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What the AI does with what you give it

Every XBuild project is a chat: describe the job as you would to a coworker, hand over photos, measurement reports, or a carrier estimate, and the AI turns them into a scoped, priced proposal. This page covers what it reads, what it asks, what steers it, and why the result is yours to review before it goes out.

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1. You describe the job

Start in plain language: the trade, the property, what’s damaged or being sold, and any quantities or materials you already know. The AI works in two modes — retail (a homeowner proposal priced from your packages and rates) is the default, and it switches to insurance (a scope in Xactimate or Symbility format) when you mention a claim or a carrier, or upload a carrier estimate. An explicit statement from you — a measurement, a material, a price — overrides every other source the AI has.

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2. Photos, documents, and voice notes

Chat accepts PDFs, images, and measurement or estimate files — Xactimate .esx, roof measurement .xml from EagleView and similar vendors, and .skx and .fml sketches — whose measurements and line items flow into the scope like a report’s. Accepted types and the per-upload limit are in Creating an estimate.

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3. It asks before it guesses

Every quantity traces to a source: a measurement report, a carrier estimate’s line, or a number you gave. When the AI can’t name the source, it asks a clarifying question instead of inventing one — expect a short back-and-forth when information is thin. Prices likewise: it never fabricates one, and it labels where each came from.

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4. How the scope gets built

Retail — the AI selects from your component packages, your reusable assemblies of material, labor, and other items drawn from Your Catalog. It applies each item’s quantity formula to the measurements, keeps your prices exactly as defined, and applies your margin. For trades you haven’t packaged, it builds the items from trade knowledge and prices them from market data, flagged as such. Insurance — the AI builds or supplements a scope in the carrier’s format (Xactimate or Symbility). Carrier lines are copied verbatim — codes, descriptions, and quantities — and anything new or adjusted is flagged so an adjuster can see exactly where the changes are. See the insurance supplement flow.

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5. What steers the estimate

The better tuned these are, the less correcting you do per job.

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6. A versioned proposal you can edit

The proposal renders live in the preview. Every save creates a new version — versions are never overwritten. Ask for changes in chat, or click the pencil icon to edit fields directly; either way, saving cuts a new draft version. When it’s right, Publish generates the link and PDF. See Editing estimates and proposals and Publishing your proposal.

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7. Review before you send

The AI is a fast, well-briefed estimator, not a replacement for your judgment. Photos can hide layers, market prices are estimates, and only you know what you agreed with the customer — check the scope and quantities against what you saw on site before you publish. The boundaries are listed in What XBuild can and can’t do. AI work runs on tokens: every turn consumes some, and more files and revision rounds cost more, so a tight job description up front is the cheapest path to a finished proposal. See How tokens work. For further assistance, contact XBuild Support at support@x.build.