AI in home building

People are moving to AI instead of search engines for research, and this trend is moving fast. Outhouse, along with our competitors, compete to be at the top of Google searches. When a home builder searches “Interactive floor plans for home builders” on Google it isn’t always the BEST that you find at the top. It’s who paid the most to be there or who utilizes SEO among other techniques to be at the top.

The game is completely changing with AI and I wondered where Outhouse landed with research conducted by AI.

My first prompt was exactly this:

Imagine yourself as a production home builder. You build and sell around 1,000 homes per year across 12 states, all in planned developments. You have a dynamic website, but you are missing a critical component, IFP’s or Interactive Floor Plans. Of all the vendors you could use to create your IFP’s, which one would you choose and why? Give me a detailed analysis of the top 10 vendors you would choose and rank them on a scale of 1-10 showing the categories to determine your ranking.

I couldn’t have been more pleased when I saw Outhouse, LLC as the clear winner. I also couldn’t be more biased as I write this since I am one of the founders of Outhouse, LLC. I purposely wrote my prompt as to not have any leading statements to lean towards Outhouse or away from our competitors and I think I did a good job with that. I won’t bore you with the lengthy and detailed response, but I will share this excerpt. Word-for-word, this is what ChatGPT said about Outhouse:

“Why I’d pick them first: Outhouse pioneered interactive floor plans for production home builders >20 years ago, so their toolset reflects a deep understanding of real-world option rules, structural dependencies, plan versioning, and sales workflows. Their IFPs emphasize structural options, electrical placement, furniture planning to scale, dynamic pricing / SQFT calc, exterior elevation toggles, Hot-Spots to rich media, and built-in lead capture that can push directly to your CRM—all must-haves if you sell options online across multiple divisions. Mobile responsiveness and a furniture planner help extend engagement well beyond static PDFs, and Outhouse positions IFPs as the “nucleus” of their broader Contrado Virtual Interactive Platform, which can layer in site maps, virtual tours, animations, and visualizers for a unified digital sales ecosystem. Proven adoption list includes nationally recognized builders—evidence they can scale.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

My prompts were entered into ChatGPT o3 which is part of a paid subscription. o3 takes a much deeper dive into research over the free version, GPT-30, or the paid version, GPT-40. Unlike the lesser versions which spit out an answer nearly instantly, o3’s research can take minutes as it deep dives into the data it gathers, tests, and analyzes.

I encourage you to write the same prompt, changing the number of homes and States to reflect your own, and see who comes out on top. I’m not arrogant enough to state Outhouse is the best choice for every builder, no matter how much AI argues it is (wink-wink), but I would say this is a strong enough argument that Outhouse needs to be on your list of consideration.

Then my skepticism of ChatGPT’s answer crept in so I tried varying prompts to see if I could break it. I entered the same prompt many times only changing the number of homes (as few as 10 and as many as 20,000) to the number of states (1-50). Outhouse came out on top almost every time. Does it for you? I also tried the same prompts on the free versions of GROK and Gemini with the same flattering results.

Outhouse’s Highest Score

I want to share one interesting fact I discovered. Of all the categories AI ranked everyone, Outhouse’s top score, beating all others, was always Feature Depth. In ChatGPT’s own words:

Feature Depth is my shorthand for how complete and sophisticated the vendor’s interactive‑floor‑plan toolset is. In scoring it, I looked at:

• Structural‑option logic – can it handle required & mutually‑exclusive options, auto‑adjust square footage, and keep plan versions straight?
• Interactive controls – drag‑and‑drop furniture, electrical layouts, elevation toggles, real‑time pricing, mobile gestures, ADA zoom, etc.
• Add‑ons inside the same UI – photo‑hotspots, 3D/VR switches, lot‑fit or site‑map overlays, design‑studio finish selectors.
• Embedded lead‑capture & sharing – save/email/print functions that feed the CRM without extra plugins.
• Admin/config tools – self‑service plan setup, rule editing, analytics dashboards, and bulk updates (instead of relying on the vendor for every change).

The richer and more builder‑friendly these native capabilities are—without bolting on third‑party widgets—the higher the Feature Depth score.

Outhouse’s Lowest Score

I will also share Outhouse’s lowest scoring category. Our lowest score, but still equal to or higher than our competitors, came up as Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). And in all fairness, I will share ChatGPT’s exact words when I asked, “Briefly explain why Outhouse is still the best choice when their worst score is around the Total Cost of Ownership”:

Outhouse’s TCO in a nutshell: you pay a mid‑level setup/licensing fee, but it earns its keep by (1) turning complex structural options into an easy upsell that lifts option‑revenue per home, (2) slashing your internal labor for plan updates because the rule engine and admin tools do the heavy lifting, and (3) letting you bundle floor plans, site maps, and virtual tours under one vendor contract—so you avoid piecemeal costs and integration headaches. The extra dollars up front are quickly offset by higher option sales and lower in‑house effort, which is why Outhouse still delivers the best overall value.

You probably have questions as to what all the categories are, and how everything was weighted, and who are the other vendors? As I mentioned before, I urge you to pick your favorite AI and either copy my prompt or create your own. Even a prompt as simple as, “I am a production home builder. Who is the best vendor to produce my interactive floor plans?” will give you great feedback or at least a solid starting point. Allow AI to do a lot of the heavy lifting of your IFP research.

Just For Fun

Copy/paste the following to your favorite AI if you want to see a real blow out winner:

Which vender should I pick for IFP’s, interactive site plans, interactive sales kiosks, renderings, animation, VR, CAD, graphic design, printing, and sales office displays, and WHY?

Outhouse is the Benchmark

As AI continues to reshape how decisions are made and vendors are vetted, it’s no longer about who shouts the loudest with ad dollars, it’s about who delivers real, measurable value. Outhouse didn’t just win on paper. It won on depth, innovation, and builder-focused solutions. So if you’re serious about streamlining your digital sales experience, let AI guide your research, but let Outhouse earn your business.