CMiC, a Toronto company that sells construction ERP software to general contractors, subcontractors and civil firms, introduced NexusAI on November 2, 2026, at CONNECT, its customer conference in Orlando. CMiC calls NexusAI the AI launchpad in NEXUS, the AI-enabled version of its ERP. A user types a request in plain English, and the system either answers from ERP data or starts an agent that drafts a new job, a job budget or an invoice for the user to check and confirm. The workflows it names are job setup, budgeting and billing.
What it does
In most CMiC shops today, opening a job is a sequence of screens. A project accountant enters the job record, an estimator or project manager hands over the budget as a spreadsheet, someone imports it against the cost code structure, and billing sets up the contract before the first pay application. NexusAI puts those steps behind one request.
CMiC describes the work in this order:
- The user types a request, such as setting up a new job, or uploads a document.
- NexusAI launches one of CMiC’s agents. An agent here is software that carries out a multi-step task in the ERP, such as filling in every field of a new job record, from a short instruction.
- The agent drafts the record and shows it to the user.
- The user reviews it and confirms. CMiC calls this a “request, review, and confirmation process.”
CMiC’s September NEXUS release added agents for the same tasks. It listed a Job Budget Agent that creates or imports budgets with built-in validation, a Job Initiation Agent that puts job setup, budgeting and billing contracts into one guided workflow, and a Job Costing Transaction and Posting Impact Agent that shows how a cost entry changes the budget, cost and forecast before it posts. It also listed a Create PCI Agent, which drafts potential change items from a typed description, and AI Daily Journals, which turns a spoken end-of-day summary into a daily journal entry.
NexusAI also shows real-time KPIs and alerts. CMiC says each request runs through the CMiC MCP Server and inside the user’s existing security settings and permissions. MCP, short for Model Context Protocol, is a standard way for an AI model to call another system’s functions. By CMiC’s description, the model reaches only what the user’s CMiC role already allows.
Evidence so far
The evidence is CMiC’s announcement, its September release notes and its product page. These claims come from CMiC:
- NexusAI can create jobs, budgets, invoices and other records from a plain-language request, with a review step before anything is saved.
- Every request respects existing security settings and user permissions.
- CMiC’s chief product officer, Steve Cangiano, said the new capabilities make job costing run “more efficiently and accurately.”
The NEXUS product page lists other AI features, including AI drawing upload that reads sheet numbers and titles from PDF drawings, a spec book organizer that splits a PDF spec into CSI sections, and a submittal assistant that pre-fills submittal log records.
Accuracy rates for the agents and time saved on job setup are not yet public.
Impact Integrated, an independent CMiC consultancy, published an FAQ on NexusAI the day after the launch. Its point was about permissions. Because NexusAI follows existing roles, a role that grants more than intended, such as access to pay rates, bank details or job margins, becomes easier to query. The firm also lists misposted job costs, costs outside a commitment and payroll burden posted at the wrong rate as reasons an answer could come back wrong.
How to measure it on your projects
Job setup cycle time is the cleanest metric for a pilot. Define it as business days from the signed contract date to the day the job is open in CMiC with its budget loaded. Pull those two dates for your last 20 jobs before the pilot starts.
Pair it with a quality count. Budget lines corrected in the first 30 days, for any reason other than an owner change order, show whether faster setup is creating cleanup work later. During the pilot, also log each agent draft as confirmed unchanged, edited or rejected. Edited drafts still take an accountant’s time.
| Metric | Definition | Baseline to capture before the pilot |
|---|---|---|
| Job setup cycle time | Business days from the signed contract date to the day the job is open in CMiC with its budget loaded | Contract date and job open date for the last 20 jobs |
| Budget lines corrected after setup | Budget lines changed in the first 30 days for a reason other than an owner change order | Budget change log for the same 20 jobs |
| Agent drafts confirmed unchanged | Share of the jobs, budgets and invoices the agent drafted that the reviewer confirmed with no edits | None before the pilot; log every draft once it starts |
| Invoices reversed or reissued | Invoices voided or reissued within 30 days of entry | Last 90 days of AR and AP entries |
Clean budgets also feed the WIP schedule. Our post on building a work-in-progress schedule from job cost data shows where a misloaded budget line shows up in percent complete and over or under billing. NetSuite has announced similar agents that turn estimates into job budgets, so the same baseline lets you compare the two.
Before the pilot, run a permissions review of the CMiC roles the pilot users hold, since NexusAI answers within them. Then pick one division and pull contract and job open dates for its last 20 jobs.
Availability and cost
CMiC introduced NexusAI at CONNECT 2026, held November 1 to 4. A release date for NexusAI is not yet public. The September agents were available then to existing and new enterprise customers, with cloud customers scheduled to receive the update in the fall. Pricing for NexusAI is not public, and CMiC’s product page directs buyers to a demo request.