Forget Back to Office, “Face2Face trip” Unites Remote Workers
An interview with Johnny Maghzal, Head of Growth at Togal.AI
Q: Can you tell us about Togal.AI and what you do? Who are your typical customers?
Togal.AI is on a mission to make construction faster and more affordable through the use of artificial intelligence. While robots aren’t building high rises yet, AI is revolutionizing the industry by eliminating time-consuming and mundane processes.
One such process is estimating—and the first step is called a quantity survey or “takeoff,” which basically means determining project areas, quantities, and materials. Togal.AI automates this task, reducing what once took weeks to mere seconds.
Efficiency and cost savings are critical in an industry traditionally slow to innovate and digitize. By embracing AI, Togal.AI is helping to speed up construction timelines and lower construction costs, which, amongst other benefits, will alleviate the national affordable housing crisis. Together, we can build a more efficient and affordable future.
Q: How many employees do you have, and where are they located? How do you manage a remote team and keep everyone connected?
Based in Miami, Florida, with about 32 employees, we are experiencing rapid growth as the construction industry becomes a leader in AI profitability. The majority of our team works remotely, spread across the U.S. from Florida to California and throughout Europe.
To keep everyone connected on a weekly basis, we engage in a variety of fun virtual activities, including group chats, Slack interactions, daily memes, and online game nights. We believe that in order to build the best construction tech company in the world, we need to build a great team with a strong culture and work ethic—despite being spread across 10 time zones!
Q: How did the pandemic affect your organization? Can you share a bit about your recent company trip?
Togal.AI launched just before the pandemic and learned how to implement remote work with the rest of the world. We hired remote workers from around the world to help build our AI platform, which meant that many of our team members had never met in person—until now.
After several years of working remotely across the globe, we brought everyone together for the first time in scenic Portugal. While there are times we wish we could all be in the same office, we believe there are some great benefits to remote teams. After our first face-to-face meeting, we realized that it must continue at least annually and maybe more often for various working groups. Being in person helped speed up various decisions and foster collaboration and team building.
Q: What advice do you have for people working remotely or wanting to work remotely? Some say remote work can hurt one’s career—do you agree? How can someone overcome the downsides of remote work?
Without remote work, Togal would not exist in its present form. Quite frankly, we have access to the top engineers from around the world at affordable rates. While Miami is growing in the tech space, there is not a deep bench of machine learning engineers, so regardless of the pandemic, we would have had several remote engineers. Additionally, remote work has enabled us to recruit and retain very specific skill sets that otherwise wouldn’t be possible.
Remote work forces management to set clear goals and truly understand the vision for the product. With daily, weekly, and monthly goals and tracking, we believe there is less wasted time and more truly focused work periods. So I would recommend remote teams focus on this goal setting and be deliberate with any scheduled meetings. Set aside some time for “team building” and push for annual in-person meetings.
Every industry is different, and there is no doubt that software companies and sales lend themselves better to remote work. I would argue that there are tasks in virtually every company that can be achieved remotely and more efficiently. While some entry-level positions may be hindered by remote work, the time saved on commuting and wasted in-person meetings enables opportunities for more virtual education and online training.
Q: How do you see the future of remote work evolving, especially in hands-on fields like construction?
There has been a lot of talk about AI hype without real results, but that's not the case for the construction industry.
AI is making a real impact in construction—tackling inefficiencies amid labor shortages. For example, Coastal Construction, the largest general contractor in Florida, used Togal to save about $1 million and 10,000 hours of work in a year.
Ironically, a field traditionally slow to digitize is now emerging as a leader in AI-driven profitability. This shift opens up new opportunities for remote tech jobs, supporting and developing AI to further automate construction planning processes. The future of construction is not just about building structures but also about building a smarter, more efficient industry.
