The code compliance platform UpCodes has raised $3.5 million in funding. The San Francisco-based company describes itself as a “platform for architects, engineers, GCs, tradespeople, building owners, and homeowners” to provide a “searchable library of the adapted codes, updates, amendments, and errata across most major US jurisdictions.”

Archinect reported on UpCodes in 2018, where it was being used by firms including Ennead and FXCollaborative as a compatible plug-in for Revit. Today, the platform is used by over 650,000 monthly users, and claims to host over 5 million code sections (updating over 7,000 per month), and 1,700 state and city codes.

In tandem with the latest funding results, the company has unveiled an AI-powered code research assistant named UpCodes Copilot. Utilizing GPT-4, Copilot’s UI will feel familiar to users of ChatGPT. The AI interface can answer user questions about its dataset of over 5 million code sections. In addition to answering the question directly, the software cites and pulls up the relevant building codes.

In addition to answering code questions and explaining a concept or code section, UpCodes Copilot can identify code sections that correspond to topics the user is searching for, perform calculations, summarize what a particular code is saying, and generate a compliance checklist for building spaces and elements.

According to UpCodes, the AI assistant scored 74% on text-based code questions in the “Project Development and Documentation” section of ARE 5.0 (Practice Exam), 86% on the “B3 - Building Plans Examiner: Practice Exam” on Udemy, and 88% on the “B2 - Commercial Building Inspector: Practice Exam” on Udemy.

“AI tools like ChatGPT, Google Bard, and others have raised questions about the future of work,” the company said when announcing the new AI interface. “Will AI replace job functions or even entire roles? While AI is undoubtedly a massive disruptor, its true potential connects to how it can augment human capabilities, not replace them.”

“Our vision is that Copilot becomes an indispensable research assistant for designers, builders, plan reviewers, and plan examiners,” UpCodes added. “Instead of manually parsing through dense code sections, Copilot accelerates your code research process by instantly delivering tailored responses to any code query.”

This article is part of the Archinect In-Depth: Artificial Intelligence series