covering documentation, RFIs, change orders, and closeouts; and knowledge management, specifically the senior person whose head holds the playbook the rest of the team needs.
None of that involves replacing anyone on the tools. It's about stopping the drain of two days a week to paperwork that doesn't bill.
Where the GVBOT report is genuinely useful
The governance findings are the part to take seriously. The report flags how few B.C. businesses have any framework for AI accountability: who owns the output, what data is in bounds, where the boundaries sit.
Construction businesses already inherit a lot of liability: contractual, regulatory, safety. Bolting AI onto that without governance is how you end up with a problem the lawyers solve, not the operations team.
How to read the GVBOT report if you run a trades business
Read it for the governance findings. Skip the conclusion that there's no use case. Then run the analysis on your own operation rather than B.C. business in aggregate.
The free AI Readiness Assessment is built specifically for trades, construction, and manufacturing firms. It surfaces the use cases actually present in your operation and tells you what needs to be in place before any tool gets implemented.
The use case is there. The survey just wasn't measuring for it.