The Overlooked AI Revolution in Trades: A New Frontier
The AI workforce boom has often been centered around white-collar work, with discourse primarily focused on how technology can increase the productivity of workers who spend their days sitting at a desk. But beyond that, another workforce has been largely overlooked: plumbers, electricians, and field technicians.
Investments in Construction Technology: A Growing Trend
According to data from Sifted, European construction technology startups—working on everything from building materials discovery and construction software to health and safety compliance—have raised €297 million so far this year. If investments continue at the current pace, they will have raised around €850 million by the end of the year, an increase of 140% compared to the €354 million raised in 2025.
Yet only around 12% of global business enterprises use AI in their work processes, according to a Royal Institution of Chartered Survey 2025 report. By early 2026, this trend begins to reverse, with a number of startups attempting to infiltrate the sector.
Innovative Solutions: Elyos AI at the Forefront
One company working to drive greater use of AI in the trades sector is London-based Elyos AI, which develops AI agents to automate administrative tasks such as voice and email out-of-hours customer service, appointment reminders, scheduling, and sales. It raised a $13m (£9.6m) Series A round in January.
Field service companies have a huge load of manual administrative work, outside of the trade they specialize in, says Elyos founder Phillipa Brown, who spent three years running operations at OVO Energy and trained as an electrician. “We believe that AI agents will automate the majority of this work,” she adds.
The company works with clients including fire safety company Amax Fire, gas services company GasCare, and property services provider James Frew.
Why Has AI in Service Professions Been Neglected?
Much of the debate around AI and workflow focuses on how it can benefit office workers. However, the trades sector is “definitely not a market to make fun of,” Brown says. “Creating tools that customers actually love using and that are designed for them is where great products are made.”
There is a misconception that trades workers are reluctant to adopt these types of technologies, but the team behind Elyos AI understands how crucial they can be. “These are tools that are not designed for them,” says Brown. “This is where Elyos comes in. We build AI agents specifically for this customer segment.”
“Building tools that customers actually enjoy using and that are designed for them is how great products are created. I don’t think there’s a lack of adoption at all. When I talk to customers and tell them about our product, they’re really excited about the technology and how it can help them grow their business.”
AI in the Trades Sector: A New Era for Young Professionals
Commercial workers want to spend most of their time in the field providing service to customers and focusing on the aspects of the job they are actually trained to do, Brown says. This was the starting point for Elyos to create products that enable retail employees to use their time more efficiently.
“We’ve seen the fastest adoption with products that help answer phones, respond to emails, book and schedule work, and contact and liaise with engineers,” says Brown. “These are mostly tedious tasks that a business owner doesn’t want to do, but knows they have to.”
Large companies like Amazon and Uber are able to interact and automatically respond to customer queries 24 hours a day, seven days a week, she adds, and customers now expect that from every company.
Elyos’ after-hours agent and daytime customer representative can be integrated with a company’s booking platform and provide real-time, automated responses to customers. The startup’s AI sales manager tracks leads and quotes, while organizing pipelines. It also has a field engineer AI assistant, which acts as a virtual assistant to support work notes, timesheets, and job closeout.
“Large companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are going to automate a huge amount of core office and administrative work,” says Brown. “The trades sector will become a safe space for young people to upskill and secure valuable jobs. Imagine how productive a trades business could be if booking and scheduling jobs didn’t take so much time. Many people say that plumbers and electricians are going to become the new lawyers of the next generation.”
The biggest challenge the Elyos team has faced is broader adoption and education around AI, something the company hopes to improve over the coming years. “The plumbers and electricians we serve are quickly adopting the products,” says Brown. “But helping their teams takes more time and it requires a lot of training and education on our part. It’s a slower cultural change than expected.”
The Future of AI and the Careers Sector
Over the next five to 10 years, Brown hopes to see AI implemented across the trades sector within administrative tasks. “Humans will be the plumbers and electricians, but the AI agents will run the office autonomously,” she says. “Manage customer contact, planning, financing, and payroll.
Over the next few decades, I think developers will also make progress toward making humanoid robots capable of performing plumbing and electrician tasks themselves.”
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