Guided AI Plan Review Software

CivCheck is designed for jurisdictions looking to improve their permitting process using AI. It's a two-sided solution: on the applicant side, CivCheck's AI walks applicants through every step needed to make their submission complete, compliant, and permit-ready before it reaches your queue. On the staff side, the platform's AI co-pilot guides each reviewer through a discipline-specific review experience — enabling faster, more consistent reviews across your team.

CivCheck provides the most value for jurisdictions where volume or application quality are the primary drivers of permitting delays. If delays stem from unclear policies, missing steps in your internal process, or coordination issues between departments, those are process problems that technology alone won't fix — and should be addressed before or alongside implementing AI plan review.

Not sure which applies to your situation? Our AI plan review software buyer's guide walks through what to look for and how to assess whether your department is ready.

CivCheck is designed to work on both sides of the process — and that's intentional. The biggest driver of long review times and permit backlogs is poor-quality submissions. So in order to actually speed up turnaround times, incomplete and non-compliant applications need to be addressed before they reach your queue.

By guiding applicants through the requirements before they submit, CivCheck reduces the back-and-forth that consumes most of a reviewer's time. Once a complete and compliant submission reaches your queue, the staff portal then makes it significantly faster to complete the review. The two sides work together to cut review cycles from the typical 3–6 down to 1–2.

When an applicant submits through CivCheck, they're guided through the city's requirements in stages. The platform first checks for scope and completeness, flagging missing documents and required information before the applicant goes any further. It then works through code compliance checks stage by stage, giving the applicant instant or near-instant feedback and the opportunity to address issues before submission.

The goal is to help applicants prepare a submission that's permit-ready. Staff review and sign off at every stage, so the city maintains full oversight throughout.

CivCheck supports every check a plan reviewer performs — not just a subset of codes. During pre-screening, the platform checks for code issues across every review discipline, including zoning, building, fire, accessibility, plumbing, structural, and more.

CivCheck is PDF-native, so applicants can submit hand-drawn plans, required forms, and all standard permit documents. No BIM or specialist software required.

CivCheck achieves industry-leading accuracy rates of 98%+ — and the reason is our human-in-the-loop approach. Every step the AI takes, an applicant or staff member verifies and can override. This means errors never compound.

If the AI isn't confident in a result, it won't make a guess. Instead, it prompts the user to provide or manually verify the information. The underlying principle is that AI should never make a decision directly. It should help a human make a better decision, faster.

CivCheck is not built from scratch for each city. We maintain a growing library of pre-configured templates based on major code families — including the CBC, CRC, and other widely adopted base codes — so implementation starts from a strong foundation rather than a blank slate.

From there, we gather what your department actually enforces in practice, which is typically 200–250 critical life-safety and health-safety checks, not the entire code book. We then fine-tune those checks to reflect your exact compliance standards. For example, two cities reviewing the same state drainage requirement may require applicants to present it differently: one requires an affidavit, another requires detailed calculations shown on plan. CivCheck maps to exactly how your reviewers enforce it.

The result is a platform that's pre-trained enough to accelerate implementation, but customizable enough to reflect how your team actually works.

Updates can be made directly in CivCheck's Rules Management System in as little as 2–3 minutes. We prefer to allow around 24 hours for testing and validation before releasing a change, and grace periods are fully supported for jurisdictions that need transition time between old and new requirements.

Because CivCheck maps to exactly how your department enforces each requirement — not just the base code — updates reflect your local enforcement standards, not a generic interpretation.

CivCheck is faster to implement than you'd expect. Completeness checks, intake requirements, and structured reviewer guidance can be configured in as little as a few weeks if your department has strong documentation. Code compliance checks for residential permits are typically ready for testing within a few months of project kickoff.

The City and County of Honolulu followed this same timeline. After implementation, their total review time dropped by as much as 90%, with residential plan reviews going from 90 minutes to as little as 15.

Yes. CivCheck can integrate with all major cloud-based permitting solutions, including permitting software, electronic plan review tools, GIS, and identity and access management systems.

That said, many cities start with CivCheck as a standalone product first — it sits before the official submission process and is quick to implement. Integrations can be phased in later once you've seen how it works in practice and know exactly what you need. Either way, the option is there when you're ready. And if you're currently mid-implementation on new permitting software, CivCheck can integrate with your incoming system too.