AI Isn’t Coming for the Trades, It’s Opening the Door Wider
Chris Plunkett grew up in his dad’s HVAC business in Michigan, changing out his first blower motor at eight years old. Today, he runs an HVAC company in Tucson, Arizona, and he’s become one of the more thoughtful voices on how AI tools are actually changing day-to-day work in the trades, not by replacing technicians, but by creating entirely new roles and revenue streams that didn’t exist a few years ago.
Plunkett joined Tersh Blissett on the Service Business Mastery podcast to talk through two specific applications of AI in his business: MeasureQuick’s diagnostic reporting, which turned home inspections into one of his highest-margin service lines, and Breezy‘s AI voice agents, which now handle his after-hours and overflow calls.
This article breaks down what Plunkett shared, along with why he believes AI’s real value in HVAC isn’t replacing the trade, it’s giving more people a way into it.
Why This Matters Right Now
Plunkett referenced an article from Jim Bergman, founder of MeasureQuick, published back in early 2024, that reframed how the industry should think about AI’s impact on the workforce. The argument: AI-assisted diagnostic tools make it possible to bring in specialists who are excellent at inspection and reporting, without necessarily having deep, years-of-experience diagnostic expertise, while a separate team of installers handles the physical changeout work. That division of labor opens the trade to people who might never have considered it viable before.
Plunkett has lived that model directly. His highest gross-ticket employee is 24 or 25 years old, started with the company less than a year ago, and now runs two to three MeasureQuick-based home inspections a day, an outcome that would have been far harder to reach without AI-assisted diagnostic tools shortening the learning curve.
Core Insight #1: AI-Assisted Diagnostics Turned Inspections Into a Standout Revenue Line
Bite-size takeaways:
- Plunkett’s company partnered directly with a home inspection company. Using MeasureQuick, his team deploys nine sensor probes on a system and generates a full diagnostic report with a letter grade, along with clear visuals showing exactly which components (condenser coil, evaporator coil, metering device, compressor) are underperforming.
- The tool doesn’t just generate data, it uses AI to translate raw diagnostic readings into plain-language explanations customers and even junior technicians can understand and act on.
- MeasureQuick’s remote streaming capability let Plunkett troubleshoot a technician’s diagnostic readings in real time from another country, while traveling internationally, simply by having the data streamed directly to his phone.
- The business model is specific: Plunkett’s team works exclusively for the buyer in a home sale transaction, not the seller, and presents clear before-and-after grade recommendations. A system already scoring an A- might only need minor corrective work, while a two-year-old system scoring a D, installed incorrectly, gets a much more serious recommendation.
- Average inspection tickets run $1,500 to $1,800, with individual line items for corrective work ranging from $500 to $2,500, a highly profitable service line built almost entirely around AI-assisted reporting rather than traditional sales tactics.
Core Insight #2: AI Voice Agents Are Handling Overflow and After-Hours Calls, and Customers Often Can’t Tell
The second major theme of the conversation covered Plunkett’s experience running Breezy’s AI voice agents for after-hours and overflow call coverage.
Real example from the episode: Blissett shared a story from his own business where a homeowner insisted, with total confidence, that he’d spoken to a live staff member on an early morning call, based purely on how naturally the conversation flowed, including the AI politely allowing him to interrupt without talking over him. When Blissett pulled up the actual call recording to prove it had been an AI voice agent the entire time, the homeowner, who worked on AI systems professionally at Gulfstream, was stunned.
Additional details from Plunkett’s setup:
- Plunkett configured Breezy with specific trigger words, like “flood” or “emergency”, that are required to escalate a call to a live team member after hours. Callers who simply demand “a human” without describing an urgent issue don’t get an automatic override, which keeps the system focused on true emergencies rather than every impatient caller.
- Feedback from customers has been largely positive, with one customer specifically telling Plunkett’s wife that she didn’t realize she’d been speaking with an AI system until a few minutes into the call, because it responded with genuine empathy.
- Plunkett’s routing has evolved from a simple after-hours overflow line ringing directly to him, to a full on-call rotation, where after-hours emergency calls route automatically to whichever technician is on call that specific day, while he still receives call notes afterward to stay informed without being the bottleneck.
- Plunkett noted that Breezy’s support team responded quickly when an early version of the AI agent gave an awkward, obviously-a-bot response to a customer, a detail that mattered to him in choosing to continue using the platform.
Core Insight #3: The Bigger Lesson: Efficient Processes Have to Come Before AI
Blissett opened the episode with a caution worth repeating on its own: none of this works without clean, efficient processes underneath it. Automating a broken process just produces automated garbage faster, and Blissett was direct about industry-wide “AI fatigue” setting in as more low-effort AI content and tools flood the market.
Plunkett’s examples reinforce that point. MeasureQuick’s AI reporting only works because the underlying diagnostic process (nine-probe deployment, standardized letter grading) was already rigorous before AI was layered on top. Breezy’s voice agent only performs well because Plunkett explicitly defined trigger words, escalation paths, and on-call rotations, rather than expecting the AI to figure out the business’s judgment calls on its own.
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Conclusion
Plunkett’s business illustrates something worth remembering in an industry saturated with AI hype: the technology’s real value isn’t flash, it’s precision. AI-assisted diagnostics let a less experienced technician generate expert-level inspection reports. AI voice agents let a small HVAC company offer round-the-clock coverage without a homeowner ever feeling like they’ve been shuffled into a lesser experience.
None of it works without a clean process behind it first, and none of it is designed to replace the humans running the business. It’s designed to remove the bottlenecks that used to require years of expertise or a much bigger staff, opening the door for people like Plunkett’s 24-year-old inspection specialist to become one of the company’s top revenue generators within her first year.
FAQs
What is MeasureQuick and how does it use AI? MeasureQuick is a diagnostic tool that connects to sensor probes measuring an HVAC system’s performance, then uses AI to translate the raw readings into a letter grade and plain-language explanations of what needs to be corrected.
Can AI diagnostic tools let less experienced technicians do expert-level work? Yes, to a meaningful degree. Standardized AI-assisted reporting can shorten the learning curve for diagnostic work, allowing newer technicians or inspection specialists to generate accurate, professional reports without years of hands-on diagnostic experience.
How well do AI voice agents work for after-hours HVAC calls? When properly configured with clear escalation rules and trigger words for emergencies, AI voice agents can handle after-hours and overflow calls effectively enough that many customers don’t realize they’re speaking with an AI rather than a live staff member.
Should every HVAC business jump straight into AI tools? Not without a solid process already in place. AI performs best when it’s automating an already-efficient, well-defined process. Applying AI to a disorganized workflow tends to produce inconsistent or low-quality results, sometimes described in the industry as “AI slop.”
How profitable can AI-assisted home inspections be for HVAC contractors? In Plunkett’s business, average inspection tickets run $1,500 to $1,800, with recommended corrective repairs ranging from $500 to $2,500 per job, making it one of the highest-margin service lines in the company.
What should a contractor configure before turning on an AI voice agent? Clear escalation triggers (such as specific emergency keywords), defined on-call rotations, and a review process for call recordings are all important to make sure the AI is handling calls appropriately and consistently.
