Film the Walkthrough, Let AI Write the List

Here's an estimating trick from our Oct 27 issue, and it's one any contractor can try on the next site visit.

What happened

Steve Hunsaker posted on X that he walked a property with a client and, instead of scrambling to take notes, filmed what they talked about and what she wanted. He fed the video to Codex, and he says it "watched" the video and snapped photos of every line item discussed (Steve Hunsaker on X). Codex is an OpenAI tool, and OpenAI lists limited Codex access on ChatGPT's free plan (ChatGPT pricing).

Read the full issue: Filmed walkthroughs, talking apps, robot diggers.

Why it matters

The expensive mistakes on an estimate usually aren't math. They're the thing the customer mentioned at the back fence that never made it onto your notepad. A recording doesn't forget. And AI is getting good at turning a messy conversation into a clean list.

The simple version you can do this week

You don't need to set up an AI agent to get most of the benefit. Here's the low-tech path:

1. Ask first. Before you hit record, ask the customer if it's OK. Most people like that you're being careful about getting it right.
2. Record the walkthrough. Use your phone's video camera, or a note-taking app. Fireflies has a phone app that records in-person conversations and turns them into a transcript, an AI summary and action items (Fireflies mobile app), and its pricing page lists a Free plan (Fireflies pricing).
3. Say the line items out loud. "Okay, so that's the back gate, the two rotted posts, and you want the whole run stained." Talking it through makes the transcript way more useful.
4. Turn it into a list. If you used a note-taker, read its action items. If you only have the video, you've still got every request on tape to go back to.
5. Check it against what they asked for. AI can miss things or add things. Before you price it, compare the list to what the customer actually said.

Prompt to clean up the transcript

If you've got a transcript, paste it into an AI chat (take out names and addresses first) and try:

Here's a transcript of a site walk with a customer. Pull out every job item they asked for or agreed to, as a numbered list. Flag anything that sounded like a maybe, so I can confirm it before I quote.

Next step: tighten up the written scope. See How to write a cleaner estimate with ChatGPT.