Newforma Buys Toronto’s Lumi AI: The Construction Industry’s Plain-Language Analytics Bet

Construction runs on data that nobody has time to read. RFIs, submittals, change orders, site logs, thousands of emails. Now a Toronto startup that turns plain-language questions into trustworthy answers has found a new home, and it is inside one of the biggest project information platforms in the building industry.

On October 21, 2026, Newforma, the project and information management company that serves architecture, engineering, construction and owner firms, announced it has acquired Lumi AI, a Toronto-based startup whose analytics engine converts everyday questions into explainable answers drawn from messy enterprise data. Financial terms were not disclosed.

What Newforma is actually buying

Lumi AI was founded in 2023 by Ibrahim Ashqar and Tudor Boiangiu. The startup began as an intelligent assistant that helped business users pull insights from data without writing code, and it evolved into an agentic analytics platform that proactively surfaces patterns hiding in company records. Its customers reportedly include supermarket chains, consumer packaged goods companies and consultancy firms.

The engine Lumi built is deliberately designed around a problem every business has: the people who need answers are rarely the people who know how to query a database. Instead of dashboards that require configuration, users ask questions in plain language and the engine handles the rest. What sets it apart is how it handles uncertainty. When a prompt is vague, it asks clarifying questions rather than guessing. It shows its reasoning, so the logic behind every answer is visible. And it flags data quality problems when it finds them, which matters a great deal when the underlying records come from field logs and old spreadsheets.

That combination is the heart of the deal. Newforma says AI used for project decisions should meet three tests: answers must be explainable, so the reasoning is visible; verifiable, so they can be checked against source data; and accurate enough to act on, because on a live project a decision carries liability.

Why construction data is a special case

Firms in the building industry hold years of project history in their systems, from issues and RFIs to submittals and model coordination records. Most do not have dedicated business intelligence teams. That data only answers questions when somebody stops working and builds a report, which means much of it sits unused.

Newforma has been accumulating that data for more than two decades. The company was founded in 2003 and reports more than 4.5 million users, project information tied to over 20 million construction projects, more than 24 million file transfers, six million submittals and over one billion emails handled by its platforms. Pairing that depth of project data with an engine built to ask clarifying questions and show its work is, at least on paper, a natural fit.

"A lot of companies are telling this industry their AI is better," Newforma CEO Peter Cannone said in the announcement. "We would rather say out loud what better means and be measured against it. Explainable, verifiable, accurate enough to act on when liability is on the line."

Vojo gets a new brain

The acquisition builds on Vojo, the AI assistant Newforma introduced at its annual conference in May. Lumi's engine will power Vojo going forward and will be integrated into Newforma's platforms, starting with smart project dashboards in Newforma Konekt, the company's cloud-based project management and collaboration platform.

Newforma says Konekt will be able to surface which consultant is slowing RFI turnaround, which project's issue pattern resembles one that went wrong before, and where a submittal cycle is drifting from a firm's own baseline, all grounded in the firm's own data with the reasoning shown. Planned capabilities include natural language search and cross-project queries across project data.

One notable detail from Construction Dive's coverage: Cannone told the publication by email that Lumi will not be accessible to non-Newforma customers. The engine becomes an exclusive part of the Newforma platform rather than a standalone product.

The Toronto factor

Under the terms of the deal, Lumi co-founder and CTO Tudor Boiangiu is joining Newforma as vice president of AI engineering, and the Lumi engineering team will continue working from Toronto. That is a meaningful detail in a year when Canada has been fighting to keep AI talent and intellectual property on home soil.

The sale itself followed a decision reportedly made in May 2026, when Lumi opted to pursue an acquisition after a period of rapid revenue growth. Toronto keeps another AI engineering team employed and building, this time inside a company with two decades of domain data to work with.

AgFunderNews, which covered the deal, disclosed that its parent company AgFunder is an investor in Lumi AI.

What the deal says about the industry

This acquisition fits a pattern playing out across enterprise software. Legacy platforms that spent years accumulating customer data are now buying the specialized AI engineering talent that can make that data answer questions. Generic chatbots give confident-sounding responses; in industries where a wrong number can delay a project by months or trigger legal liability, confidence is not enough.

Newforma's framing is blunt about that. The company argues that construction professionals do not need another AI that sounds confident, they need answers they can verify. Whether Lumi's engine lives up to the three-test standard in production will be decided by the architects and contractors using it on real projects over the next year.

The broader trend is unmistakable though. AI in construction is moving past the demo stage, where impressive screenshots were enough, and into a phase where buyers ask harder questions about what the model actually checked. Newforma just paid to own one of the better answers to that question.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Newforma Lumi AI acquisition?

Newforma, a project and information management company for the architecture, engineering and construction industry, acquired Toronto-based AI startup Lumi AI, announced on October 21, 2026. Lumi's analytics engine turns plain-language questions into explainable answers drawn from enterprise data, and it will be integrated into Newforma's Vojo AI assistant and Konekt platform.

Who founded Lumi AI and what happens to the team?

Lumi AI was founded in 2023 by Ibrahim Ashqar and Tudor Boiangiu. Co-founder and CTO Tudor Boiangiu is joining Newforma as vice president of AI engineering, and the Lumi engineering team will continue working from Toronto.

Will Lumi AI be available to non-Newforma customers?

No. Newforma CEO Peter Cannone told Construction Dive that Lumi will not be accessible to non-Newforma customers, meaning the engine becomes an exclusive part of the Newforma platform rather than a standalone product.