Walk into the office of a 40-person contractor at 6 p.m. The estimator is rebuilding a quote from a spreadsheet last updated two price hikes ago. The office manager is keying supplier invoices into QuickBooks line by line. Somewhere in a foreman's truck is a signed change order that won't reach the job file until Friday, if it survives the week.
None of this is billable. All of it decides margin. The quote that goes out in four days loses to the one that went out in four hours. The delivery ticket that never gets matched to a PO becomes the cost overrun you discover at closeout.
This is exactly the work AI agents are good at: reading documents, moving data between systems, chasing what's overdue. Not swinging hammers. The paperwork.