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EARLY RELEASE
Why AI Should Build McDonald's Before It Builds Burj Khalifa
When a $300 billion industry still celebrates introducing Excel as an innovation win, you know there's a massive opportunity waiting. Alim Uderbekov (CEO, Surfaice) and Genevieve Davis (former VP at 7-Eleven) are building AI agents specifically designed to automate the repeatable chaos of retail store rollouts, where tens of thousands of milestones across hundreds of locations currently live in scattered spreadsheets and email threads.
This conversation reveals why vertical AI beats horizontal software, how the "McDonald's model" of standardized construction is ripe for automation, and why retailers (not general contractors) are the customers who actually care about speed to revenue.
In this episode, you’ll:
Discover why store development teams managing $300B in annual projects are still running on Excel and fragmented systems, and what that means for AI adoption timelines
Learn how Surfaice is applying "vertically integrated AI" to automate standard construction projects before tackling one-off builds, and why this sequencing matters for market entry
Understand the critical difference between building AI for construction management platforms versus building for owners who measure success in days-to-revenue, not project management features
Hear how a 20-year retail development executive went from "AI will take our jobs" to co-founding an AI company and what this signals about industry readiness for transformation
Get insider perspective on why Procore's AI moves don't threaten specialized retail construction AI, and what network effects actually matter in this space
Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction: Meeting on the Beach and the Birth of Surfaice
04:14 - Why McDonald's Built 40,000 Stores is the AI Blueprint for Construction
07:10 - The $300 Billion Industry Running on Excel: Current State of Store Development
09:05 - Vertical vs Horizontal AI: Why Construction Software Needs to Think Like Humans
14:48 - From Space Station Software to Retail Rollouts: Alim's Unconventional Path
20:28 - The Store Development Workflow: 100 Moving Parts Per Store, Zero Single Source of Truth
28:35 - Building AI Agents That Actually Understand Retail Construction Context
35:42 - Why Surfaice Chose Owners Over General Contractors as Primary Customer
42:16 - The Excel Employee of the Year Award: What It Reveals About Industry Tech Adoption
48:53 - Data Unification Strategy: Connecting Lucernix, SiteWise, CoStar, and Everything Else
54:20 - Network Effects in Specialized vs General Construction Software
1:00:42 - Procore AI vs Point Solutions: Why Integration Scope Matters More Than Features
1:03:27 - Customer Selection as Competitive Strategy: Speed-to-Revenue Beats Project Management
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