Industry Report

The State of Digital Transformation in the Construction Industry

Construction firms are navigating rising costs, a labor shortage, and mounting AI pressure. All while most are still running on systems that were never built for growth.

Download the report and find out where construction organizations stand and what the fastest-moving firms are doing differently.

What the data says about construction's top performers.

A construction firm's tech stack has become its strongest predictor of success. Yet 35% of firms still use an ERP as their primary system of record. Spreadsheets absorb dozens of hours per week, while AI adoption is running ahead of the data infrastructure required to make it work.

HubSpot and Evenbound surveyed 250+ senior decision-makers at US mid-market to enterprise construction firms to understand what's driving growth at the most advanced organizations, and where most firms are still leaving performance on the table.

Key findings at a glance

50%

of firms spend more than 10 hours per week on manual data entry
50%

of firms believe their data is ready to support advanced analytics or AI
70%

of firms have AI deployed to some degree
26%

of firms cite lack of talent as their top barrier to expanding AI adoption

Your system of record is your growth strategy

CRM-led firms outperform their ERP-led peers on nearly every measure of operational maturity, from data quality and integration health to AI operationalization and quoting speed. This pattern holds across verticals, company sizes, and generations of leadership.

Top Business Priorities For the Next 12 Months

81% of respondents say firms that fail to adopt modern digital tools in the next 1-2 years risk falling behind competitors. The investments leaders are prioritizing reveal a clear thesis: the operational edge in construction will be built on AI, data, and the systems that connect them.

AI and automation are moving from pilot to priority

CRM investment is a generational inflection point

Speed from quote to close is becoming a competitive differentiator

Data quality is the infrastructure decision hiding in plain sight

Top barriers to achieving growth

Legacy systems and compliance constraints are the usual suspects. But the barriers showing up most consistently across construction firms are operational — not external. And that changes the conversation about where the real opportunity for improvement lies.

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Difficulty demonstrating ROI on martech investments

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Legacy systems or disconnected tech stacks

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Lack of internal AI skills or talent

Fragmented or poor-quality data

Construction + AI

Just 2% of construction organizations have no plans to implement AI at all. AI is now the dominant external force shaping growth strategy, topping inflation and economic uncertainty.

Construction firms are primarily using AI for customer service, AI-generated content, and marketing automation and personalization. But adoption and operationalization are not the same thing, and most firms aren't there yet.

Having an operational edge compounds job over job. The data shows exactly what that edge looks like.

Read the full report

The full report breaks down exactly what CRM-led firms are doing differently, across data quality, integration health, AI operationalization, CPQ efficiency, and field service management, and where most construction organizations are still leaving growth on the table.

About Evenbound

Evenbound is an Elite HubSpot Solutions Partner and technology consultancy that helps mid-market and enterprise construction firms turn platform investments into measurable business results. As a co-author of this report, Evenbound brings firsthand insight into the priorities, barriers, and growth strategies shaping the construction industry in 2026.