CogentIntelligence
AI agents for architects and design practices
Design time disappears into enquiries that won't proceed, fee proposals, planning portal checks and consultant emails. Cogent qualifies, drafts and tracks so your practice spends its hours on design.
01Where the week goes
We work with architects, architectural technologists, interior designers and planning consultants. The details differ from firm to firm, but the same few jobs come up on almost every discovery call:
- Unqualified enquiries. Many enquiries have no budget, no site or no planning chance. Finding out takes a site visit.
- Fee proposals. Each one is written from scratch against RIBA stages, scope and exclusions.
- Planning tracking. Checking council portals for validation, consultee comments and decision dates.
- Coordination. Chasing structural engineers, surveyors and clients for information.
None of these need your expertise. They need doing quickly, the same way every time, and that's exactly the kind of work AI agents do well, with your Business Map telling them how your business runs.
Key idea
A practice's most valuable hours are design hours. Everything else should come to you ready to approve.
02Agents built for architects and design practices
These are the agents we most often switch on first in this sector. Each one reads your second brain, works around the clock and asks you before anything that matters.
- Trigger
- A new project enquiry
- Does
- Asks about site, budget, timescales and planning history, and scores it before a site visit
- Asks you
- Before replying and before booking a visit
- Trigger
- A qualified enquiry needs a proposal
- Does
- Drafts the proposal by RIBA stage from your rates, scope and exclusions
- Asks you
- Always, before it goes to a client
- Trigger
- An application is live on a council portal
- Does
- Checks it daily and reports validation, consultee comments and decision dates
- Asks you
- Before any reply to the planning officer
Your first agent is the one with the highest score on your discovery call, not the one on the top of this list. Most firms add a second and third over the following months.
03Ask your business anything
Because every agent writes to the same memory, you can ask questions in plain English that used to mean an afternoon in spreadsheets and inboxes.
YouWhich planning applications have decisions due this month?
CogentThree. The rear extension in Knowle has a neighbour objection logged on Tuesday.
YouHow many hours did we spend at Stage 3 on the Elmdon project?
Cogent64 hours against a fee that assumed 50. The client added a basement in August.
04Your Monday briefing
At 7am every Monday you get a short briefing built from your own tools: what came in, what's stuck and what changed.
05Find your peak
On the call we score every repeating job by hours a week × how easy it is to hand off (1 hard, 2 medium, 3 easy). The highest score gets built first. Here's how a typical list might look.
| Job | Hours a week | Ease | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qualifying enquiries | 4 | 3 | 12 |
| Chasing consultants and clients | 4 | 3 | 12 |
| Drafting fee proposals | 5 | 2 | 10 |
| Checking planning portals | 3 | 3 | 9 |
| Project status updates | 3 | 3 | 9 |
Example · dummy data. Score = hours a week × ease.
In this example, qualifying enquiries is the peak. Run your own numbers with the calculator on our home page, or bring them to the call.
06Where approvals sit
Every agent starts on a short lead. Here's a typical starting point for this sector. Yours is written into your Business Map.
Does alone
- Checking planning portals
- Logging enquiries and documents
- Drafting proposals, updates and chasers
Asks first
- Anything sent to a client, consultant or council
- Fees and variations
- Design decisions
Never
- Making design or regulatory judgements
- Signing off drawings
Design, building regulations and professional judgements stay with your architects. Agents handle the admin around them.
07Works with the tools you already use
We connect to what you have rather than asking you to move. Common tools in this sector include Monograph, Archisoft, Asana, Trello, Outlook or Gmail, Xero, Dropbox, SharePoint and council planning portals. If a system has no integration, a Portal Operator agent can work it the way a person would.
08Questions
Can AI write fee proposals for architects?
It drafts them from your rates, RIBA stages, scope and exclusions. You review and approve before anything goes to the client.
Can AI track planning applications?
Yes. A Planning Watcher checks council portals daily and reports validation, comments and decision dates.
Will it help us filter out time-wasting enquiries?
It asks the right questions about site, budget and planning before anyone books a visit.
Is it useful for a small practice?
Yes. One- to five-person practices often lose the largest share of their week to admin.