6 questions to ask before software reads your drawings

Firms are careful about where a developer's drawings go, and they're right to be. If you're looking at software that reads drawings, these are the questions I'd ask. Our own answers are under each one, including the parts that aren't finished.

1. Does anyone train on my drawings?

Ask this about the vendor and about every model service behind it. Our answer: no. We use your drawings to do your review and nothing else. We don't train models on them, and we've confirmed the same with Meta and Baseten.

2. Exactly where do the drawings go?

Ask for names, not "secure cloud." Ours: the workspace set up for your trial, and the AI models that read the sheets and measure colored plans, on the Meta Model API. Our questions page names the models.

3. What if my firm has stricter requirements?

Ask how the deployment would work and who can reach the drawings. Our answer: for firms with stricter requirements we have an enterprise solution. Deployment, access and data handling are agreed with your firm.

4. Can I see what the AI was asked and what it answered?

If a result is ever disputed, this is what you'll need. Ours: we record every AI call, what went in and what came out, so any result can be audited.

5. Who decides, and can I check the number?

A number you can't trace is a number you have to check again from scratch. Ours: nothing counts until a person confirms it, and every count, length and price links back to the mark on the drawing or the line in the document it came from.

6. What happens at the end?

Ask who can see the files during the trial and what happens to them afterward. Ours: a workspace just for you, access only for the people named for your trial, and an NDA if you want one. We delete your drawings at the end of the trial if you ask.

One more thing worth asking: what is the accuracy claim based on? Ours is a sample landscape package with 30 planted errors: 28 found, 2 flagged for a person, 0 missed. Landscape is where LandSight started, so those numbers say nothing about other trades. The package is synthetic, and we don't have results on real customer drawings yet. That's what the trials are for.