UpCodes' AI Reviews 1,300+ Plan Sets, Identifying More Than 180,000 Potential Issues

Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, BDG Architects and Hereford Dooley Architects are among the companies newly adopting AI-native Plan Review, which has surfaced more than $1 million in average construction-phase exposure per project.

AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 13, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- AI has moved beyond helping professionals create work. Increasingly, it is being used to review complex projects, helping teams catch issues earlier, improve accuracy, and streamline traditionally time-intensive workflows across industries.

In architecture, engineering, and construction, the goal is to move from design to build smoothly. Construction documents and plan sets sit at the center of that process, carrying critical information across disciplines, teams, and stages of a project. But analyzing them requires more than reading text. It requires understanding geometry, dimensions, annotations, and spatial relationships together, something AI has historically struggled to do reliably.

Advances in multimodal AI are changing that. UpCodes' Plan Review combines state of- the-art AI models with its building code and construction content libraries to interpret both the visual and technical information within drawings. This allows AI to identify potential issues earlier in the design process, before they become more costly problems during review or construction.

Today, UpCodes announced that since launching in June, its AI Plan Review technology has reviewed more than 1,300 construction plan sets, identified more than 180,000 potential issues, and surfaced more than $1 million in estimated potential construction error costs on average per project*.

"The first chapter of AI at work was about helping people create faster. The next is about helping professionals review complex work that previously required multiple steps and intensive human review and shortening compliance workflows," said Scott Reynolds, CEO and co-founder of UpCodes. "Construction drawings contain thousands of interconnected decisions. AI gives teams another set of eyes to surface potential issues earlier, when they're easier and less expensive to address."

What the First 1,300 Plan Sets Have Told Us

The first 1,300+ plan set reviews offer an early look at the scale and types of potential issues that can exist within construction drawing sets.

Across the plan sets reviewed, UpCodes Plan Review* has found:

• Plans reviewed spanned 73 jurisdictions and 14 code editions, from single-family homes to commercial and medical facilities.
• Plans averaged 21 critical issues each, with missing exit signage the single most common critical finding.
• Roughly one in ten critical issues were cross-discipline coordination conflicts, the kind of clashes between architectural, structural, and MEP drawings that typically surface late and drive costly rework.
• Nearly half (46%) of all critical issues involved life-safety systems: means of egress, fire protection, and fire-resistance-rated construction.

These results reinforce that timing matters in construction. The earlier an issue is caught, the easier and less expensive it is to fix. A means of egress issue identified on a drawing may require a simple design change. The same issue discovered during construction could mean relocating a door, changing a corridor, or reworking already-built conditions, adding cost and delays.

UpCodes is already seeing this shift play out through its QA/QC platform and the first firms adopting AI review into their workflows. As AI-assisted review becomes a larger part of the AEC industry, the cost of maintaining traditional workflows may extend beyond time. Missed opportunities to catch issues early can translate into expensive rework, change orders, and delays, putting project budgets and firm profitability at risk.

About UpCodes

UpCodes is transforming how building professionals engage with code, creating a faster, smarter path from regulation to build. The AI-native platform connects the dots across the design and construction lifecycle, enabling confident, well-informed decisions at every step.

Grounded in trust, built for clarity, and driven by innovation, UpCodes reshapes how architects, engineers, and builders navigate complex requirements. By bringing fragmented regulations, collaboration tools, and automated code compliance checks into one intelligent system, UpCodes turns building codes from a barrier into a catalyst for better, more code-aligned projects. With a mission to bring clarity and intelligence to the built environment, UpCodes is redefining the future of design and construction.

For more information, visit up.codes.

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SOURCE UpCodes, Inc.