26ers Launches AI Studio to Close Construction’s Costly Gap

26ers, an agentic studio specializing in AI systems design and tooling for the architecture, engineering and construction industry, today announced its official launch. 26ers is founded by Theresa Piasta, a veteran leader with deep experience across software and financial services, and a former Captain in the U.S. Army, where she was awarded the Bronze Star for her service in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The new company is fueled by a mission to provide a hugely important section of the US economy in need of practical AI solutions but facing organizational gaps, with trusted expertise to guide AI-native business transformation.     

“From the military, through to J.P. Morgan and Salesforce, my career has lived at the intersection of intelligence, decisions and execution. I always found myself thinking of the systems that I wished my teams could have. 26ers is a culmination of this, and we’re excited to help businesses and the people inside them work better with practical, governed agentic AI,” said Theresa Piasta, founder and CEO of 26ers.

26ers is designed to be a complete partner for architecture, engineering and construction companies throughout their AI transformation process. It helps these companies design how they want their people, technology, existing knowledge base, decision-making processes and systems to come together in the real world. Through its executive decision framework, it designs operating models and governance structures to empower those. It then designs and builds agentic AI systems and tooling for its clients, that are human-centered by design and created with governance, accountability and escalation processes in mind. 

The architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry is a mission critical sector of the American economy, required to work with extreme precision and reliability and keep pace with growing demands to update and evolve national infrastructure. The industry also faces a significant labor shortage, and is seeing its overall productivity growth lag behind other areas of the US economy, placing added importance on AI investments. At a time when AI governance and security are topics of intense scrutiny and debate, 26ers has developed a unique governance framework for AI systems that puts in place guardrails, chain of command, decision rights and authority, escalation paths, human oversight and accountability and rules for how humans and AI work together. The AEC industry has developed meticulous processes, standards and institutional expertise developed over many decades, providing any AI-transformation with a clear path to follow. The industry has lacked internal capacity and expertise to accelerate its AI-transformation, and 26ers is positioned to be a trusted industry partner to drive large-scale transformation.

“Architecture, engineering, and construction firms are responsible for work that affects people and communities every day. These firms have spent generations honing their craft and developing deep expertise. It is incredibly rewarding to bring AI expertise to strengthen that deep foundation and help them develop an industry blueprint for a future that helps the people work better and businesses thrive,” said Piasta.  

Piasta founded 26ers after holding technology leadership roles at Outreach, Cresta AI, Salesforce, as well as earlier roles at J.P. Morgan and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Throughout her career, Piasta has worked with executive teams to connect complex technologies to measurable operational and financial outcomes. She founded 26ers to bring that same discipline to organizations navigating the rapid evolution of AI.