Nomic, Bluebeam Max, Deltek or what you already pay for: choosing AI for a small engineering firm

A sourced comparison of dedicated AEC platforms, upcoming features in Bluebeam and Deltek, and setting up general AI tools a firm already owns.

If you run a civil or MEP (mechanical, electrical and plumbing) firm of 5 to 50 people, you have four realistic routes to AI on delivery paperwork: buy a dedicated platform built for architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) firms, wait for software you already use to add features, set up general-purpose AI you may already pay for, or wait. Here is what each looks like in October 2026, with prices where vendors publish them.

Product details below come from the vendors' own pages or announcements unless noted. We have not tested these products side by side.

Route 1: dedicated AEC platforms

Nomic

Nomic is a document-AI platform for AEC firms. Its features include RFI (request for information) responses with citations, submittal and spec review into a compliance table, code compliance checks and drawing-set review. Its published pricing, checked October 2026:

Free: $0, with limited requests.
Individual: $20 per month for one seat in a solo workspace.
Business: $40 per user per month with a 25-seat minimum, so at least $1,000 a month or $12,000 a year. It includes file integrations (Autodesk, Bentley, SharePoint and more), single sign-on and team administration.
Enterprise: custom pricing.

For a 12-person firm, the Business plan means paying for 13 empty seats, while Individual seats don't share a team workspace. Nomic exhibited at the ACEC 2026 convention, so many firm leaders will see it.

CivilPlanAI

According to its Capterra listing, CivilPlanAI runs automated quality checks on civil plans before submittal: grading, drainage, accessibility, code and cross-sheet coordination. The listing says "Engineers retain full control, approving or rejecting findings." Pricing is usage-based, "starting at US$100." The listing had no reviews when we checked, and it names small and mid-sized Southern California civil firms and plan-check firms as the target. It aims to reduce review comments, not to answer them.

Structural plan checking

InspectMind ran a sponsored STRUCTURE magazine webinar in June 2026 on AI plan checking for structural engineers, covering drawings against specs and coordination gaps.

Route 2: wait for software you already use

Bluebeam Max

Announced in October 2025 (Architosh), Bluebeam Max adds natural-language prompts built on Anthropic's Claude that work over markup data, AI-REVIEW and AI-MATCH features for finding drawing issues and comparing sets, and Revit connected sessions. Its price had not been published at our last check. For reference, standard Bluebeam plans cost $260 (Basics), $330 (Core) and $440 (Complete) per user per year, according to a 2026 pricing post by Drawboard, a Bluebeam competitor. No comment-management feature was named. If your review comments arrive as Bluebeam markups, this is the product to watch.

Deltek Vantagepoint

At its November 2025 user conference, Deltek described its Dela agents as "what's coming." They include an AI Proposal Builder that reads the RFP, suggests past projects and drafts from winning proposals, plus pursuit scoring and resume and project-sheet automation. No release dates or prices were given. Ajera, Deltek's product for smaller firms, was not mentioned.

Unanet ProposalAI

Unanet offers RFP breakdowns, compliance tables and outlines built from your firm's content. It advertises faster turnaround; we could not verify its figures, and no price is shown.

Route 3: set up what you already have

Many small firms already pay for Microsoft 365, a ChatGPT or Claude business plan, or Bluebeam. With your templates, a consistent folder structure and written rules, these can handle the safest drafting work: minutes, memos, comment logs, response-letter drafts and proposal first drafts. They don't do automated drawing review. The cost is mostly setup and training time rather than new seats. This is the route Lunan works on, so weigh our view with that in mind.

Route 4: wait

Waiting is reasonable if your delivery paperwork is light or your staff aren't using AI yet. It is less reasonable if staff are already pasting project files into free tools with no policy. The ACEC and BST Global survey found AI use at 81% in marketing and sales but 36% in design and project delivery (HPAC, Jun 2025). Your people may already be ahead of your policy.

Side by side

Option	Strongest at	Published price	Fit for a firm under 25 people
Nomic	Drawings, submittals, specs, RFIs	$20/month individual; $40/user/month with 25-seat minimum	Individual seats yes; team plan priced for 25 or more
CivilPlanAI	Civil plan checks before submittal	From $100, usage-based	Likely; no reviews yet
Bluebeam Max	AI over markups and drawings	Not published	Unknown until priced
Deltek Dela	Proposals (announced)	Not published	Unknown; Ajera not mentioned
Microsoft 365, ChatGPT or Claude, set up for your firm	Text drafting: logs, letters, proposals, minutes	Your existing plans, plus setup time	Yes

Questions to ask any vendor

Is our data used to train your models, and where does the contract say so?
Where do our files live, and can they stay in our own storage?
Is there a log of who ran what and who approved it? North Carolina's board asks licensees to keep records like this; see what the boards say.
What is the seat minimum, and what do we lose below it?
Can we export everything if we leave?
Does it accept our inputs as they really arrive: PDF letters, email and Bluebeam markup exports?

How to choose

If drawing and submittal review is your bottleneck and you have 25 or more people, trial a platform.
If text paperwork is the bottleneck (comment letters, proposals, minutes), start with what you already own and measure the result. Our cost worksheet helps.
If you live in Bluebeam, keep your inputs exportable and revisit once Max is priced.

Not sure which bottleneck you have? Start a free conversation and we'll look at one real document together.