On 16 and 17 September, we attended RIB Unite 2026 in Düsseldorf with Teamservices. Over two days, RIB brought customers, partners and product teams together to exchange experiences and look ahead to the continued development of the RIB platform.
The first day explored connected construction processes, practical case studies and closer integration between the different RIB solutions. Day two focused on RIB 4.0, with sessions on the roadmap, AI in estimating, document management, BIM and planning.
For us, the value went beyond the presentations. Conversations with other users and with RIB’s own product teams were just as interesting.
More than a traditional customer event
At the heart of the event was the RIB Innovation Expo. The different RIB 4.0 teams each had their own stand, covering areas such as estimating, procurement and project controlling. The product managers were there in person to answer questions, demonstrate new developments and receive feedback directly from users.
That made the format very approachable. You could attend a presentation and then simply walk over to the relevant product manager to discuss a specific topic in more detail.
One of our customers attended RIB Unite for the first time this year and described the experience afterwards:
“What surprised me most was how practical RIB Unite is. At the Innovation Expo, you could simply go to a stand for logistics, procurement or project controlling and speak directly with the product manager, ask questions, suggest an improvement or request a demonstration. That is quite different from a day filled with theoretical presentations.”
— Teamservices customer, RIB Unite 2026 participant
RIB 4.0: connecting processes more closely
A recurring theme was the further integration of processes.
Estimating, procurement, planning, construction and project controlling are still often treated as separate areas within construction companies. Yet the estimating phase already produces a great deal of information that will be needed again later.
Reusing that information throughout the project does more than reduce duplicate work. It also creates a closer connection between the original budget, what is subsequently purchased and built, and what ultimately feeds into project controlling.
This thinking has long been part of RIB 4.0, but it came through strongly again at Unite. RIB is investing in integrated processes that allow information from earlier project phases to be used further down the line.
For us, this remains an important starting point for an ERP implementation. Before looking at individual software functions, we first need to understand how information should flow through a construction company.
RIB Omni and RIB Unify
A great deal of attention went to AI and RIB Omni, RIB’s AI assistant.
RIB has chosen to embed Omni in its applications, rather than position it as a separate chatbot alongside the software. The assistant works in the context of projects, documents and processes. This allows users to retrieve information without first having to search through multiple screens or documents themselves.
Unite also made it clear that Omni is not a standalone experiment. The ambition is to expand its capabilities step by step across the RIB platform and its different workflows.
RIB Unify, the collaboration environment that was also presented in detail, has an important role to play. Unify brings together documents, tasks, RFIs, approvals and information exchange between site and office. It is connected to RIB 4.0, allowing information and processes to align across both environments.
Omni is built directly into Unify and can, for example, help users find information in project documents or answer questions about tasks and project activities.
The way the different parts of the RIB platform complement each other is becoming increasingly clear: RIB 4.0 for integrated business and project processes, Unify for collaboration and information exchange, and Omni as an AI assistant within those environments.
AI in estimating: making better use of historical knowledge
For us, the Estimation & AI session covered one of the most interesting applications.
Construction companies often have years of estimates on record. These contain much more knowledge than just a final price: the resources used, productivity rates, costs, and how particular works were estimated and carried out on previous projects.
This data is already used as a reference today, but finding a comparable project or a suitable estimate item often remains a manual task.
RIB demonstrated how AI can help. A new bill of quantities can be compared with historical estimates, allowing an initial estimate to be built from similar items.
The application we found particularly interesting comes even before the full detailed estimate.
When a new tender opportunity arrives, a construction company first needs to decide whether it is worth investing time and estimating capacity in it. Automatically producing an initial rough cost estimate for a bill of quantities, based on historical company data, can give the commercial team a much faster first assessment of the opportunity.
This is not a price to be submitted in a tender a few minutes later. It is an initial, informed indication that helps answer the question: do we want to develop this tender further or not?
This could be particularly useful for companies that receive many tender opportunities and need to decide where their estimating teams should spend their time.
Company data stays company data
Data security is particularly important for this application.
Historical unit prices, productivity rates and internal costs are among a construction company’s most commercially sensitive information. AI can extract considerable value from them, but only if the company retains control over that information.
This was also addressed during the presentation. Historical company data remains within the company’s own environment. RIB Omni also respects existing user permissions, so users can only access information they are authorised to see. According to RIB, customer and project data is not used to train the underlying AI models.
For estimating applications, this is no minor detail. The value lies precisely in the company-specific knowledge built up over the years.
What did we take away from Düsseldorf?
Above all, RIB Unite gave us a clear picture of the direction in which the platform is evolving.
RIB 4.0 continues to connect processes and project data more closely. Unify is expanding project collaboration, while Omni brings AI closer to users’ daily workflows.
The estimating application stood out most for us. Not because AI takes over the estimator’s work, but because it can make knowledge that already exists within the company reusable much more quickly.
At the same time, this reinforces something we strongly believe at Teamservices: successful digitalisation starts with well-designed processes and high-quality data. Companies that consistently bring structure to estimating, procurement, construction and project controlling today gain more than better project oversight. That same foundation also determines what will be possible with AI tomorrow.
For us, that may have been the most important conclusion after two days at RIB Unite.
