AI Plan Review vs. AI Permit Prep: The Difference and Why it Matters

If you’re evaluating AI solutions to speed up your permitting process, you may have noticed some vendors call their product “AI plan review” or “AI plan check,” others call it “AI permit prep,” and some seem to use the terms interchangeably.

That ambiguity is a problem.

These tools solve different problems, for different users, at different points in the permitting lifecycle. At a high level, the difference is simple: AI plan review improves staff efficiency during compliance checks, while AI permit prep improves application quality before submission.

When departments treat them as the same thing, they often end up buying software that improves one part of the process while leaving the real bottleneck untouched.

The core distinction: Who is AI plan review software for?

AI plan review software is designed for permitting staff and plan reviewers, not applicants. It supports plan reviewers as they evaluate compliance, apply local codes, and document decisions.

The term AI plan check is often used interchangeably with AI plan review, especially when referring to automated, rules-based compliance checks. Both terms refer to tools that help staff during the review process.

AI permit prep is built for applicants. It helps them understand jurisdiction-specific requirements and submit complete, review-ready applications on the first try.

Both tools can exist on the same platform. CivCheck, for example, integrates both experiences so they work together for users on either side of the counter. When applicants use AI permit prep to clean up their submissions, reviewers spend less time searching for missing information and more time on plan review.

But the processes, interfaces, and questions each tool needs to answer are different.

What AI plan review actually does

Think about what slows down your reviewers. It’s usually not the decision-making itself, but everything that comes before that decision.

Finding the relevant code sections, verifying calculations, digging through plans for required information that may or may not be there, cross-referencing ordinances, and documenting findings are just some of the tasks taking up the bulk of reviewers’ time when done manually.

This is where AI plan review (sometimes called AI plan check) can take on the work by:

1. Automating checks for clearly defined code requirements

If a reviewer typically performs 100 reviews on a residential project, AI plan check software might complete or pre-populate 30 of them, including setback calculations, parking counts, occupancy loads, and dimensional calculations. The reviewer then validates those results and focuses their expertise on the remaining checks that require interpretation or discretion.

2. Speeding up every check

Instead of each check taking the same amount of time, AI speeds up the entire process by pulling relevant codes, doing math, extracting information from plans, and organizing everything on a single screen. The reviewer still signs off on every decision, but at a much faster pace because AI handles the majority of the manual work.

The key thing to understand is that good AI plan review software doesn’t (and shouldn’t) make decisions for staff. It makes it faster and easier for them to make informed decisions themselves, based on their own experience and expertise.

In real deployments, this distinction matters. For example, when the City and County of Honolulu implemented CivCheck for residential permits, review times were cut by roughly 70%. Reviews that previously took 60 to 90 minutes were completed in as little as 15 minutes, without removing staff oversight.

How AI permit prep helps applicants

Now let’s switch to the other side of the counter.

Applicants often submit incomplete applications because they don’t fully understand local requirements. Not because they’re trying to waste your time, but because they don’t know what “complete” looks like for your jurisdiction. Faced with uncertainty, they submit what they have and wait for the correction comments. This creates avoidable back-and-forth at intake and during early review cycles.

AI permit prep software addresses this upstream by:

• Guiding applicants through specific question flows based on project type and jurisdiction
• Allowing applicants to perform a pre-submission check for missing documents or required information
• Identifying likely compliance issues early
• Providing jurisdiction-specific guidance during the submission process

The goal is not to approve permits automatically. It’s to help applicants submit something that is complete and reviewable the first time.

When this works well, departments see fewer resubmissions, fewer clarification emails, and fewer frustrated applicants showing up at the counter asking about unexpected corrections.

Why vendors blur the line between AI plan review and AI permit prep

Some platforms are designed for one user group and later adapted for another, which can blur the lines between plan review and permit preparation. When that happens, marketing language collapses two very different use cases into a single label.

This is where the confusion begins.

What a reviewer needs to see during a compliance check is not what an applicant needs to see while preparing a submission. Trying to serve both audiences through the same workflow usually results in compromises that satisfy neither.

Purpose-built systems separate these experiences.

For example, CivCheck was designed to support two distinct, role-based interfaces. Applicants interact with guided preparation and pre-check tools. Reviewers work in a separate environment optimized for verification, validation, and documentation. The two workflows are connected, but not conflated.

How to evaluate AI plan review tools more effectively

When vendors use “AI plan review,” it can mean very different things. It may refer to:

• Software that helps staff review plans faster
• Software that helps applicants submit better applications
• A platform that supports both, with a clear separation of roles

Before evaluating features, be clear on the problem you’re trying to solve. Are review cycles slow because staff spend too much time on manual checks? Are intake queues clogged with incomplete submissions? Are both happening at once?

Once you answer those questions, ask vendors directly:

• Who was this workflow designed for first?
• How are applicant and reviewer experiences separated?
• What part of the permitting lifecycle does this actually accelerate?

Those answers will tell you far more than the product label.

The bottom line

AI plan review, AI plan check, and AI permit prep are not interchangeable. They address different challenges at different stages of the permitting process.

Departments that understand the distinction can target investments that reduce overall permitting time. Departments that do not often end up with software that improves one step while leaving the main bottleneck unchanged.

The most effective approaches treat applicant guidance and staff review as connected, but distinct, problems and design accordingly.