The Future Will Demand AI Workflow Evolution

This article originally appeared as an excerpt in Gregg Voss' article for Electrical Contractor in June 2026. Follow Gregg Voss to stay up-to-date on the forces shaping the industry for electrical contractors.

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There is the future of what electrical work will look like on the ground, with robots, cobots and a host of new technologies, but there is also the future of how electrical contractors will conduct business. Michael Delgado, CEO and cofounder of AI-­powered software maker Canals, Coral Gables, Fla., argues that the latter will demand a workflow evolution.

In other words, the proliferation of AI data centers should be viewed as an opportunity to start that evolution.

“The volume of projects has absolutely ballooned,” Delgado said. “A whopping $700 billion is flowing into data center construction right now, and contractors are absorbing that demand without meaningfully changing how their back offices operate. The same teams, using the same spreadsheets and email chains, are now managing far more purchase orders, supplier communications and exceptions than they were two or three years ago.

“The core issue is that data center construction has almost no tolerance for the kind of errors that manual processes routinely produce. When you are relying on old ways of doing things, you can’t keep up with new demands,” he said.

For example, on a typical commercial project, a missed order update or a discrepancy that takes a few days to surface is an inconvenience. On a data center project, that same error is a costly work stoppage.

An electrical contractor might be tempted to dip their toe in the water with AI on smaller projects, but Delgado insists there is a better way, considering the future is coming fast.

“Project size isn’t the key variable for success,” he said. “The firms that see the best results with AI focus on a single, high-friction workflow rather than going broad all at once—and that applies regardless of project size. A firm can implement AI effectively on a data center project if they’re starting with the right process and struggle just as easily on a small job if they’re not.”

Delgado added that “most contractors overestimate what AI adoption requires.” As with any endeavor, intimidation comes from a fear of the unknown.

The key message? AI will be the integral way to conduct business as the rest of this decade and the next unfold.

“Identify an opportunity where workflow automation would make a big impact,” he said. “Run a focused test. Measure your results. The best implementations show results in days or weeks, and once a team sees it working in their own process, the fear resolves itself, they’re encouraged to use it more, and, eventually, they can’t imagine working without it.”

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Learn more about AI for electrical contractors.