What’s Working: What happens when AI bots take over landscaping? An Aspen company finds out

Jeff Margulies says it was right around this time last year when, as the owner of Good Earth landscaping and maintenance in Aspen, he started “tickling the bots.”

No, he wasn’t getting flirty with a Russian operative on Facebook. He was using Claude AI to help streamline his business. The “bots” work inside AI add-ons he’s built to enhance his company software, Aspire.

His brother, who used to run a custom software development business with around 30 offshore developers, has helped him figure out where he can apply AI to the business. And even though he deployed Claude just a year ago, and says there’s still lots to figure out to use it to its full potential, he’s reaping benefits.

Margulies bought into Good Earth after a career in finance. In 2018, the company that turned dirt into flowerbeds and rocks into retaining walls across the Roaring Fork Valley had just a handful of employees. It’s grown by a factor of six under Margulies’ guidance. And the 41-year-old father of two says the bots are going to help Good Earth keep growing.

Good Earth does everything from weekly maintenance and mowing to garden care, native plant management, restoration, irrigation and full landscape installations. That menu takes a lot of labor – 60 to 70 people work there.

“At a smaller scale, you can get away with a lot in terms of having your eye on everything and intervening when you recognize something’s not going right,” Margulies said. “But when you have 60 or 70 people running around, you really need to make sure everyone’s aligned, you’re aware of issues early enough to correct for them and you make sure everyone’s rowing in the same direction.”

Doing that requires creating different processes for the life cycle of a project or client relationship, or showing clearly what needs to be done and how to do it to ensure things don’t fall through the cracks, he said, “so everyone knows what to do and we can plan appropriately to be able to deliver on the promises we make to our clients.”

One of the ways Good Earth does this is by tracking progress on projects as they’re unfolding. Employees are required to use their camera phones or tablets to snap pictures. They also have to clock in and out of each project.

Project managers know how long something is supposed to take, whether it be mowing a lawn or installing a patio, and they update the clock-in information every day to gauge efficiency based on their labor estimates versus the actual work hours performed.

“Then we have the real time job cost information where we can see immediately what all of our costs are in terms of labor and materials,” Margulies said, “and we can compare that to our budget so we can intervene quickly to correct it instead of delivering a whole project and having to go back and redo things because they weren’t right.”

But instead of having a human crunch all the data, AI can analyze it and develop checklists for field crews or specific training to help workers be more efficient. It allows employees to communicate in real time with supervisors if they have questions on the job or if a project is different from what they’d discussed.

Margulies says he’s exploring around a dozen different AI initiatives including some for daily use. Good Earth uses the tech to create renderings of work they’re discussing with clients and for back-end processes and analysis that used to fall to humans who didn’t love doing it.

Good Earth has “historically under-leveraged” data that helps them understand their worker output, which has limited their ability to manage crews effectively and make good labor-management decisions, he added..

But the deeper they go with the AI Margulies is building, the more encouraged they are that they can remove a the paperwork and reporting and data crunching that “tend to be one of the weaker skill sets members of this industry have,” and give the time back to employees who would rather spend it being creative or interacting with clients.

Adopting AI without replacing employees

While enormous numbers of layoffs in the tech industry are being blamed on companies replacing workers with AI, small businesses may find AI to be the only option to avoid letting workers go.

That was a topic discussed at the recent DenAI Summit, a city of Denver-led event aimed at helping cities use AI responsibly to improve public services.

“Every year, healthcare costs in this country go up by 10%. And if your business is not growing more than 10%, how do you offset the cost of what is happening,” Bijal Shah, CEO of Guild, an education-technology company in Denver, said during a DenAI session on workforce training.

“The second thing is inflation is rising in this country, which means that an individual worker needs more dollars in their pocket to actually survive in this country. That’s another 5%. So that is a 15% hurdle that an employer is trying to overcome every year,” she said. “They don’t have a lot of options about what they can or can’t do.”

A study by Goldman Sachs this year found that 76% of small businesses are using AI and 87% said “AI augments rather than replaces employees.”

But some jobs are being replaced by AI agents, Shaw said. Like coding, which the industry considers a commodity these days. Coders with critical thinking skills have fared better. And if it were up to Shaw, whose company provides education options as an employee benefit, the country needs to train existing workers, not just the unemployed.

“By the time someone is unemployed, it is too late,” she said. “When you become unemployed, the first thing you focus on is how am I going to put money on the table for my family and how do I find a job.”

Her advice: “As the world moves forward, our ability to connect the dots, be system thinkers, having critical judgement and orally defend our arguments becomes the most critical skills that employers need inside of their organization,” she said. “If you’re a reliability maintenance technician, your ability to assess and judge a situation and what is happening and whether it is safe or whether you can fix it or whether you should shut down the production line or get a different robot in there, those things matter.”

➔ Why a journalist kicked off Denver’s DenAI summit. Kevin Roose was that New York Times reporter whose conversation with an early AI chatbot went viral >> Read story

Sun economy stories you may have missed

➔ Colorado was recently dinged for its business climate. Here’s how companies want to fix it. Frustration has been building for years, so business leaders set out to change it. “I want this to be the place that my kid chooses to raise their kids,” said one. >> Read story

➔ In go the coffee grounds, out comes the fertilizer at popular Denver eatery Snooze. Here’s the science behind the “magic.” >> Read story

➔ Amendment 87 could stop Medicaid cuts or launch new programs. It can’t do both. >> Read story

➔ Colorado’s population is still growing, state demographers say. Here’s what the numbers show. Colorado still is adding people but data shows the state is losing its “edge.” >> Read story

➔ How Nederland’s troubled Eldora deal could lead to drastic budget measures. Critics question whether the town’s moving money between its coffers is legal >> Read story

➔ Not In My Boulder Yard: Colorado county goes full NIMBY on data centers. Boulder County Commissioners on Tuesday will hear draft rules from Community Planning and Permitting that limit any new data centers to drawing 75 kilowatt of power, about the same as a marijuana growing operation. >> Read story

Take the poll: The giving season is here

Consumers may be tightening their wallets more this year, but Thanksgiving is around the corner and Colorado Gives Day has begun. How has the economy impacted your generosity? Take the latest reader poll to help us better understand how Coloradans are impacted.

Take it >> cosun.co/WWTDAY26

Other working bits

➔ City of Denver adds AI tool to speed up permit applications. The city’s new StartSmart service launched with a tool that aims to remove the frustration of applying for a building permit. The city signed a $1.05 million contract with Clariti’s CivCheck, a company that presented at the city’s first DenAI Summit in 2024.

The tool guides users to the right permit and filling out the application. It’ll prompt the applicant if something is missing or suggested, “Like, ‘Hey, based on what you told us, you’re likely going to need a plumbing review (and) our wastewater team will need to review this as well,’” said Robert Peek, with the city’s permitting office.

The tool (there’s a separate one for restaurants and another for residential construction) is expected to reduce the back-and-forth between applicant and city staff, who find themselves at a standstill because they need more information.

More features could be implemented if the tool is helpful. City staff still handle the rest of the permit after submission. It’s a big step for the city, which not too long ago, “We were still all using paper,” Peek said. >> Apply for a permit

➔ Colorado’s state-facilitied retirement program has enrolled 122,000 workers. That’s about 26% more people than at the end of last year. Combined, the workers have saved about $250 million in the Colorado SecureSavings program, which is available to many employees who don’t have access to private options from their employer.

A new report from Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy found that when states launch a retirement plan — and allow employers to file an exemption if they have a private plan — the number of private plans go up. Data from Pew Research found Colorado saw a 18.4% increase in private plans. Colorado is one of 22 states with a retirement program. >> See SecureSavings dashboard

➔ RTD says it has a $2.1B economic impact. That’s based on a study by Boston consultants EBP, which was commissioned by the Denver-area transportation system also known as the Regional Transportation District. That dollar impact includes how much much riders are saving by not owning a car, hailing a tax service or paying for parking.

But the study also points out that RTD has only built 75% of the FasTracks Program because it’s short on funds and ridership hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic levels. Fewer commuters are using light rail to get to downtown, but the report doesn’t mention that some downtown tracks have been out of commission for months. It also doesn’t mention RTD’s budget — proposed for 2027 to be $1.3 billion, up 3.4% from this year. But without RTD, the region would lose 4,500 transit commuter jobs and $1 billion in economic activity, the report said. >> View report

Got some economic news or business bits Coloradans should know? Tell us: cosun.co/heyww

Thanks for sticking with us! ~ tracy & tamara

Miss a column? Catch up:

• It’s been a tough year for nonprofits. Good thing Colorado Gives Day is here.
• Pikes Peak economy heads up after some challenging years
• Most Coloradans who left the labor force aren’t looking to return. But an increasing number would like to.
• A Durango nonprofit is using AI so caseworkers can spend more time with those in need
• What keeps some employers in Colorado? The skilled workforce
• Gov. Polis picks 91 Colorado regions for potentially billions in investment
• Denver business leaders change focus to what’s best about living, working in the city

What’s Working is a Colorado Sun column about surviving in today’s economy. Email [email protected] with stories, tips or questions. Read the archive, ask a question at cosun.co/heyww and don’t miss the next one by signing up at coloradosun.com/getww.

Support this free newsletter and become a Colorado Sun member: coloradosun.com/join

Corrections & Clarifications

Notice something wrong? The Colorado Sun has an ethical responsibility to fix all factual errors. Request a correction by emailing [email protected].