HENT wins back time with Cobrief

Text generation that took weeks now takes hours

With Cobrief, HENT saves significant time on text generation and verification that all details align with the tender requirements.

Andreas Fornes, Project Engineer in project development, has been involved in testing Cobrief at HENT.

– Writing every word of the project understanding ... it's much faster now. You can build up the text as a kind of skeleton, point by point, and have Cobrief write it out.

The benefit lies not only in faster writing. It lies in better structure, smarter standardisation, and greater control over the process.

– We get more time freed up to dive into the project understanding. Instead of spending energy on the writing itself, we can focus on what the client is actually looking for, and then sharpen our solution accordingly. We build up a structure for the text and then have Cobrief verify whether we have addressed everything requested in the tender documentation.

Behind some of Norway's most important buildings

HENT AS is one of Norway's largest design-build contractors, with around 1,300 employees. The company is behind major and complex projects such as Block A and Block D of the Government Quarter, the new NRK headquarters at Normannsløkka, and The Whale, a whale museum in Vesterålen, to name a few.

Large tenders often require substantial resources. Major tender responses can take several months to prepare, in collaboration with a broad team of tender participants, specialists, architects, energy and environmental consultants, BIM technicians, and discipline leads in HVAC, electrical, fire safety, and building physics.

When you submit over 130 tenders a year, every hour counts.

The whale museum "The Whale" in Vesterålen, due for completion in 2027. Photo/graphics: HENT

Verification no longer steals time

Checking whether every single requirement has been addressed is one of the most time-consuming parts of a tender. Previously, this involved a lot of manual work. Now it's faster.

– You can ask Cobrief directly about things in the documentation through the chat on the page, which is absolutely brilliant.

The team no longer has to search through hundreds of pages to find answers. They can ask questions and get answers immediately.

He also sees the potential in building up a knowledge base:

– When you train the AI on previous projects, it will give us a head start next time we submit to the same client. The AI can draw on experience from the previous tender and update the knowledge base, so we hit the mark even better. I believe the benefits will be substantial once we become skilled at leveraging this.

The new NRK headquarters at Normannsløkka, due for completion in 2029. Photo/graphics: HENT

Part of a broader AI initiative

Around 150-200 employees work with tenders or procurement at any given time at HENT.

Torbjørn Bratteberg, Director of Technology and Sustainability at HENT, sees Cobrief as a natural part of the company's development.

– We are testing various AI capabilities across the entire organisation. Our own system developers use AI when they code. We use AI for automatic quantity take-off. Now we're going to start using it in an area that is very time-consuming, namely defect registration. With so many tenders submitted every year, the potential for time savings is significant when AI is implemented broadly.

Keeping up with the pace

– In the time I've been using Cobrief, there have been many improvements. The development within AI is moving at rocket speed, and I can see that Cobrief is keeping up with the pace – that's impressive.

– Cobrief frees up time. It means we can put more effort into the content and less into the writing itself. The quality improves when we actually have time to think, says Fornes.