Could AI Transform Value Engineering for Quantity Surveyors? Martin Balaam on Own The Build

Value engineering has always been limited by time. A quantity surveyor needs to take 10% out of a package, so the hunt for an equivalent product begins — manufacturers’ websites, technical data sheets, samples, calls with the design team. Most shortlists stop at whatever can be checked before the next meeting.

Pimberly’s founder and CEO, Martin Balaam, joined Paul Heming on C-Link’s Own The Build podcast (Episode 289) to talk about what changes when that search is handed to an AI agent instead.

Key Takeaways

An AI agent can shortlist compliant, cost- and carbon-efficient alternatives to a specified product in minutes rather than days
If performance data, certifications, dimensions, lead times and EPDs aren’t in structured fields, an agent can’t find them
Pimberly and MRA Research found 69% of UK builders’ merchants and building materials manufacturers already use AI or automation tools, but only 30% manage their product data centrally

Handing the shortlist to an agent

Give an AI agent the specification and it comes back with compliant alternatives, weighed on cost, lead time, carbon and warranty — in minutes rather than the days a manual search takes. The quantity surveyor still makes the final call, just with a lot more to choose from.

Paul opens the episode with the story of a value-engineering decision on Battersea Power Station that saved close to £1.5m but took months to find manually, before turning to what changes when that search is handed to an agent instead.

Listen to the episode

Own The Build — Episode 289. Out now on all podcast platforms

Listen on C-Link

Martin Balaam

The catch for manufacturers

An agent can only shortlist what it can read. Performance data, certifications, dimensions, lead times and EPDs need to sit in structured fields and be kept current, a spec sheet PDF three clicks deep on a manufacturer’s website may never make the list.

“If the right product is buried several layers down on a manufacturer’s website, a QS might never find it. An AI agent would.” — Martin Balaam, CEO & Founder, Pimberly

Paul Heming

What the data says

In The State of Product Data in UK Construction 2026, Pimberly’s research with MRA Research found that 69% of builders’ merchants and building materials manufacturers already use AI or automation tools — but only 30% manage their product data centrally.

That gap is exactly what Martin and Paul unpack on the episode: the tools are arriving faster than the data discipline needed to make them useful.