Signature Houses founder and Chairman Dwight Sandlin’s line — “nimbleness with out sacrificing time and sources” — could sound like a homebuilder’s pipedream.
That’s, until you are taking the time to take a seat with what’s beneath it.
On this market, “nimble” isn’t an organizational persona trait. It’s not hype; neither is it an abstraction. It’s an operational must-have.
Would-be homebuyers aren’t saying no as a result of they don’t need a house. They’re saying not but as a result of the maths feels fragile and the chance feels private. A builder who can’t adapt product, choices, positioning, and value shortly sufficient isn’t simply slower. They’re much less credible.
Sandlin describes an organization making an attempt to stay credible in a hesitant market whereas adjusting to actuality with out tearing itself aside. His level is that the outdated approach—redrawing, reissuing, rechecking, and relearning the onerous approach—burns exactly what builders can least afford proper now: time and folks.
That’s the place the dialog shifts from a single software or workflow to homebuilding’s persistent blind spot.
Analysis and improvement starved
For many years, residential development has been considered one of America’s largest bodily manufacturing engines — and considered one of its least research-driven. Homebuilding organizations have discovered to spend money on land, gross sales, and operations to drive quick quantity.
They haven’t discovered to take a position constantly in a proper “study quicker than actuality modifications” functionality — the sort of R&D self-discipline different industrial sectors deal with as non-negotiable. The results are plain within the business’s most cussed structural hole: the huge disconnect between back-office programs and frontline actuality — between IT (Data Know-how) and OT (Operational Know-how).
The best approach to describe that disconnect is that this: in lots of builders’ organizations, the programs that “resolve” and the programs that “do” are nonetheless not wired collectively. The result’s predictable. Choices are made upstream with incomplete or stale info. The sphere absorbs the results downstream, the place change is pricey, time is compressed, and failure is public. The accounting system finally data the harm, nevertheless it doesn’t forestall it.
In an unique interview, Higharc co-founder and VP of Particular Initiatives Michael Bergin provided perception into why Sandlin’s “nimbleness” level is so loaded — and why the following part of homebuilding efficiency received’t be a advertising and marketing or incentives story. It will likely be a programs story.
“The trajectory of what we’re doing with Higharc Labs is supposed to allow extra stakeholders within the strategy of constructing new houses to have their views or wants resolved within the product mannequin,” Bergin mentioned. “I believe [that] is a giant problem throughout the board for builders.”
That sentence is the thesis. The bottleneck isn’t that builders lack sensible individuals. It’s that the group’s intelligence arrives in fragments — and people fragments transfer slowly, informally, and inconsistently. The jobsite receives the ultimate model of the reality, usually lengthy after the “reality” ought to have been corrected.
IT doesn’t discuss to OT
Bergin’s instance is the sort of factor that makes operators grimace as a result of it’s so acquainted.
“Buying has an enter,” he mentioned. “This window isn’t out there, so we’ll want to modify to this window measurement.” Within the conventional mannequin, he defined, “they may draft an electronic mail and ship it to the drafting staff. The drafting staff will deal with it once they do, and that may very well be months. Within the meantime, there’s a threat of errors taking place.”
That’s IT and OT failing to talk the identical language. Buying is aware of the provision chain actuality. Drafting controls the plan’s actuality. Development executes the bodily actuality. If the bridge between these realities is an electronic mail, the sphere can pay for it.
Bergin didn’t cease there. He laid out the broader sample:
“The identical occurs for inputs that come from gross sales, and the identical occurs for inputs that come from code modifications or regulatory modifications, and the identical occurs for government inputs, proper?”
Most builders can learn that and instantly image the cascade: a sales-requested tweak, a spec availability change, a code replace, a municipality’s interpretation shifting, a management resolution on choices or pricing — and the slow-motion scramble to align each downstream artifact.
That is the place “nimbleness” turns into greater than pace. It turns into a type of threat administration. Bergin framed the chance as reworking change administration right into a disciplined, ruled course of moderately than a human relay race.
“Having the ability to take all of these views or wants… and translate them into modifications within the mannequin that then simply need to be accredited by somebody with the suitable administrative functionality, takes this modification administration drawback and brings us monumental alternative.”
He was exact about what that chance really is: a builder lastly attending to “a single supply of reality.” Not a rhetorical one — a practical one.
“So we might be actually sure that we now have a single supply of reality, not only for the design and drafting staff, however for everybody throughout the enterprise,” he mentioned.
After which he added the road that ought to make each operator lean in:
“Actually modifications the dynamics of how lengthy it takes to answer the varied modifications taking place throughout the enterprise.”
That’s what the IT–OT disconnect appears to be like like from 30,000 toes: the time it takes for actuality to turn out to be shared reality — after which to turn out to be motion.
What’s subsequent?
Now layer in what’s totally different about 2026.
Bergin is seeing builders turn out to be comfy with AI in a shallow approach first, after which hungry for it in a deeper approach.
“I’m beginning to see a pattern throughout the board amongst builders,” he mentioned. “They’re utilizing ChatGPT, possibly for simply the standard every day work they might do, and so they’re getting help that feels pretty magical from a pc. After which they’re trying extra broadly and saying,, okay, how can I take the identical sort of functionality and apply it to the core of my enterprise?”
That shift issues as a result of homebuilding has traditionally handled “know-how adoption” as both a procurement resolution or a cultural choice — early adopters versus laggards. Bergin’s view is extra pragmatic: the market is forcing builders to scale back friction and errors quicker than individuals alone can.
He provided a demo that illustrates what’s altering.
“First, we’re taking that picture and passing it to considered one of our AI fashions,” he mentioned, describing a workflow that interprets a flooring plan picture right into a constructing info mannequin. “After which, 45 seconds later or so, a constructing info mannequin seems right here, representing what could be many hours of drafting work in some contexts, and in others, a full day of labor ormore.”
The temptation is to deal with that as a “wow” second. The larger level is what comes subsequent: the way you govern the system so “wow” doesn’t flip into “oops.”
In homebuilding, you don’t get credit score for being quick should you’re quick within the unsuitable route. Bergin addressed the plain concern—hallucination and conflation—with out handwaving.
“Sure, actually there are,” he mentioned. His reply wasn’t to faux the chance doesn’t exist. It was to design the workflow round it. “What’s taking place there may be that the immediate is being interpreted after which transformed right into a extra structured evaluation of the constructing to guarantee that regardless of the immediate… is definitely viable to execute on,” he defined. And if the request isn’t viable, “it should say, oh, sorry… we are able to’t try this.”
That’s a quiet however necessary distinction. Within the client AI world, the consumer is entertained or assisted. Within the operational world, the system should be comfy saying no — as a result of the price of a unsuitable sure is a schedule slip, a rework invoice, an inspection failure, or a guaranty declare.
Area coaching
Bergin took it additional by drawing a line between general-purpose AI and a production-grade system. He described experimenting with a basic software and acknowledged it was “fairly wonderful” — one thing “essentially inconceivable a yr in the past.”
However he emphasised the chance:
“There’s some threat in relying on these programs, the place they may current a response that appears confidently proper however is definitely fairly unsuitable in refined methods.” He referred to as out the core weak spot: “These programs are nonetheless struggling in a really excessive approach with geometry.”
That phrase — geometry — is a reminder that homebuilding isn’t a textual content drawback. It’s bodily math beneath constraints.
It additionally explains why residential development chronically underinvests in R&D. In industries that spend closely on R&D, there’s a deep respect for deterministic programs, validation, repeatability, and failure modes. Homebuilding, against this, has leaned on craft information, expertise, and heroic supervision. These are helpful. They don’t seem to be scalable R&D disciplines.
Bergin described Higharc’s early improvement in these phrases.
“There have been a few years… our first three years of improvement… [based] on making a system that was deterministic in its inputs, so it wasn’t able to hallucinating,” he mentioned. “You may all the time make sure that should you put the identical inputs in, you’re all the time going to get the identical outputs on the opposite aspect, which isn’t the case with giant language fashions.”
That’s the important thing to the “AI plus human self-discipline” thought. AI can speed up translation and counsel modifications. Human self-discipline should govern reality, approvals, and requirements. In any other case, you’ve simply invented a quicker approach to drift.
The place interoperability begins
Bergin’s 2026 view is in the end about bringing extra of the group into that disciplined loop.
“Primary for me in 2026, so far as what’s thrilling and what’s going to turn out to be out there,” is enabling these cross-functional inputs — buying, gross sales, regulatory, government — to be resolved within the mannequin, not within the hallway.“
His “second” 2026 emphasis is telling, too: townhomes and a push into land complexity.
“We’re engaged on townhomes,” he mentioned. “The give attention to townhomes can be pulling us deeper into supporting land improvement… as a result of bigger buildings on tons which may not be utterly flat might be tougher.”
The implication is that the outdated separation — land staff over right here, product staff over there, allowing dealt with as a separate headache — isn’t going to carry. As density rises and entitlement friction grows, builders might want to mannequin threat “additional up the pipeline.”
That features allowing, the place the business’s OT actuality has been caught for years: handbook validation, backlog, inconsistent interpretation, and sluggish cycles. Bergin referred to as it “the allowing and plan validation side of the work,” and mentioned it’s “the actually wealthy alternative” as a result of “basically all these are geometric or mathematical rule evaluations that have to be accomplished, however they’re accomplished in a really handbook approach within the conventional course of.”
He pointed to precedent:
“Mannequin-based allowing is a well-established follow within the UK,” and “Singapore requires fashions and does automated allow evaluation regularly.”
The purpose isn’t that U.S. municipalities will all of a sudden modernize. The purpose is that, finally, the allowing bottleneck turns into too costly for the system to tolerate — and the builders who can present higher model-based assurance will transfer quicker with much less drama.
A completely-integrated tech stack
Then comes the piece usually ignored of “AI in homebuilding” conversations: the present ecosystem. Bergin put it plainly:
“ERP integrations and connecting again to the present ecosystem are one other huge space of focus for us.” He drew a transparent boundary on scope — “As soon as it goes previous development, that’s not likely in our scope. We’re targeted on pre-construction optimization” — however he additionally acknowledged the real-world requirement: “To make sure our prospects can profit from the expanded functionality set with out vital downstream rework, we should combine with downstream ERP programs.”
That’s the IT–OT bridge in a single sentence. A mannequin might be sensible. If it may’t hook up with the programs that run buying, scheduling, costing, and accounting, the group fractures once more — and the sphere reverts to improvising.
So what’s the decision to motion hidden in all of this?
It’s not “use AI.” It’s not “purchase software program.” It’s a problem to builders, builders, and capital companions to acknowledge one thing uncomfortable: homebuilding has tried to scale a posh manufacturing system with a skinny R&D muscle. The result’s a structural lag between resolution and execution — and the price of that lag is now too excessive.
Dwight Sandlin desires “nimbleness with out sacrificing time and sources” as a result of his market is punishing waste. Michael Bergin is describing what it takes to make that actual: extra stakeholders, fewer handoffs, deterministic reality, ruled change, and integration into the operational spine. That’s not tech worship. That’s a blueprint for closing the IT–OT hole — by treating the house as a product system that may study.
In 2026, the builders who separate themselves received’t be those with the flashiest AI demos. They’ll be those with the self-discipline to show AI right into a managed benefit: quicker cycles, fewer errors, faster response to market indicators, and a product that feels present to patrons who’re nonetheless deciding whether or not to step off the sidelines.
That’s the second homebuilding lastly begins appearing like an business that invests in the way it learns — not simply what it builds.
