Sylvan, a leading multi-trade specialty contractor, was keen to understand real AI use cases in their back office. Gralio diagnosed four workflows in two weeks, identified 70–85% automation potential across all four, and delivered a working solution for the first one.
Client
Sylvan Inc. is a full-service mechanical, electrical, plumbing (“MEP”) contractor serving a blue-chip customer base across automotive, healthcare, data centers, life sciences, and other high-growth sectors. Sylvan employs roughly 300 corporate staff and over 3,000 field workers in the US, Canada, and Mexico.
Sylvan is backed by E-3 Tech and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), who invested in March 2025 to support technology enablement, acquisitions, and operational scale.
Objective
E3 Tech’s investment thesis centers on AI-enabled operational leverage and strategic acquisitions. To support Sylvan’s planned growth, leadership needed to quickly identify administrative processes where AI and automation could deliver measurable ROI.
The urgency was practical: Sylvan was entering a period of aggressive organic growth and acquisitions, and the finance team needed to handle significantly higher transaction volume without proportionally increasing headcount.
What We Did
We deployed Gralio’s lightweight browser-based recording tool across Sylvan’s finance team — no software to install, no IT involvement required.
Process owners recorded their actual screen-based work while narrating what they were doing, exactly as they’d explain it to a new colleague.
Gralio’s AI analyzed the recordings and automatically generated:
- Step-by-step process documentation
- Process maps with screenshots
- Automation potential assessments
- Detailed automation blueprints including architecture, tooling, cost estimates, and ROI projections
Each output was reviewed by our team with consulting backgrounds at Bain & Company.
Four finance and legal workflows were diagnosed in two weeks.
What We Found
The automation potential assessment was pragmatic and rooted in real understanding of the process:
- Financial Reporting Process — 85% automation potential
- Accounts Payable — 80% automation potential
- Custom Finance Workflow — 70% automation potential
- Legal Process — 70% automation potential
Each report included a full automation blueprint — recommended architecture, tooling, build cost, and payback period. All four processes showed payback under one year.
Key AI automation opportunities identified:
- Intelligent document extraction — AI reads invoices, purchase orders, and contracts from PDFs and emails — including handwritten notes — and automatically populates ERP fields.
- Automated classification and routing — Incoming documents are triaged by type, matched to the correct job, PO, or subcontract, and routed to the appropriate workflow.
- LLM-powered contract review — AI cross-references subcontracts against prime contracts, flags risks, and checks compliance in minutes.
- Exception handling — AI identifies mismatches and drafts resolution emails, allowing humans to approve rather than initiate.
- Automated financial reporting — Direct API integrations replace manual report downloads, Excel manipulation, and reconciliation.
- Knowledge capture — Tribal knowledge and undocumented decision rules are extracted from recordings and codified into automation logic.
Gralio Automation
Following the diagnostic, Sylvan selected the financial reporting process as the first build.
We built a custom automation that replaced 20–25 hours of monthly manual work with a system that completes in minutes.
The solution:
- Connects directly to the ERP via API
- Extracts financial data automatically
- Processes project status reports
- Applies the reporting logic previously held as tribal knowledge
- Generates the final report in the original format
Same output — without the manual work.
Testimonial
“Everyone talks about AI implementation. Gralio specifically pointed us to opportunities with tangible ROI — specific processes, specific numbers, specific payback. Then they helped Sylvan build the first automation.”
— Anita Venkiteswaran, Chief Strategist, E3 Tech
Results
- 4 workflows analyzed in 2 weeks
- 70–85% automation potential identified
- 20–25 hours/month eliminated in financial reporting
- < 1 year payback across all identified automations
