For More Information
AI Platform Enters Indiana Market as Construction Booms
Indiana’s construction market’s boom is intensifying competition among general contractors to adopt AI to identify private projects earlier.
Mercator.ai, the AI-powered business development platform for commercial construction leads, is now expanding into Indiana. The company says the move was pulled forward by direct demand from general contractors in Indianapolis working across a broad range of private projects.
The expansion marks Mercator.ai’s third major U.S. market following rapid adoption in Texas and Florida. It comes as Indiana posts some of the strongest economic and demographic numbers in the Midwest region, with commercial, industrial, healthcare, and data center construction accelerating.
“We didn’t choose Indiana. Indiana chose us,” said Chloe Smith, CEO and co-founder of Mercator.ai. “Contractors working in the state started reaching out, asking when we’d be live.”
AI Maps Projects Before They Hit the Market
According to company data, general contractors using Mercator.ai surface 3 to 5 times more early-stage opportunities per week. The shift from manual research to real-time project data enables teams to spend less time searching and more time pursuing deals where early engagement improves win rates.
Mercator.ai gives general contractors real-time insight into early-stage project activity by aggregating signals from land transactions, rezoning activity, permit filings, ownership changes, and pre-development movement. These signals often surface months before projects reach the bid stage, giving contractors time to engage early and compete.
Indiana Is Outperforming
Indiana is outperforming the rest of the Midwest on the fundamentals. Real GDP grew 2.6% from 2024 to 2025, faster than the 2.1% national rate and well above Ohio (1.4%), Illinois (1.3%), Kentucky (0.9%), and Michigan (0.4%). The state’s population grew 0.56% in 2025, beating the national average and every neighboring state, with the Indianapolis metro growing more than 1%, roughly double the national rate.
That growth is fueling activity across the full spectrum of commercial construction: healthcare expansions, industrial and manufacturing facilities, retail, education, and mixed-use developments in the state’s fastest-growing suburbs. Data centers are also driving growth. Meta has broken ground on a $10 billion, 1-gigawatt campus in Lebanon, with a second Meta campus already under construction in Jeffersonville. Amazon’s $11 billion Project Rainier is underway near New Carlisle, Google is expanding its Fort Wayne campus, and Microsoft has a project in La Porte. Together, that represents more than $25 billion in announced hyperscale investment, pulling supporting commercial, industrial, and infrastructure work along with it.
“The projects that matter most in a market like this are the ones you never hear about until the contractor has already been selected,” Smith said. “Our platform exists to fix that, regardless of sector.”
Built For Private Project Detection
Roughly 80% of U.S. construction spending comes from the private sector, according to federal data, where visibility is more fragmented than public work. Many projects take shape long before formal bids are released, rewarding contractors that develop early insight and relationships.
Mercator.ai is designed for that reality. Unlike traditional platforms that rely on manual input or public bid board reporting, it uses AI to extract intelligence directly from city and state records, private datasets, and proprietary data pipelines where structured information does not already exist. Every project update is tied to a source document, giving users a clear audit trail behind each insight.
“Traditional bid platforms tell you what everyone already knows,” Smith said. “Our goal is to show general contractors what’s coming early enough to change outcomes.”
Results on the Ground
CMT Group, a Texas general contractor led by CEO Tinu Thomas, used Mercator.ai to surface a 13,000-square-foot retail project in Garland valued at roughly $3.2 million. Thomas made the first call in early December and had pricing underway within six weeks.
“We recently landed a project using Mercator.ai,” Thomas said. “I personally called the client, and within about two weeks we were already moving toward signing a retail contract. That’s a real result.”
Other users report similar outcomes. A Dallas general contractor tracked early multifamily conversions and secured two jobs before competitors were aware. A Houston contractor identified a self-storage development through early land acquisition signals, engaged the developer pre-design, and ultimately won the work.
“When it resurfaced, I pulled everything,” said a business development leader at the general contractor. “Ownership, estimates, and historical context. When we walked into the pitch, they said, ‘You know everything about this project.’”
Rapid State Expansion
“We’re adding markets faster than we ever have,” she said. “The pattern is consistent. Contractors tell us what they need: Earlier visibility, a more qualified pipeline, faster access to decision-makers. When we see a market with the right scale and the right structural dynamics, we move.”
Indiana, she added, fits that profile exactly. “You have a state economy outpacing its neighbors, population growing faster than the national average, and hyperscalers pouring tens of billions on top of that. Local GCs who built their businesses on relationships and word-of-mouth are now watching out-of-state contractors come in and compete for the same work across every sector. That’s the exact environment where early intelligence becomes a real advantage.”
See What’s Coming
Mercator.ai positions early project detection as a structural advantage for general contractors in markets where timing and access increasingly determine who wins work. Teams use the platform to follow developers, civil engineers, and architects, track movement across portfolios, and identify momentum before projects become widely known, allowing business development to shape scope rather than react to it.
“If I have one coffee meeting, I might walk away with two leads,” said a director of business development at a general contractor. “If I’m on Mercator.ai, I can find five in that same time, and they’re more qualified.”
To learn more or request a demo, visit www.mercator.ai.