What actually happens when you dictate an estimate
"Describe the job out loud and get a priced estimate back" is a claim that deserves scepticism, particularly from people whose livelihood depends on the numbers being right.
So here is what actually happens, including the parts that are not automatic.
Step one: the recording
You hold the microphone and talk the way you would talk to an apprentice:
"Fifty gallon gas water heater in the basement, needs a new expansion tank and a pan, the shut-off looks original so flag that, two and a half hours, haul the old one away, permit."
No form, no fields, no particular order. If you say something twice or correct yourself mid-sentence, that is fine — people do.
You do not need signal. If you are in a basement or a crawlspace, the recording is held on the phone and processed when you come back up.
Step two: transcription
The audio is transcribed by a speech model. This is the part that handles accents, background noise, and the fact that you are standing next to a running furnace.
The audio is stored in secure object storage while it is processed, and auto-deletes after 30 days. It is not used to train AI models and it is not sold. That matters here because you are dictating customer addresses and prices.
Step three: the trade model
The transcript then goes to a language model that has been given your trade's structure: the line items that exist in plumbing, the units they are measured in, what counts as labour versus material, which parts usually accompany which jobs.
This is where "fifty gallon gas water heater" becomes a line item rather than a sentence, and where "two and a half hours" becomes a labour line rather than a note.
It is also why the trade matters. A roofer saying "three squares of architectural" and an electrician saying "three twenty-amp AFCI" both mean something precise, and a general-purpose transcription has no idea what either of them is.
Step four: your catalog, your prices
The model does not invent prices. It matches what you said to the line items in your catalog and applies your rates.
That is the part that makes the output usable. Each trade arrives with its standard items and units, and you set your prices once. If your supplier moves the price of a 50-gallon tank, you change it in one place and every subsequent estimate is correct.
If something you described has no match in your catalog, it comes back as a line for you to price rather than a guess.
Step five: you check it
This is not a formality and it is not going away.
What comes back in about three seconds is a draft: line items, quantities, prices, totals. You read it. You fix the quantity that was misheard, you adjust the labour because this particular basement has a bad staircase, you add the condition about the shut-off valve.
Anyone promising an estimating tool that never needs checking is describing something you should not sign your name to.
Step six: out the door
Then it goes to the customer as a signed approval link. They open it in a browser, with no account and no app, read the lines, and accept from their phone. You get notified.
When they accept, the invoice is issued from that same estimate — same lines, same totals, its own number, as a PDF. If the job is billed in two parts, you get a deposit invoice and then a balance invoice, as two separate documents.
What this does and does not change
It does not make you a better estimator. The nine lines on a water heater job are nine lines whether you dictate them or type them, and knowing they exist is still your expertise.
What it changes is whether that expertise survives the end of the day. The difference between a three-line estimate and a complete one is almost never knowledge. It is twenty minutes, a phone keyboard, and a van you want to get out of.
Three seconds of speech, and the thing you already knew ends up on the page.