Document layer
AI tool ledger — construction
15 tools that actually get used in a New Zealand building office, priced in NZD with the two things the generic lists leave out: which country your content ends up in, and how much care that document needs under PP12. Last verified 2026-10.
Prices are indicative, not quotes. Vendors change pricing, and what you
pay in New Zealand depends on the plan and the regional licence. Check the vendor's own
pricing page before you buy, and note the date you checked. This ledger lives in the
repository — when a price moves, the change arrives in a pull request with a date on it.
Writing, email & tenders
| Tool | What it does here | Indicative cost | Data sits in | PP12 care |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft 365 Copilot annual commitment, GST extra | Drafting tender responses, client emails, variation letters and meeting minutes inside the tools your office already has. Best fit when everything already lives in Outlook, Word and Excel. Uses your tenant data and can be administered centrally — which is what PP12 evidence looks like. | ≈ NZD 33 / user / month | Selectable (US / EU / APAC tenancy) | Needs a DPA |
| ChatGPT (consumer) US$20 monthly, monthly cancel | Quick drafting of scope text, email replies and rough tender copy. The tool in most NZ site offices — usually on a personal login, sometimes a personal phone. Consumer terms do not give you a DPA and your inputs may be used to improve the service (you can opt out). | ≈ NZD 34 / month | United States | High care |
| ChatGPT Team / Enterprise US$25–30, annual option | Shared workspace for tender drafting, meeting notes and document Q&A. Admin-controlled accounts, no training on your data, DPA available. This is the upgrade path from the consumer app someone installed last year. | ≈ NZD 42–50 / user / month | United States / configurable | Needs a DPA |
| Claude (Anthropic) US$20 monthly | Long documents, contract review, drafting subcontractor scope. Consumer tier behaves the same as any free AI app: fine for your own template text, not for a client file or a live price. | ≈ NZD 34 / month | United States | High care |
| Gemini in Google Workspace Workspace Business tier | Summarising Gmail threads, drafting site reports, checking a budget sheet. Useful if your office already lives in Google Drive — the admin boundary is the same one your files already sit behind. | ≈ NZD 30 / user / month | United States / configurable | Needs a DPA |
| Troopl NZ-built, contact vendor | Construction-specific assistant for the Australian and NZ building market. Built and hosted in the local market, which makes the PP12 question a conversation rather than a data sheet. Ask which region it processes in and get the answer in writing. | quote-based | New Zealand | Low care |
Meetings & site transcription
| Tool | What it does here | Indicative cost | Data sits in | PP12 care |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Otter.ai Pro tier, annual discount | Recording and transcribing client meetings, handovers and site briefings. Transcripts of a variation discussion are exactly the material that ends up in a claim. Treat recordings as business records: name the owner, say where the file lives, set a retention period. | ≈ NZD 29 / month | United States | High care |
| Fireflies.ai Per-seat, free tier available | Auto meeting notes from Teams / Meet / Zoom. Free tiers are how these tools spread through a crew. Note the recording consent side too — NZ has no two-party consent rule, but your clients still need to know. | ≈ NZD 20–30 / user / month | United States / Vietnam | High care |
Project & job management
| Tool | What it does here | Indicative cost | Data sits in | PP12 care |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Notion AI added to Notion plan | Keeping handover registers, safety inductions and process write-ups searchable. Good place for the AI policy and the tool ledger itself, because it is one page people can actually find. | ≈ NZD 15 / user / month | United States | Needs a DPA |
| ClickUp Brain add-on to paid plan | Summarising project tasks, drafting status updates for clients. Cheap per seat. Check whether your project data is yours or the workspace owner’s before anyone pastes programme figures. | ≈ NZD 7 / user / month | United States | Needs a DPA |
Documents, drawings & take-offs
| Tool | What it does here | Indicative cost | Data sits in | PP12 care |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bluebeam Revu (+ AI) annual maintenance on top | PDF markups, quantity extraction from drawings, tender document assembly. The drawing content itself rarely goes into a chat model — that is why it is the safer end of the ledger. Where its AI feature sends extracted data is the question to ask at purchase. | ≈ NZD 800–1,000 per licence (perpetual) | United States | Needs a DPA |
Quotes, invoices & cashflow
| Tool | What it does here | Indicative cost | Data sits in | PP12 care |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Xero (+ AI features) standard to premium plan | Quote-to-invoice, chasing debtors, cashflow summaries. Already tenant-controlled and already audited by your accountant. Low AI governance risk, high practical value. | ≈ NZD 30–70 / month | New Zealand / Australia | Low care |
Customer follow-up
| Tool | What it does here | Indicative cost | Data sits in | PP12 care |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HubSpot (Breeze) Starter to Professional tiers | Follow-up sequences after a tender closes, pipeline notes, client history. Client contact data sitting in a US CRM is a PP12 question in its own right, independent of any AI feature. | free – NZD 800+ / month | United States / EU | Needs a DPA |
Research & market checks
| Tool | What it does here | Indicative cost | Data sits in | PP12 care |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Perplexity Pro tier | Checking product specs, compliance questions, supplier comparisons. Fine for a quick answer. Never paste a client schedule or a priced scope into it to "check the wording". | ≈ NZD 30 / month | United States | High care |
Graphics & site signage
| Tool | What it does here | Indicative cost | Data sits in | PP12 care |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canva Magic Studio Pro tier | Site signage, H&S posters, client presentation decks. Low sensitivity, high time saving. The usual mistake is uploading a project photo that still contains a client site name. | ≈ NZD 15 / month | United States | Low care |
Low care
Nothing sensitive should leave the building, and the vendor is in the local market or already tenant-controlled. Fine for the whole team with an induction.
Needs a DPA
Paid, business documents go in, admin-controlled. You need a data sharing agreement that names the region, blocks training and sets a breach-notice period.
High care
Consumer tiers anyone can install on a phone. Acceptable only for your own generic text. The moment a client name or a price goes in, it stops being acceptable.
The question that matters is not “which tool”. It is “which tool, for
which document, on which account”. Ask an estimator to paste a redacted scope into the
paid tool and the risk mostly disappears; ask them to paste a live one and no amount of
governance recovers it.