The AI Model Race Is Over for LBM. The Workflow Race Just Started.
By John Marshall, Co-Founder, AI Growth Partners
For two years, most LBM operators watched the AI conversation from the sidelines and lost very little by waiting. May 2026 may be the month that stopped being a safe bet.
Four announcements landed in 30 days, from four different companies, all pointing the same direction:
- May 4 — Microsoft quietly made Claude the default model behind Microsoft 365 Copilot in Excel and PowerPoint for U.S. commercial tenants. If you ran a margin analysis in Excel that week, you were getting Claude’s output — probably without knowing it.
- May 11 — OpenAI launched a $4 billion company built entirely around rewiring enterprise workflows.
- May 13 — Anthropic shipped Claude for Small Business with direct connectors to QuickBooks, Microsoft 365, and more.
- May 14 — PwC committed 30,000 consultants to Claude certification.
One shared bet: the competition has moved from which model is smartest to which workflow it sharpens — and whether that shows up as ROI.
Here’s the part that should get every dealer’s attention. The biggest enterprise software company in the world is embedding multiple AI models and letting the platform pick the right one for the task. That’s not vendor loyalty. That’s discipline. And it’s a strategy any LBM dealer can copy right now — long before the ERPs ship the embedded AI they keep marketing.
So the real question for 2026 isn’t “Which AI platform should we buy?”
It’s “Which AI sharpens which call?” — pricing, margin, customer judgment, sales planning, hiring.
I wrote the full breakdown for Webb Analytics — including the cautionary tale of the firm that ran a single month’s AI bill to a reported $500 million, where the ERP players actually stand today, and exactly what dealers should be doing now instead of waiting.
👉 Read the full article on Webb Analytics
John Marshall is Co-Founder of AI Growth Partners, helping LBM dealers and SMBs turn AI into faster, sharper business decisions. 256-426-3460 · www.growthpartners.net · www.LBMSolutions.com
