Every construction company is sitting on more intelligence than it realizes. It’s in the estimator who remembers exactly why a job went sideways five years ago. The field manager who can see a problem coming before anyone else does. The project manager who knows which client needs a phone call, not an email. Most of that knowledge lives in people’s heads and scattered project files, and very little of it ever gets shared across the company.
On Tuesday, September 23, EV Construction President and CEO Mike Novakoski will join the American Subcontractors Association of Michigan (ASAM) to talk about how AI can change that. His keynote, Building Smarter: The Executive’s Guide to Leading with AI, is built for owners, executives, and field leaders who want a practical path forward rather than another round of hype.
What Mike will cover
Mike’s take is that AI belongs in a company’s infrastructure, not in its toolbox. The talk will explore what it looks like to build AI into the way an organization thinks, operates, shares knowledge, and makes decisions, including:
- Treating AI as infrastructure rather than a standalone tool
- Using AI to capture and unlock the institutional knowledge a company already has
- Amplifying people instead of replacing them, and strengthening creativity, judgment, and relationships along the way
- Building the vision first, then the system: deciding where AI belongs and what success looks like
Mike brings more than 35 years of experience leading people and organizations, building award-winning workplace cultures, and pushing companies to think differently about growth. He is also the author of Right-Brain Justified and Become Unmistakable. Those same ideas about culture and people are at the heart of how EV approaches everything we do, and they shape how we think about technology, too. The goal is a company that is smarter together, not just a company with smarter software.
Event details
Date: Tuesday, September 23, 2026 Time: 2:00–4:00 PM Keynote + Discussion | 4:00–5:00 PM Networking Location: Thousand Oaks Golf Club, 4100 Thousand Oaks Dr NE, Grand Rapids, MI 49525 Cost: $30 for ASAM members, $40 for non-members Note: This event is open to trade contractors only.
Refreshments will be provided. Seats are limited, so register soon at asamichigan.net.
We hope to see you there!
