As dealers, distributors, and manufacturers adopt specialized quoting, inventory, and sales-enablement tools, the industry is rewarding people who pair product knowledge with data, technology, and customer problem-solving.
Table of Contents
- Executive Summary
- Why the Building Materials Industry Is Going Digital Now
- Will AI Take Building Materials Jobs?
- What Specialized LBM Software Looks Like
- Why Companies Can’t Find People to Run the Tools
- How AI Is Changing Specific LBM Jobs
- Which Skills LBM Employers Want
- How to Build a Career in Digital LBM
- What Employers Should Look For
- Frequently Asked Questions
- What Comes Next for LBM Careers
Executive Summary
Lumber and building materials (LBM) is moving from generic software to tools built for how dealers, distributors, and manufacturers actually sell: quoting, inventory, product selection, and field sales. The National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors (NAW) says nearly 90% of distribution leaders are pursuing AI. A Phocas survey found that 49% of wholesale distributors already use it to support selling.
Yet 76.3% of NAW respondents who addressed workforce impact reported no workforce changes from AI. Money isn’t what’s holding companies back. NAW found that poor data and a shortage of skills do more damage than budget.
That sets up a paradox. The smarter the software gets, the more a person who truly knows the product is worth. What follows covers which jobs are changing, which skills employers want, how job seekers can build them, and what employers should hire for.
Why the Building Materials Industry Is Going Digital Now
Anyone who has worked a lumberyard counter knows how this story goes. A contractor asks whether the decking he quoted is still available in the same color. It isn’t, so now he wants to know what else matches, whether the fasteners change, and whether the warranty still holds. You say, “Let me check.”
Then you check. A spreadsheet. The binder under the register. A call to the manufacturer’s rep. Ten minutes later you come back with an answer that you knew was the correct one the whole time.
Because you knew the product. You just didn’t have the confirmation you needed all in one place.
But here’s what makes this moment strange. Nobody in it lacked any required knowledge. The answer existed, the rep was good, and yet, the contractor still felt like he’d been made to wait. A contractor on a deadline doesn’t like to wait ten unnecessary minutes. Instead, he calls the yard down the road.
A quick note on terms, because it matters. LBM is the business of designing, making, distributing, selling, and marketing the products buildings are made from. Manufacturers, distributors, dealers, yards. It is not construction. Construction is the crew that frames the house. LBM is who the crew buys from.
This industry runs on complexity. Huge catalogs. Prices that move overnight. Contractors who need an answer today. Credit decisions, delivery schedules, and inventory that either sits on the shelf or sells out in a week. In a business like that, the fastest most accurate answer is the one that wins the sale.
And the distributors have noticed. NAW says nearly 90% of distribution leaders are pursuing AI initiatives, with pricing the most common top priority and predictive sales enablement next. The specific uses are plain: forecasting demand, adjusting prices, entering orders automatically, and recommending products based on CRM data.
A Phocas survey of more than 100 wholesale distributors found that 49% already use AI to support selling, 29% plan to start within six months, and 22% have no plans. Both surveys cover wholesale distribution broadly, the sector most LBM distributors belong to.
Nobody on that list is building a robot for the loading dock. They’re trying to shorten the ten minutes at the counter.
Will AI Take Building Materials Jobs?
This is the question everyone in the industry is asking.
They’re asking whether the thing they’re proud of still counts. In this business, a lot of pride lives in your hard earned memory. You know the SKUs, the span tables, which manufacturer ships late in March, which contractor says Thursday and means Monday. That took years to learn and it’s earned you respect and probably a few favors.
So when software shows up that can pull any of it in seconds, it doesn’t feel like a tool. It feels more like your replacement.
But look again at what you were actually paid for, though. Not the memory. You were paid for what the memory let you do: give a customer the right answer, catch a mistake before it shipped, notice when a spec didn’t fit the job. Your memory was just the delivery truck. Its your judgment was carrying the load.
The numbers so far agree. In NAW’s index, only 23.7% of distributors reported workforce changes from AI, which means 76.3% reported none. Among those assessing business impact, 47.4% said AI had already improved back-office efficiency. Early on, companies are using AI to do more with the people they have.
McKinsey estimates that about one-fifth of current sales-team functions could be automated. Flip that number around and what you realize is that four fifths of sales tasks can’t be automated. McKinsey also found that the companies doing well with sales technology build hybrid teams, with people and tools splitting the work.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) says AI can summarize calls, suggest next steps, score leads, and draft sales materials. It also suggests that wholesale sales is still a relationship business, and it expects online sales to complement face-to-face selling rather than replace it.
Then comes the number that settles most arguments. BLS projects about 123,400 openings a year for wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives from 2025 to 2035, even though total employment in the occupation is expected to change little or not at all. When employment stays flat and openings keep coming, the same seats are emptying and filling over and over.
The seats, these jobs, aren’t going anywhere. Who sits in them is still open.
What Specialized LBM Software Looks Like
For a long time, software in this industry worked like a roommate who moved in first. You learned its habits. You memorized which button to press when. Somebody’s monitor always had a sticky note explaining the workaround for the software's idiosyncratic habits.
That’s starting to turn around. Newer tools are built around what a sales rep, estimator, buyer, or branch manager actually does all day.
Maximo Wood’s Sales Toolkit is a good example, and it comes from the manufacturing side. It’s a mobile app for dealer sales teams that puts product specifications, installation guides, certifications, material calculators, project galleries, selling techniques, and direct manufacturer support in one place. It includes AI features, such as a preview of how a product might look in a space. And it’s built to be used mid-conversation, when a rep needs to answer a question, show an example, or calculate material right then.
Run that against the decking story and what you see is the same contractor, the same question, and a much shorter wait.
What’s easy to overlook here is everything behind the app. Somebody has to write the product content. Somebody has to train dealers, keep the specs accurate, onboard new reps, and figure out why half the field never opens it. An app nobody opens is no better than a PDF with a logo.
Every tool creates a pile of work around the tool: training, content, data cleanup, follow-up. Those piles are somebody’s job.
Why Companies Can’t Find People to Run the Tools
You’d expect it's the investment money that’s going to be the hurdle in this transition for LBM businesses. It isn’t. NAW found that data quality and integration, along with talent and skills, are the leading barriers to AI adoption. The budget didn’t top the list. Companies can pay for the software. They can’t find enough people to make it work.
A second problem lingers behind the first. Phocas found that 39% of the distributors it surveyed don’t track forecast accuracy, about a third don’t measure win rates, and 27% don’t measure customer retention. They’re shopping for AI to improve sales and haven’t measured how well they sell.
Why would a smart company do that? Buying a tool feels like progress. Measuring feels like admitting you don’t know where you stand. One makes a good announcement. The other makes for an uncomfortable meeting.
That gap is an opening. A person who can say, “Here’s our win rate, here’s why it dropped, and here’s what the data says to do,” is rare in this industry right now. You don’t need to build the engine. You need to notice the gauge is broken and care enough to fix it.
How AI Is Changing Specific LBM Jobs
The work that goes away is the searching. The work that stays is the deciding. How that plays out depends on where you are in this equation.
Outside sales reps are getting mobile catalogs, CRM data, and account insights, so they show up already knowing what the customer bought, what’s due for reorder, and what’s worth raising. The tools do the homework. That leaves the part software is bad at: reading the customer and solving the problem on the job site. Inside sales and counter staff get price, stock, and order status in one place, which makes the first answer faster and cleaner. What’s left is the human work, like calming down a customer whose delivery missed its window.
Estimators and quoting specialists are working with digital calculators, pricing rules, and past project data. The repetitive pricing steps shrink, and the judgment calls on special cases and project-specific products grow. Purchasing and inventory roles are moving the same way, with forecasting and exception reports replacing hours of spreadsheet reconciling. What grows is supplier negotiation, exception handling, and protecting margin. BLS projects 6% employment growth for purchasing managers, buyers, and purchasing agents from 2025 to 2035, with about 53,600 openings a year.
Sales managers and branch leaders get dashboards instead of hand-built reports, so more of their time goes to coaching and spotting opportunities in the numbers. BLS names analytical and communication skills as central to sales-management work. Dealer development and channel managers carry a newer job: getting dealers to actually use manufacturer tools, then tying that use to sales.
Then there’s the work nobody sees. Someone keeps product data, specs, images, and pricing accurate across systems, and that’s the job of e-commerce, digital merchandising, and content specialists. Someone connects sales, inventory, procurement, and customer data into decisions, and that’s the job of business analysts and sales-operations specialists. If the data is wrong, the tool is just wrong faster.
Which Skills LBM Employers Want
Nobody here is asking you to code. They’re asking for a person who understands the product and isn’t scared of the screen.
Start with what you already have. Product and customer knowledge is the foundation, and the software made it worth more, not less. A tool can pull up a spec. It can’t tell a contractor he’s about to make a mistake that will cost him a callback.
Next comes comfort with the systems that hold the business. CRM covers customer records, quotes, and follow-up. ERP covers inventory, purchase orders, lead times, and substitutions. The people who use these well become the people everyone else asks for help. Pair that with the ability to read margin, sell-through, forecast accuracy, retention, and win rates. You don’t need advanced math. You need to look at a number and ask why it moved.
Then there’s AI, and the skill isn’t typing prompts. Anyone can do that. The skill is knowing when the answer is wrong. The wrong price is embarrassing. A wrong spec on a structural product is a liability. Use AI to research, summarize, and draft, then check every price, specification, availability claim, and compliance detail before it reaches a customer. Employers will pay you handsomely for that last step and the reassurance it provides.
Add comfort with tablets and product apps, because a customer standing in a driveway won’t wait for you to get back to your desk. Add the habit of noticing a handoff that wastes two days and proposing a fix instead of complaining about it. Add the ability to teach a coworker a new tool without making them feel stupid. Almost nobody gets hired for that last one on purpose yet, and almost every company needs it.
Under all of it sits communication and negotiation. As tools absorb routine work, more of the day goes to customer relationships and complicated decisions. Those skills are about to get a lot more of your time.
How to Build a Career in Digital LBM
Smart people make the same mistake here. They wait for a job posting with “AI” in the title. Waiting feels safe, as if the market has to give you permission to take control of your next career step first.
But most of these jobs won’t show that in the role’s title. They’ll still be called inside sales, purchasing, dealer support, sales operations. The AI part will sit buried somewhere in the job description, and the person who gets hired will be the one who already looks like they’ve done some of it.
So build evidence.
Start with your resume. “Used CRM” tells a hiring manager nothing. Something like “cut quote turnaround from two days to four hours with a standard template and a pricing sheet” tells them everything. Pair your industry experience, whether that’s the yard, retail, distribution, or manufacturing, with the systems you used and what changed because of you.
Read job postings for the tools they name, then get familiar with comparable ones. You don’t need mastery. You need to not look surprised.
Then make something small and real. An inventory exception report for a product line you know. A comparison sheet that ends an argument contractors keep having. A one-page training guide for a new product. A sales-call plan built from a customer’s order history. None of it needs permission, and each piece shows you can improve how work gets done.
If you already work in the industry, you can do all this without leaving. Offer to clean up a customer list, standardize product data, build a quote template, or help a coworker with the mobile app. Small, visible, and yours.
Look one step sideways, too. Inside sales, sales support, purchasing, inventory analysis, dealer services, product support, and operations all work as bridge roles into more digital positions.
If you have no AI experience, you have more than you think. CRM and ERP use, Excel, product knowledge, quoting, inventory control, customer service, training, process improvement. That’s what AI-enabled work is built on. The tools are new. What sits under them isn’t.
One more piece of good news. NAW’s reporting found that organizations further along in deployment often hire for curiosity and learning agility rather than credentials alone. If you’ve been telling yourself you’re underqualified, that should sting a little. The industry is asking you to show up willing to learn. That’s a low bar attached to a good opportunity.
What Employers Should Look For
If you’re hiring, the survey data is uncomfortable. You probably can’t buy your way out of this. Money isn’t the constraint. People are.
So stop handing AI to the IT department and calling it a strategy. The tool works only when frontline employees trust it, understand the data behind it, and see how it helps them serve customers. That’s a people problem that happens to involve software.
Hire for curiosity before credentials. Hire people who can explain a process clearly, spot bad data, and walk a coworker through a new screen. Hire people who’ve worked a counter, because they know what a good answer feels like when it’s needed in ninety seconds. And hire people who can look at a dashboard and tell you what to do on Monday.
Then set some rules. Only 32.2% of NAW respondents reported a formal AI governance framework. NAW’s guidance is to use AI to remove repetitive work, improve decisions, and free employees for technical guidance and customer relationships. That takes AI literacy, training, knowledge capture, and clear points where a human has to review the output.
The companies that do this well will become the places people want to work. When talent is the constraint, that’s the competition.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does LBM mean, and how is it different from construction?
LBM stands for lumber and building materials. It is the industry that designs, manufactures, distributes, sells, and markets the products used in building, such as lumber, siding, decking, windows, doors, millwork, and specialty materials. Construction is the work of putting those materials together. Builders and contractors are LBM’s customers.
Will AI reduce LBM jobs?
Not so far. NAW found that 76.3% of respondents addressing workforce impact reported no workforce changes from AI. The first effect has been capacity: companies handle more work, faster, and move people toward customer-facing tasks.
Which LBM roles are changing first?
Sales, inside sales, quoting, purchasing, inventory, dealer support, and sales operations. These jobs depend on product data, pricing, customer records, and inventory visibility, which is exactly what digital tools improve first.
Do I need coding skills to work in building materials with AI?
No. Most LBM roles don’t require programming. They require comfort with digital systems, the ability to read data, willingness to learn new tools, and the judgment to apply technology to real customer problems.
What should I emphasize if I have no AI experience?
Lead with CRM or ERP use, Excel or reporting, product knowledge, quoting, inventory control, customer service, training, and process improvement. Then add one small, measurable project that shows you can improve a workflow.
Is AI adoption already widespread in distribution?
Yes, but unevenly. NAW’s index describes adoption as real but mostly pre-scale, with inventory forecasting and customer service among the more advanced uses. A Phocas survey found 49% of wholesale distributors already use AI to support selling.
What is the best long-term career strategy in LBM right now?
Become the person who understands both the business and the tools that support it. Pricing, forecasting, sales enablement, and customer service are all moving toward AI support, and people who combine product knowledge with digital skills will be hard to replace.
What Comes Next for LBM Careers
Go back to the counter one more time.
Soon the answer will be on a tablet before the contractor finishes his sentence. The backordered color, the closest match, the fasteners, the warranty language. All of it, in seconds.
He’ll still ask something the tablet didn’t see coming. Whether the substitute will look right next to the stone on that house. Whether his crew can really finish by Friday. Whether you’d put your name on it.
Which makes this a good time to be a person who knows the product, and a good time to go looking for one.
The software was never going to replace those people. It was going to make it obvious who they are.