Trades in the Bay Area implementing AI to optimize service calls

By Max Darrow

It’s an ordinary summer day for David Gharamany, the senior technician at the Art of Comfort, an HVAC contractor.

“It’s a no-cooling call,” he said, as he loaded up his truck. “Basically, the AC is not working.”

Gharamany has almost 20 years of experience in the industry, finding his way to a diagnosis and fixing homeowners’ problems. And in 2026, the tools of the trade involve AI.

“It definitely is there, and it is very helpful,” he said.

The HVAC expert is using it to complement the skills he’s honed over the years, primarily to improve efficiency. For example:

“I’m here, and I can find out if I have that part at the shop, how soon I can get it, how much it is cost wise,” he said. “It shops for you. At the instant time it looks for who sells it cheaper.”

But also, he’s collecting data on every call for service, which helps his team’s overall success on future calls.

“That will be fed to AI, and we’ll have it in our system so my next technician who comes in here and sees a similar situation — It’s going to be available for him,” he said. “Instead of calling me, David will be in their pocket.”

Khaled Ghazal is the CEO of Art of Comfort.

“We started seriously thinking about it in the past year,” he said. “It happened much faster than I thought, seeing other companies in the trades adopting AI and trying to integrate it with their business model.”

From answering phones to knowledge sharing, he says integrating AI into his essential home services business model has improved how they function.

“AI can handle a lot of the repetitive tasks within the business, so we can actually focus on the people and the craft that we’re in,” he said. “We can execute without missing any call.”

Ghazal may be embracing AI earlier than some in the trades. But the demand for it, either out of curiosity or necessity, is growing.

“AI is developing every day. It’s a speed of advancement that you’ve never seen before,” said Melisa Tokmak, the founder and CEO of Netic. “Today, it’s definitely more fit for companies looking to expand and that can understand the operational rules that they want to implement.”

Tokmak’s San Francisco-based AI startup caters specifically to essential services, such as plumbing, HVAC, roofing, and more.

“I think it’s one of the industries that AI is actually best fit for,” she said.

Netic is an engine that uses AI to help the business run, from handling calls and customer interactions to developing and executing strategy.

“They become a lot more efficient and serve more of their community and thrive as businesses. These businesses need to thrive for us to run our country,” she said.

Tokmak believes AI can help bridge gaps that essential service providers traditionally have had to navigate on their own.

“This is one of the industries that needs it the most. Why? It’s serving millions of people at a time that usually for the end customer, it’s mission critical. They really need it. For health, for their homes, for their business, for their kids, for their elderly,” she said. “It’s very hard to make it work without systems that can operate 24/7 with high accuracy.”

Between the combination of a labor shortage and investments in infrastructure, largely AI-driven, there is a demand for skilled trade laborers right now. Approximately 20 million U.S. jobs are in the skilled trades, and there are an estimated 2.1 million job openings every year, per a new report. Retirements account for around 40% of job openings, according to the data.

Ghazal is eager to see how AI evolves with the trades.

“AI cannot come in and fix a broken business. AI can help a successful business accelerate their success and grow their success,” he said. “In the future, we’ll be able to predict failure and be proactive as opposed to reactive to a problem.”

Gharamany says this is a new tool in his bag that accompanies his expertise.

“It makes life much easier for senior techs so I can focus more on what I do best,” he said.