Bluebeam, a construction management platform based on the sharing and mark-up of construction document PDFs, acquired Firmus AI, an artificial intelligence design review and risk analysis platform, Sept. 4. The acquisition will bring Firmus' document AI capabilities -- such as the early identification of design-related risk, cross‑discipline coordination issues and scope gaps, as well as phase-to-phase drawing set comparisons and priority-based issue reporting -- directly into Bluebeam's review and markup workflows.
It is the latest acquisition by Bluebeam owner Nemetschek Group to invest in construction documents with artificial intelligence as a way to detect problems and automate document-based workflows..
Firmus, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based startup, allows construction professionals to use AI in estimation, bidding, preconstruction and quality takeoff through early procurement processes and operations handoff. Firmus' AI analyzes construction documents and drawings, identifying missing information, cross-discipline discrepancies and scope gaps.
"Drawings are the universal language of construction, and that's where risk hides," said Shir Abecasis, CEO of Firmus. "By joining Bluebeam, we're placing Firmus' drawing‑first intelligence exactly where millions of AEC professionals already work. Together we'll help teams surface issues earlier, communicate them clearly, protect their reputation and move projects forward with greater confidence and trust."
For Bluebeam, the acquisition brings its platform a stronger preconstruction analysis engine to its users who have already widely adopted its PDF-based platform that brings 4D planning into 2D documents.
"We definitely see documents as the future of construction (and) we believe those workflows will continue to be improved with artificial intelligence," said Usman Shuja, CEO of Bluebeam.
He added that Firmus brings an AI engine that understands 2D PDFs at a granular level and is able to spot scope gaps, inconsistencies and changes across disciplines and revisions. Integrating Firmus' capabilities, he said, gives construction teams quality assurance that reduces reviews and "stop-everything moments late in a project."
In other Bluebeam news, the company has furthered its partnership with Procore on the latter's construction management platform. Procore Documents + Bluebeam and Procore Submittals + Bluebeam are new integrations between the two platforms created to streamline collaboration and ensure building teams are working from a single source of truth across their projects. Users can now markup files stored in Procore Documents directly in Bluebeam (Documents + Bluebeam), for instance, and with Procore Submittals + Bluebeam, users can launch Studio Sessions from Procore, review submittals collaboratively and return marked-up documents with a full audit trail to Bluebeam's platform.