EP 37: Building Innovation with AI and Surveyors

So the software that I currently use is, I'm going to use the word clunky. So if I were to just literally focus on it 100%, I could probably get that down. But even if I was three hours, still a long time to be doing.

A survey, especially when you think about the, the cost of that in terms of your labor rate. But if there was a way of accelerating that that frees up your weekends.

For a start, I'd be, I'm working seven, seven, eight days a week. I have done eight days.

You've started using ChatGPT to high parts of that process, but in parallel we've been building a solution with you that will enable you to truly accelerate that process.

That's quite scary, isn't it?

Hi, I'm Freya. Welcome to the Skynet Chronicles Business in the AI Age, the podcast that dives deep into the world where artificial intelligence meets business. Join us as we explore the latest trends, challenges and opportunities in this ever evolving landscape. From innovative startups to established enterprises, we'll uncover the secrets behind the successful integration of AI technologies. So grab a cup of coffee, sit back and get ready to unlock the mysteries of business in the AI age.

So good morning, Neil, and welcome to the Skynet Chronicles. So we'll start with a bit about you. Neil Aylin, building Surveyor innovator. Did you ever think those words were going to be used? Well, they are being used. So let's start with the process that you used to use for domestic 3.

So we're level 2 or level 3. So the software that I currently use is, I'm going to use the word clunky. It's quite good in the sense that you push buttons and it puts the clauses into the right place, but it still takes a long time to put survey together. So it pulls clauses out of a database, puts them into the right order, but a lot of the clauses are not very well written. So there's a lot of editing has to be done and not every clause will cater for every single eventuality. So you, it will give you the basics, but you're always going to have to amend it or so a lot. There's a lot of editing that has to be done. There's a lot of clauses that you have to rewrite which then become almost like a stock clause that you just pull in.

And so that that process of doing a survey, what are you doing on site versus how much time you're spending there, how much time you're spending in the back office.

So the different. Okay, so the difference is when I first started. I mean, it's not that dissimilar. The difference is I don't write anything now. So when I first started, I would. I take photographs of everything. So we. We have to take even photographs of things that are wrong. Even things that are not wrong. We have to take photographs of where there's a. There's a wardrobe in the way. We had to take a photograph of it because you don't know what it's. We don't know what's behind. So if. If the, if the photograph. If the. The wardrobe, once it's gone, and then the. The customer says, oh, there's a big crack in the wall. We didn't see it, then I can say, well, I've got a photograph to prove. Well, that's the reason it says, because there was a big wardrobe in the way. So you photographed a lot. So I'll walk around the house, first of all, taking lots of photos. Then what I used to do was I'd sit in the car and I'd start typing notes. I'm sorry, obviously writing my notes, which is obviously a process in itself. Now, although this isn't necessarily part of the AI part, but what I'd now just dictate into my iPad. So I will. Then Everything I photographed, I then go back again. And then I start talking and I said, what am I seeing? What can I say? Walk around. And then I might move around the rooms a bit. So I might go into a bedroom. Then I might go into another bedroom. Unfortunately, I have to remember that when I've come out of one bedroom, I'm going back into the first bedroom again. I tell myself that it's the first bedroom otherwise.

So that it's there on the record.

Exactly. All gets a bit confused. So. So. So I'll put as much information. So I actually don't even take a pen with me now when I do a survey. So everything's all photographs and. And dictation.

Yeah.

And then when I get back to the office. Now obviously some surveys do this as they're walking around. I. My brain doesn't work like that. I have to do things in a quite a structured way, which means I don't miss things. Because if I don't do it in my. I have a. I have a way of doing it. That's the way I do it. And for me to change that way, it's gonna.

Yeah, it's the process that works.

Yeah, it's the process that works for me. So, see, when I get Back to the office. Then I. I have a term which I call roughing out, which is the. All of the basic details, you know, which obviously you put the address in. What was the weather like? You know, was it sunny? That's a big one. I put in now because often you do a survey, especially this time of the year, you look up a roof and the sun's rising. Your eyes, you can't see anything because, you know. So all that's relevant because again, if I do a report and someone says, well, you've. You've missed a tile on the roof, or then I can say, well, the reason I miss it was because the sun was right to my eyes and, yeah, I just couldn't physically see it. So all of these things go into the report. Then I start talking about just generally what. What I see. So. Yeah. And then. So that's how we use it. So I rough out first and then I go into more detail. Then. Then I literally sit at my desk and start to go through it and.

So how long did that process used to take?

So, well, it's. It's still taking. It's still taking a while. So to do it takes me a bit longer to do it because I'm quite. I've got a bit of OCD when I'm. So when I'm going through the. Everything has to be OCD when you're.

Looking for detail is a good thing.

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. But in the actual report, what I won't just do is, is just throw it out. So I. I have to. I probably read it four, five, six times. So I do it. There's a process. So I do my roughing out first, which is all the basic details. Then I'll sit at the computer properly and start to read it and then start to physically put things in, reword it, etc. Etc. Then I do a draft, then I'll read the draft. Then I find all the problems wrong with the draft, I go back into it again. Then I. Oh, actually I missed that bit out. Then I start looking at commas and full stops. So in terms of time, it could be taking me four hours to do report.

That's four hours in the back office.

In the. Yeah. So, yeah, it can take. Yeah. And sometimes if it's. If I'm doing a level three set, they could be even longer. But yeah, it takes me a while. But someone that does this all the time and probably has the, the mental concentration because, oh, it's four hours. That's not four hours solid. That's four hours. That's me doing a bit, probably having a cup of tea, looking at my phone. It's. I have a bit of. I have add, which means I focus is a bit of a problem for me. So I'll at it, do it then. So if I were to just literally focus on it 100%, I could probably get that down. But even if I was three hours, still a long time to be doing a survey.

Especially when you think about the, the cost of that in terms of your labor rate. And so if there was a way to reduce that down to an hour, bear in mind it's still you as an expert. You're signing your name on this. It has to be to a super high quality. But if there was a way of accelerating that, that frees up your weekends for a start, but also gives you the ability to potentially take on more surveys and ultimately to scale that to other resources 100%.

I mean that's my biggest problem. I could do. I mean this time of year I could easily do two surveys a day. In the winter, it's not as easy because obviously the light's not as wide. We. I can't be doing surveys in, in nighttime hours, obviously. So. So yeah, I could easily do two a day. Well, even if I said, well, I'll do. I'll only do surveys four days, that's eight surveys a week. I can't physically do type eight reports a week with. I'd be. I'm working seven, seven, eight days a week. I have done eight days. That, that was impressive.

I have been asking for an extra four weeks in the working month, but.

I've not managed to get eight days in a week. Yeah, you got that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So seven. But I'm working. I'm doing evening Saturdays and Sundays. So I have no life. I literally my. I mean I moved house last year and it's still upside down. I just don't have the time to do things I want to do. And even actually last Saturday I kind of had a day off thinking and I still have work to do. But it wasn't. Nothing was as urgent, but I thought crack if I should get a day off. And actually next week we got a bank holiday. Happy days. Does that mean a day off or does that mean no? Probably just working. Well, it's is. It's a working day. But the good thing about Saturdays and Sundays, I have no other pressure. I don't have anyone else ringing me. I don't have to, I don't have to answer Emails, I don't even have to do reports. But because my job is very time sensitive. So if I start on a Monday and I say I'm going to get, get the report back to you within five to ten working days, well, that means if I do it on a Monday, I have to get it back very latest by the following Friday. Well, if I've got that Saturday and Sunday, that doesn't. That's not included in those, in those 10 days. So that means technically I've got 14 days to do.

It feels like free time.

It feels like free time.

You don't then get a chance to relax.

I don't get.

So something has to change.

Exactly.

And you've started using ChatGPT to simplify parts of that process, but in parallel we've been building a solution with you that will enable you to truly accelerate that process.

Yeah. So the ChatGPT thing, that is, it's absolute game changer. Because in fact, what I used to do was, I would have. Most surveyors will do this. They will take the basic script that's already in the program, then they'll amend it, and then I have their own clauses which they'll just drag and drop into the report. But that takes time. What I literally do is I cut and paste the clause, put it into ChatGPT, and I'll either say expand, I'll say reword, rephrase, whatever, and it will churn out. But the brilliant thing about it is that you don't even have to put sentences. You can just put little words in and it could be complete gobbledygook.

Well, it isn't gobbledygook. You know what is for me? Understands the context.

Yeah.

So because it's got this world model, it understands everything that's going on around it. It understands what you're trying to do. You using the odd words that you're barely stringing together, you can just brain dump.

Absolutely.

And it then picks it up and understands my spelling.

Atrocious. So I can even just put in any old spelling.

Doesn't matter.

It doesn't. It, it knows. It just knows. If I put something in, I thought, just try it and I'll push the button. And I'm like, I can't believe what that has just produced. And it's, it's, it's grammatically correct. Occasionally it doesn't quite pick up the meaning. If I haven't done it quite the right way. And I'm thinking it doesn't quite. So I'll ask you to rephrase or I might put a particular part in and say, don't mention that bit, put it in, but just leave that bit out because it's not relevant and sometimes it will re. Because the problem with Chat GPT is because it follows a string of whatever you've had previously, it's still picking up bits before. So you have to, if you don't want it to, to use anything previously, you have to literally start a fresh page and then ask the question again and then it starts afresh. Otherwise it's picking up the bits from before. But generally, yeah, it's very, very good. It still takes a long time, so.

It'S accelerating the process, but what it's done is it's shown you the potential language understanding of these models. And so as we bake that into the solution, along with the upfront processes that are smoother and easier to use, and the automatic image sorting and layouts, that's just allowing you to get to a point where you could do 10 surveys a week, potentially.

Yeah. So if we can reduce that time, if we can get that down to, I mean, half an hour would be brilliant. I think that's probably optimistic, but I don't know. But definitely an hour. If I got. If I did 10 surveys a week and I had to spend. Well, no, I wouldn't want to do an hour on each one. Let's. Let's say I do eight and an hour on all of them, that's five days. Right. So that means I've got my weekends back and, and more revenue and eight surveys a week, it's pretty good money. It's, you know, I don't have any.

Staff and I think aiming for an hour is sensible because, you know, your attention to detail, you know that you're going to want to refine and refresh things. And so allowing that time and having that expectation still means you can do an extra three to four surveys a week.

Yeah.

And we can then get other surveyors using it, generating an additional income stream for you.

So that's the bit that really excites me. If we can get to the point, let's be positive. When we get to the point, we will keep saying we will get to the point. Few teething problems, but we get in there. But yeah, because, you know, I've spoken to quite a few surveyors and this is the biggest bugbear. Some have secretaries or maybe their wives type the reports up that also understand surveying because whoever's typing the report, they have to have enough information to be able to Type that report properly. The surveyor surveys and the typer types. So the best person is the surveyor because he knows what he's seen and he can type the report, but ideally.

Doesn'T have to type the report. Yes. The challenge I think we're going to face is if we're not careful, we could tune a solution entirely to the perfect Neil way of doing something. And then if we've got a checklist that works perfectly for you, encouraging other people to change their processes enough to use that is going to be a little bit of fun and games, but it entirely makes sense because we can demonstrate the time saving. So you can go from three to four hours of survey. Get you down to an hour. Yeah, that's compelling to anybody.

Completely worth changing your process for. The one thing I would have to do is, it's how I, how I'm gonna have. I am gonna have to change the way I do a survey, which is fine. Once I kind of get into a new routine then, then that's fine. But it's gonna take a little while because you've got to tell the AI what it's clever, but it's not that clever. You've got to give it all the parameters to work to.

It needs the context.

Yes.

It needs the clauses. And there are various ways that we can give it that information. And then we give it the structured format that we want output in. Effectively we ask a series of little questions. In the same way as you've been using with ChatGPT, we're working with a model underneath where we've structured certain prompts and responses together that give you the output that you want. But it is entirely down to the quality of input. I mean it's the age old crap in, crap out, isn't it?

Yeah, absolutely.

So we have to get it so that it's the right information going in in the same way as you've seen with ChatGPT, if you give it, don't give it the right information, it could come to the wrong conclusion. And so it's guiding the process.

So at the moment the way that. Because obviously we're still in kind of testing stage. So when I've taken a survey which I've dictated, so I dictate into my iPad, it turns it into a text, I copy that into ChatGPT and I will say you analyze, you know, also I will put on there list all of the faults because a very small portion of a survey is actually the faults. Most of it is telling people what they've got. So that what they, what you buy.

You do actually have four bedrooms.

Yes. Two bathrooms and there are radiators. You're stating the obvious. But.

But it needs to be there.

Yeah. You're telling them that you've got concrete, you've got insulation in your loft, you've got. Your house is built of bricks, you.

Have a block and beam foundation.

Exactly. All of this information people would like to know and then what kind of boiler? Because, I mean, I do with boilers all the time. You ask some people, a combi boiler isn't got a clue. So they don't know that. So you're telling them first of all what they're buying. Then I'm going into what the faults are, what these are all the problems that I, that I found. And so it's. So that's as important. I mean, I've done, I have done surveys where I've literally struggled to find anything wrong with it. It does happen.

You keep searching until you found something.

Well, you got to try and find.

There'S a hairline crack in this wall.

Yeah, but, yeah, you put it in. I mean, yes, you know, you said there's small settlement crack. Get some polyfiller out on decorator and that's it. But especially if the house. I mean, I do, I've done surveys on houses that are less of less than 10 years old. And you're walking around thinking, oh, it's been looked, well looked after. You know, there's nothing you can spot. You don't want it to become a snagging survey where you're going into masses of. In small detail. You know, I can see some of the mastic is coming away, but if you haven't, if you've got nothing to add in, you start finding things that you wouldn't normally find on a normal level too. You just, well, I'll put that in. So at least they can see I've spotted it. But I will try. And if, if I do find a crack, if it's above an internal wall, what I don't want to do is to say the house is perfect. Because you can guarantee that Mrs. Smith, who's just moved into a house, will see a crack and she'll say, that wasn't on the report. So at least if I put it in there, she can say, well, if he's picked that up, because that's the problem, isn't it? If you miss the smallest detail, they say, well, if he's missed that, what else has he missed? So you start picking bits. But if you pick up Generally big things, you know, well, the roof is falling off and this has happened, that's happened and you miss a crack. They're not as bothered because they know you've picked up the big stuff and then the little bits can easily be just poly filler is fine. Just get a paintbrush and it will sort itself.

But yeah, so if we think back to, we go back five years, would you have thought that at this point in your career you'd be building out an AI tool to help?

So, so five years ago, I was running a building company. I had my own building company called Halo. And so surveying wasn't even. I mean I'd done surveys, but not, not to this degree. So obviously you're surveying properties when you're doing extensions and refurbs, but nowhere near to this, to this extent. So AI didn't even know what it was? No, I didn't even know. Well, actually, no, that's not true. You, you, you hear of a. There was a film called AI about sort of 20 years ago, some robots. But, you know, didn't think that it was, um. But what I remember when I first discovered it, I mean, I use it for everything. Even if I get an email and I don't understand it, I literally cut and play paste, put it into ChatGPT, explain this to me and it will just churn it out. I've. I've used it to respond to emails. If I've had a particular different difficult email, sometimes people will write to me and ask me to explain some of the report and I'll literally take their, their email, put it to chat GPT, explain. That's all I put. And it will. And I'll read and think. I could not have even. I could. It will come up with things I hadn't even thought of.

It's hilarious.

It's insane.

Just this morning I said to the O3 model within ChatGPT with search thing enabled, can you get me the URLs for all of the episodes of the Skynet Chronicles? Right, because then I can pull the transcripts and use that information. We're going to use the podcast episodes to work towards a book. But rather than me going on YouTube and finding them all, copying them, putting in into a spreadsheet, I put that in. I went and brushed my teeth. When I finished brushing my teeth, there was this. It's just there are so many ways you can use this technology.

I use it. The other great thing about it, legal question, medical question, legal questions, you ask it. If I've. You Know, in my job, there are. I get asked legal questions. It might be about boundary disputes or something. Put that in. And often I don't know the legal answer to something and it will, it will tell you.

So how do you know what it said is correct?

Well, you can kind of test it, because there are things that I know are legally correct. So you can always do a little test to see whether you know. But generally. And you can, often, you can check, fact check it. It's not difficult to do that. But often, if it makes sense, having.

That mindset of it might not be right. And validating it, I think is crucially important and becoming more and more important. Some of the capabilities in these AI models allow you to pull back references. You can check those references, but sometimes the references are hallucinated too. So it is important to check that the sources that are being provided as backing up the statement are real.

Yeah.

And are sources that you trust.

Often, I mean, I mean, a lawyer might disagree, but generally with these things, there is a lot of common sense in law. So when you ask it for the answer and it, and it gives you a common sense answer, generally, I don't think it's too far off. So you can still fact check it. But if that something makes sense, you can kind of generally. But I'm not saying I, I'm not. I wouldn't use that for, for a court document. It's to give you a guide.

It's getting that understanding quickly and having a judgment call, isn't it? We recently went through a process of analyzing our contracts and we had our legal counsel produce new versions. And I thought, these are, these are great, but they're very complicated language. They're quite long winded.

Yeah.

How do we make it so that our customers actually understand what we're saying? And can we simplify it?

Yeah.

And so we had a few goes using the O3 model from OpenAI. So a very smart reasoning model to analyze and come back with a human friendly version. And then we shared that back with legal counsel when he made a simplified version. Well, a version that maintained the standards that he wanted, but also had this simplified language. And it's amazing because you can use it to analyze a contract.

Yeah.

Say, what are the clauses I should be concerned about within.

Yes.

So any form of words, including code, you can have checked, you can have ideas created around it. You can now do the same with images, with video, with audio, and the power that you have with that and then how you apply it to a business process is mind blowing.

So I used it to do. I was speaking to a property investor and we were talking about maybe me doing almost like a retainer service because they don't want to be spending money on surveys for every property even they're looking at. So I, so I made a suggestion. She didn't go through with it but you know, it's a. Maybe some kind of retainer so she can maybe use me sort of two or three times a month or something if she finds a property. And often it's just a case of can you just poke your head in the loft to make certain that, you know, the roof is still there or. So it's not a full report. It's just literally. Yeah, this is. Okay.

It's on, on balance, it's peace of mind.

Yeah. It's, it's fine. There's nothing that I can see which is particularly concerning. It's not what I call a, a, a proceed with caution type of property. When the people get a proceed with caution, that means you really might want to think again. Yeah.

Buying it at auction. Know that you're going to.

So what? So I asked it to do head heads of terms, gave it the basic details. This is the I g. I just told it what I wanted it all, you know, my expectations of what I'm. What I was prepared to offer this amount work within this area and it turned out and I just thought I couldn't have written that better myself. It's a heads of terms. At the end of the day it.

Wasn'T and if we tried it would have taken hours.

Yeah.

Not be to that quality.

I wouldn't even know where to start. That's the point.

Yeah.

Often the, Often with. When you're using AI you're the first thing you're thinking is how am I going to respond to this? How do I even start? So it gives you a framework to work to. So even if it's not completely right, you've got a starting point. So I can either take the starting point, read it and thought, well actually that's not right. That's not right. But then you could then use chat GPT to go into sort of almost like micro details. Re. Explain that bit. Go into that bit. Go into that bit and before you know it you've got the whole thing is created as a draft. As a draft, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

So if you look forward two to three months with your survey solution.

Yeah.

How much time do you think it's going to be saving? So you've got your process done again.

If we can get this to an hour total complete. So I want. I want to be able to complete the survey now. Part of the new process I was talking about. I've got a new car which has all got. Which is Internet now connected. So I've now got full WI FI connectivity. That will help because I'm using the iPad. There might be things that like I can now sit in the car and I can maybe upload if I need to upload photos, which is obviously quite, quite happy.

Some of them aren't there.

Yeah. So if by doing that, that some of my survey time or the reporting time could be take up when I'm doing the surveys before I leave to go to the next one, that's going to help because also on there often one of the biggest challenges I face to do a survey is making sure I've done enough of them now that I don't tend to forget stuff in terms of. Have already taken a picture of the boiler or where's the.

Yeah.

But the more stuff I can do whilst I'm there. And bear in mind, I travel.

All fresh of mine then, isn't it?

Absolutely. But I travel, I've got. I go down to London and I priced one up actually yesterday down in Kent, which is, you know, it's a spot two hours down. It was fine, happy to do it. But if I miss something, you know.

You don't want to go, or I.

Forgot my ladder or something, which I have done, you know, or I've. Oh, crikey. Yeah, that's. I did one in Northampton and I. I left my ladder and I thought I couldn't get into the loft and I'm. Some surveys might be fine. I don't do that. If I. If I. If I can get into the loft. If the loft is locked and I can't get into it, then that's fine. That's fair dues. We're not expected to have to pick locks or whatever if it's not accessible, ability to access. But if I know that I can get into it, but I just can't because I didn't have my ladder with me, I will go back and I've done that twice. I've done it in Northampton and I did it. When was the other time? I was down down in Cambridge, near Huntingdon, which wasn't too far away, but it still took up, you know, my morning had to go back because I just. It will bug me because. And actually the one in Northampton, good job I went back. What did you find? So there were So a lot of. There was no roofing felt right. There was very little insulation in the roof. There was the. It wasn't. The roof wasn't tied particularly well. Now, if I hadn't gone back, you.

Know, so, yeah, those details.

Those details are really important because people would have said, well, hang on, what? And I'd have had no. I'd have had no excuse. I can't say, well, I forgot my ladder. So it's fine if it's local, but if I'd have been able to do all that whilst I was. Before I even left the property. And I can just check, obviously, I can't forget if I have. Don't have a ladder now. A ladder. But that's probably a bad example. But yeah. So if there's things I haven't spotted, I can check it before I leave. Because if I don't spot something and I suddenly think I didn't, you know, I didn't check this, or I didn't, or I forgot to look at that.

I mean, my ideal is that you could get back in the car and have a draft report in minutes that you could look at there and then.

Yeah.

Because if we can get that processing time down to minutes so that it can be processed while you're in the car, you're able to check over it and go, well, that's all correct.

Yeah.

Apart from these points. Add those in.

Yeah.

And then you're able to drive to the next location and then you're just reviewing those when you're in your home.

So the ideal would definitely be that if I can get. And I do know surveyors that are very. As they do this. If I was speaking to a surveyor last week and he was telling me that probably 70% of the report they do whilst they're there, but that's just the way that they do it. It's the process. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

If we can get it so that it's literally. You've got that report ready, you review it there again.

Yeah, that's.

That's almost perfection because then you've got just a final check before you submit it back in the office. And that frees up so much more of your time.

Yeah. And. And it might be there. Be therefore, be that I. The hour that I'm saying about doing the report, that's just the report. So the survey may be two, three hours. Well, if I say do, if I'm on site a little bit longer, so I'm doing most of the report there, then when I get back home, I'VE only got maybe 10 minutes work just to check. It's even better.

That's night and day, isn't it?

Yeah. And you know, and it's again, because the. If I've got full Internet access was at the moment, I. Well, previously I've been using my phone as a hotspot, so trying to download a picture using my phone, it's just. It takes forever.

Yeah.

So having good quality WI Fi or even, you know, the other thing is just pop to a McDonald's or something and sit there and. And I could do it, but that's not ideal because sometimes there isn't a McDonald's close by or isn't anywhere with.

WI fi other restaurants are available.

Absolutely.

But I think that's the ideal, isn't it? If we can get it down so that the report is being processed off data that you're submitting as soon as you leave the house. Effectively sat in the car, using the hotspot of the car to upload the information to get a draft report back to review it and go, well, that's correct. But it looks like these things need adding and then not worrying about it driving back to the office or onto the next site. And then at the end of the week just having reports that, you know are 99% they're already. Because you've added in the extra detail. You're just checking it's there.

Send and I'll get my weekends back and I want you to pay off.

I think it's so much bigger than that, Neil, because I think if we can get that working to that pace for you, that is a huge shift for the entire industry.

Yeah.

And when you talk to your peers about, oh, I've got this process, I do it all now and then I just spend 5, 10 minutes checking them at the weekend.

Yeah. You'd be like, yeah, what.

Can I have that, please?

So. So I. I know of surveys that they'll do one survey a day. If I had a meeting with one on, on Friday, very local to here. She only works three days a week. She just does one survey a day and that's it. So now she doesn't want to do more. She doesn't probably need to do more than three. I do. I need to do a lot more than three surveys a week. That's my. That's, you know, I've got.

We have different expectations.

Yeah. I mean, I've got a few years left. I mean, I'm not retiring yet, but I want to maximize. I'm in a position where, you know, I've probably got maybe five years, maybe a bit more, before I decide to kind of hang my spirit. Not my damp meter up or your ladder. My ladder, yeah. So I need to earn as much money as I possibly can whilst I'm still fit. I can still, you know, lose a few pounds, but I can. I can still get into lofts. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Anyone that knows me well now, I do quite like a breakfast. That's stopping this.

This will help because it's going to cut down your time. It's then going to give you an additional income stream where other surveyors can use it. And that's magic.

And so. So for me, that's, you know. Yeah, it's all about getting. Getting a passive income. Because if we could set this up, I mean, I think we worked the figures out, we probably only need maybe 10, 20 surveyors. That's all.

If we want more.

Of course we want more, but is a. To be able to earn a living, you know? Yes, we want more, but. But it's not, it's.

We don't really need many.

No, we don't need a thousand surveyors to use this, this, this software. We need a good selection and obviously we'll expand it. And I'd certainly. Part of my time, when it's all up and running, I'm more than happy to start promoting it. Probably doing less surveys.

You realize you are promoting it now?

Well, of course, I'm.

Yeah.

Absolutely. But, yeah, so I want to be a lot more kind of. There are. I do a lot of cpd, which means that I speak to lots of. There are lots of surveyors in rooms. I'm absolutely chomping at the bit. I know the organizers of some of these events and they want speakers, they want people to be able to talk about something which is all relevant to surveying. I'm chomping at the bit to get this up and running so I can demonstrate it. Whether I can do it technically because I'm a bit of a tech.

The technical bit doesn't matter because I don't think the. How it works is important. You don't need to worry about that. If it's delivering consistent results quickly.

Yeah.

Then you're talking about the experience that you're having using it.

Yeah.

And how much that experience is as value to others.

Yeah.

The fact that it's breaking down into all of these different processes, it's using these different models to calculate. It is running on Azure. It doesn't matter. That's just. That's our problem effectively. And as long as that's operating in a consistent way, you're just selling the experience of how it's changing surveying. So let's change tact. I want to hear about the worst thing you've seen in a domestic survey.

I mean, my. So lofts is a bad place. I've been into really quite horrendous lofts. What.

Because they're scratchy?

So I've done. So thatched cottages are not great. So as you would expect, generally a lot of cobwebs, spiders, horrible things. So because you, you go up into the loft and you're looking around trying, and often it's. Often I have a good light, but you don't get everything. So, yeah, I've walked into nothing too horrendous, actually. But, yeah, it's not, it's not very pleasant. I mean, obviously you don't. If it's not safe to get into a loft, you don't. But, yeah, that's probably my thing. I've seen anything too bad, really. Yeah, that's probably my worst is probably just. Yeah. Horrible cobwebs and nature taking over aloft.

And you having to get nature.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think I've been quite fortunate. I haven't seen anything too bad.

And generally when you're at a property and you are seeing signs that it's a property, let's say, in distress, and the owners know that it's got challenges.

Yeah.

How do they try and mask some of that?

So my best type of survey are empty houses. I do empty houses all day long because with the best one in the world, the vendors, some of them will just lead me to it. Then there are some that like to follow you around. So often, if they know. Yes. I've got to be quite careful what I say to vendors because ultimately I'm employed by the buyer. The buyer may not want me to say too much about what they're buying, but the vendors generally know what's. What's wrong. Yeah, I, I'm not saying I don't share information with the vendors, but it's generally stuff that they already know. It's not, it's not going to come as any surprise to them if there's a. If there's any loft insulation in the loft that they're probably going to know that or, you know, there are. There is a big crack in the wall or something, they're going to know that. But I don't go into masses of detail. So. Yeah, but yeah, vendors, what they can kind of they'll talk to you. Of course, that can be a little bit. This is why you need a process, because you can lose your. Yeah.

You don't want to be put off. You need to follow the process to you.

Yeah.

Them saying, it's not really a problem with the patio door. It closes perfectly as they're lifting it up with both arms and forcing it into the corner.

My. My. Got to be honest, one of my. My biggest nemesis when I go into a. Into a house is dogs. I'm not. I'm not a big dog fan or a little dog fan, to be fair. The big ones just are really loud and the little ones just run around your feet. So I always use the health and safety card. That's the easiest way to explain, in other words, of saying, can you please get your dog as far away from me as possible? I always say I could. I don't want to hurt him because I might trip over. Man, I'm like 19 stone. I'd be tripping over a. Over a little poodle. So I could. So I'll do the outside first. And I said, once I've done the outside, then if you wouldn't mind putting little Tommy or Bouncer or whatever your dog's name is in the. In the garden, then I can freely walk around the house because, yeah, dogs can be a bit of a challenge. But also people that just ask lots and lots of questions all the time, follow you around. I've had. I have had a few, and they're just being helpful. A lot of.

Just some of them are being helpful. Some of them are being protective of their investment.

Why are you going up into my loft? While we need to check. But, But I always tell. When I do a survey, I generally tell people what I'm going to do. So I said, look, I'm going to take lots of photos. I'm going to go up into the loft, I'm going to have a good walk around, and most people just kind of let me get on with it. But, yeah, there are a few which are a little bit protective, I'd say.

Do you think the process of having human surveyors go around a property will ever be replaced by drones?

I doubt it. I. I think there's always. You've always got to have some human element. I don't know. Drones is a. I'm not sure. I mean, it could do. I mean, if you. If, if it can take a photograph and it can analyze a photograph to say what's wrong with it, it's just one step further. Isn't it? But there's got to come a point where, you know, AI is great, technology is great, amazing. But we can't. Otherwise you're just going to have a planet full of robots. You're not going to have. Well, I think we will have a.

Planet full of robots, but I think the barriers generally are around legislation. So with the survey industry, some of the surveys that are being issued have to be carried out by an expert witness and it's effectively them signing their name.

Yeah.

In those situations, I don't see how it can be fully autonomous.

It's innovation, isn't it? I mean, you know, 100 years ago you didn't have a computer. Everything was done by, you know, slate and chalk or look around this room. Yeah.

What was there 100 years ago? Yeah, this table.

Table, probably. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So it's just to help, it's to make life better, is to improve quality of life, so.

And improve productivity.

Absolutely. That, that's, that's the key to it because, I mean, I don't know what surveying was like 30 years ago. I mean, what was. You know, you probably have to. Surveyor walking around with a camera, pencil. He would have been writing everything down. So we had to got his pictures developed. You know, all of going back to. I mean, obviously it wasn't Surveyor, you know, that long ago, but yeah, it's, it's massively in change in the last sort of 20, 30 years. I mean, obviously, I bet if you speak to a surveyor that's been doing it 40 years, he will tell you that it's very different. But then everything is architecture. You know, every industry, architecture, use, they use cad. My uncle was an architect and he even went before he retired, he was still doing, doing hand drawings because that's the way he's. He learned to do it and he, I mean, he was not very technically minded. I think it's a bit of trouble even using an answering machine.

When I first went into Perkins engines in 98, they still had two people that were using drawing boards. So they weren't using CAD at all. They were still doing.

Yeah, but what that does is it's taken. What would have taken two or three people is now probably not even one person. Now the computer's doing anything that can be automated is definitely the way to go. I mean, my father, I remember he, he worked in computers and they. When he was in computers, you have maybe 20, 30 people operating this huge, great big servicing mainframe computer, whereas now the same power is probably in my phone and More and more, you know, so it's, it's evolved so much over the years and what's exciting to me is where's it going to go in the next five or six, 10 years? How an AI is, is an amazing concept. Every, I use it every day.

What excites me is even if there was no more development of AI, everything stopped today.

Yeah.

And we learned to fully utilize the capabilities we have.

Yeah.

Society still changes.

Yeah. Yeah.

And it's not stopping.

Yeah.

And so the, the solution that we're building with you is going to be a game changer for you.

Yeah.

And we'll be able to continue evolving that over time, adding new functionality and improving. But you just look at any industry go, okay, so that's possible now. That didn't used to be possible. Producing things, analyzing things, understanding a situation. And it's going to come back to the key skill that we have that AI will not have is peopling. And so human, authentic content. Conversations like this are priceless because when you're actually meeting and having a conversation, you can talk through the detail and then we can use AI to support us in the background to accelerate the processes. But I think that human interaction is going to be even more and more important.

My car, I've just got a new car that's got AI. I haven't worked on how to use it yet. It struggles to take my commands, but I can literally have a conversation with it, which is it just does something else things. When I'm driving, you know, when your, your mind starts, start wandering, I come up with all sort of weird thoughts. I don't know, how many miles of motorway are there in the world or something. And you can ask it the question and it will tell you.

Will it tell you the right answer?

Well, it doesn't matter.

You're driving, you just needed.

But often I will find, I mean, one of the main things I use it for is where's Neck? And he was. I've done that a few years.

I knew that was something. Yeah.

Some of my, my, some people, my builders that name it out, if they listen to this, they're gonna say, yeah, that's Neil. Yeah. I always used to turn up with a. I've got to stop that because I really need.

You've got to stop.

This is a future, to be fair. No, I am, I am stopping. It's, it's, it's already started. It's. Get a bit more stealth, like, otherwise I'm never going to get through these loft hats. Some of the Loft hatches I'm seeing. I'm gonna be lucky if I get my head through some of them, let them my whole body. So yeah, it's definitely. So going back to your question about whether whether surveying will ever be fully automated actually, how's a, how is a, how is technology going to open unless it's remote control kind of loft hatches, you know, how's it going to kind of get into all these little nooks and crannies that only a. Really only a human can get into?

Well, if you've got the full degrees of freedom of movement in a hand.

Yeah.

On an arm attached to something that flies.

Yeah. That's quite scary, isn't it?

It's an interesting looking.

It's probably coming in fair, but it's quite scary to think.

I think things are moving quite quickly. I don't know whether you watched the Netflix or a BBC program. Adolescence.

Yes.

So that was the first use of a new type of camera.

Yeah.

And there's one scene in particular where it's close up. Close up, close up. Clearly handled on the ground. And then it goes to an aerial shot, zooms out and then comes back in and is handheld again. And I saw a picture of the camera rig and it is a drone that is sort of as big as this table square, quad rotors, handles underneath the rotors and then hanging down underneath it, a traditional handheld camera rig. So it's a monster camera underneath this and there's somebody that's operating it, there's two people that are holding it and then it comes back down to be held again. And that's something that just couldn't have happened.

It is all outside. That's the difference. Generally house survey generally is inside. I get it. Some of the drones are pretty small.

But I don't know where it goes. But I just think that those sort of niche applications where things are being done that couldn't be done before. That's fascinating to me.

I'm very open minded about technology. But I don't know, I think, I think having it all completely, having it literally sending a drone in to do a full survey. I'm not so sure. I'm not so sure. But who knows? You know, I mean we. Who thought that have. I mean AI. Who would have thought about this probably 20 years ago, you know, as you asked me before, where, where would I be in five years ago? Didn't even. This is completely. Yeah. Game changing games. Absolutely. Yeah.

I think that's a brilliant place to end the episode.

Fantastic.

Thank you. Very much for the conversation. Neil appreciated it.