AI and Technology Adoption Funding for Ontario Construction

Ontario’s two-step pathway, and the deadline on the second step

The Digital Competence Centre runs these as a sequence rather than a menu. DMAP funds up to $15,000 toward a plan built with a Digital Adoption Consultant drawn from OCI’s approved roster, open to Ontario for-profit businesses with 1 to 499 employees on a first-come, first-served basis while funds last. The Technology Demonstration Program then funds up to $50,000 to implement what the plan recommends, and it carries a higher bar: at least $750,000 of annual revenue in one of the last three tax years. Confirm the current TDP intake status before planning around it, because the published window has been closing in early August.

• DMAP: up to $15,000 toward the plan, 1 to 499 employees, no stated revenue minimum
• The consultant must come from OCI’s approved Digital Adoption Consultant roster
• TDP: up to $50,000 matched, to implement DMAP recommendations
• TDP requires at least $750,000 of annual revenue in one of the last three tax years

Related: AI Strategy Day — a one-day workflow mapping session that produces a written AI opportunity blueprint with ranked projects and a 30-60-90 plan, which is the same shape of work a DMAP roadmap describes. Run by BotLogix, a sister company of AEC Benefits, also based in Burlington. Note that DMAP funding specifically requires a consultant from OCI’s approved roster, so confirm roster status with OCI before assuming any provider qualifies for the grant

What actually qualifies as a project

This is where most applications fall down. Funding is awarded against a defined operational problem, not against a software purchase. "We want to use AI" is not a project. "Our estimators spend eleven hours a week doing manual takeoff from PDF drawings and we lose bids to slower turnaround" is a project, because it has a baseline, a measurable outcome, and a reason the work cannot simply be bought off a shelf.

• AI-driven estimating and takeoff measurement from CAD and PDF drawings
• Robotic layout and automated data extraction for structural alignment
• Drone and camera site scans processed for progress tracking and safety flags
• Predictive energy and site systems that optimise HVAC and power use during a build

Related: AI Consulting for your Business — BotLogix works with trades contractors and small operators to find the workflow worth proving before anything gets built, which is the step that turns a vague technology ambition into a fundable project description

Custom builds: IRAP and SR&ED

Where the work involves genuine technical uncertainty rather than configuring an existing product, two federal programs apply. NRC-IRAP can cover a large share of internal technical salary costs, with a dedicated AI Assist stream for businesses building and deploying AI solutions. SR&ED then provides a 35% refundable investment tax credit to Canadian-controlled private corporations on qualifying expenditures. Both reward the same discipline: contemporaneous engineering logs recorded as the work happens, not reconstructed at filing time.

• Keep dated developer and engineering notes describing what was uncertain and what was tried
• Record the hypothesis and the result, including the approaches that failed
• Track internal technical salary time against the specific project
• Retain the evidence for the audit window, as with any other credit claim

Related: What is an FDE (Forward Deployment Engineer) — useful background on the embedded engineer model, where the person building the system sits inside your operation rather than delivering from a distance. That proximity is also what produces the contemporaneous technical record these two programs are assessed on

You cannot claim the same dollar twice

The stacking rule that catches people here is the same one that applies across the rest of the handbook. Costs reimbursed by IRAP have to be removed from the SR&ED expenditure pool before the credit is calculated, because federal funding cannot be received twice on the same expenditure. The two programs still combine well on a single project, but they combine on separated costs rather than on the same invoice counted twice.