09_Agentic Power Takeoff: Counting and Placing Power Devices with Smart Count Devices (10:41)

Overview

This video covers Smart Count Devices, the agentic power takeoff inside the Inspire Search tab. You point the power takeoff agent at the sheets you want searched, it returns a table of every symbol it recognized with an initial count, and you then work through a human-in-the-loop review — mapping symbols to your existing assemblies, confirming or unchecking individual hits, adding anything the search missed, resolving duplicates, and finally placing a few hundred assemblies on the sheet in a single action.

What you'll learn

• Which of the three Smart Count tools to use for power, data, and lighting work
• How to launch the power takeoff agent and choose the sheets it searches
• How to map recognized symbols to assemblies in your assembly library
• How to review high, medium, and low confidence results and uncheck bad hits directly on the sheet
• How to consolidate several low-confidence lines into one correctly named assembly
• How to use Hide Background and Hide Detected to find symbols the search missed
• How to add a missed symbol, resolve duplicates, and run Place Assemblies

 

Before You Begin

Smart Count Devices maps what it finds onto assemblies you already own, so the payoff scales with how well your assembly library is built out. If you have labels or defaults saved against an assembly, those come through during mapping and override the Name and Label field automatically.

Have your floor plan sheets loaded in the project before you start. For your first few runs, limit the search to one to three sheets rather than the whole set — it keeps the review manageable while you develop your own workflow.

 

Part 1 — Choose the Right Smart Count Tool

The Inspire Search tab houses three Smart Count tools. Picking the right one determines what the agent looks for.

Tool	What it searches	Covered in
Smart Count	General smart count	A separate video
Smart Count Devices	Everything else — power, outlets, switches, data, all of your general power symbols	This video
Smart Count Fixture Tags	Lighting-specific	A separate video

1. Open the Inspire Search tab.
2. Select Smart Count Devices.
3. With Smart Count Devices activated, tell the agent which sheets you want to search on.
4. Select a single sheet, or select all of the sheets you would like to search at once.
5. Click Next to kick off the agent search.
6. Review the icons listed and the initial counts beside each one.
7. Check the Name and Label value the agent pre-filled for each row.
8. Look at the assembly the agent proposed for each row. It will already be saying, for example, that this is an in-wall assembly and more specifically a duplex receptacle assembly, with a generic name at the beginning.
9. Toggle down and select the assembly you actually want from your assembly library. The row changes and updates with your selection.
10. If the Name and Label field does not update, type the value you want directly into the field — for example, if a duplex is supposed to be a 2R in your shorthand.
11. In the first column of a row, click Review Results.
12. The review screen opens. Here you can interact with the sheet and view the examples of where the agent found each assembly or symbol across the sheet.
13. Read the confidence colors on the results.
14. Scroll down to the lower-confidence items.
15. Click a result in the list. The sheet jumps right to that point.
16. Where you see clusters — for example symbols that are possibly in floor — uncheck them directly on the sheet. The item unchecks on the right-hand side of the list as well.
17. Move to the next item in the list and repeat: interact on the screen, double-check where it found everything, and keep those in or omit them altogether.
18. If everything in a result set looks correct, click Select All Results instead of clicking every individual hit.
19. For a symbol type outside your scope, click Ignore.
20. Scroll down the list and rinse and repeat for the rest of the rows.
21. Select the symbols you recognize as the same symbol, even though they came back with low confidence.
22. Click Save Review Progress.
23. Type in the name you want to call this — for example, a 4R assembly.
24. Enter that same name on the other line items that are the same symbol, so every one of those rows carries the identical name.
25. Click Select All Assemblies to bring every mapped assembly into view. This is another spot for QA/QC.
26. Go to the bottom center of your screen and activate the two review buttons.
27. With Hide Detected on, scan the sheet for what is left behind. Typical leftovers are a couple of outlets or switches — possibly outdoor switches — and items like a floor box that did not get captured in the initial search.
28. Click Save Review Progress.
29. Head up to the top and click Add Symbols. A yellow flag pops up to show the tool is active.
30. Go back to the area of the sheet where the missed symbol is — the floor box, in this example.
31. Click and drag a box across that symbol. Stay as tight as you can to the symbol; a tight box helps the search.
32. The new symbol appears at the bottom of your search list. Name it.
33. Click Review Results on the new row to see everywhere the agent found that symbol.
34. Click Save Review Progress. If the review produced duplicates, Inspire Search tells you.
35. Click Review Now to open the duplicates.
36. Read what the duplicates are. They are symbols the agent did find — in this example, duplex symbols that were embedded inside the floor box symbol.
37. Uncheck the hits you do not want to apply, keeping only the assemblies you actually want. In this example, keep the two floor box assemblies for those two symbols and take away the extraneous ones.
38. Look at the top of the screen for "Duplicate results are reviewed." This green indicator means you have reviewed everything and all of your counts are aligned.
39. Click Save Review Progress.
40. Confirm all of your assemblies are mapped with your names in place.
41. Click Place Assemblies.
42. Wait for Inspire Search to finish. In this example it places a few hundred assemblies in one pass.

Note: Smart Count Devices is an agentic takeoff. Activating the tool activates the power takeoff agent — you are not drawing a search box, you are instructing an agent.

 

Part 2 — Launch the Power Takeoff Agent and Select Sheets

Best practice: As you are first getting going with Inspire, limit yourself to one to three sheets your first couple of times through so you can really develop your own workflow.

Note: The Inspire Search Smart Count Devices agent is trained on thousands of symbols across thousands of sheets, and it gets better week over week and month over month.

 

Part 3 — Read the Results Table

Your first view into what the agent found is the table on the right-hand side of your screen.

Column	What it shows
Icon	The different symbols the agent did search
Count	The first initial count it got for each symbol
Name and Label	Filled in automatically from the symbol the agent recognizes, based on the AECinspire database
Assembly mapping	The assembly the symbol is mapped to — this is where the real power comes in

 

Part 4 — Map Symbols to Your Assemblies

The agent does not just count symbols — it maps them to your existing assemblies.

Where the name comes from	Behavior
Labels or defaults saved against the assembly	Override the Name and Label field automatically when you map
Defaults set up in your assembly template	Come through when you are mapping your assemblies
No default saved	Update the Name and Label field manually to match your own short nomenclature

Best practice: Set your defaults in your assembly template up front. Mapping then carries your naming through every takeoff instead of requiring manual entry each run.

 

Part 5 — Review What the Agent Found

Any good AI process has a strong human-in-the-loop step. This is it.

Color	Confidence	What to do
Green	High	Typically be very confident it found the right item
Yellow	Medium	Spot-check
Red	Low	Review individually before accepting

Best practice: There is always an opportunity to manually scan the sheet. Your first couple of times through, do it — it gives you a feel for what the QA/QC actually involves.

Note: A red item is not necessarily a miss. It is an item identified as low confidence, which still may be a correct hit.

 

Part 6 — Accept in Bulk or Ignore a Symbol Entirely

Situation	Action	Result
A lot of reds, but everything looks good	Click Select All Results	Highlights the whole bulk for you and saves a couple of clicks
A symbol you are not counting — for example, something the agent deemed a speaker	Click Ignore	Zeros your counts out. The row still lives in the list, but the count reads zero, so Inspire Search will not place an object there

 

Part 7 — Consolidate Low-Confidence Symbols into One Assembly

Sometimes several separate rows are all the same symbol — the floor plan was messy, so the agent split them across lines at low confidence.

Note: Once those rows are mapped to the same assembly, it does not matter that they are separate lines in your review. They end up being the same assembly with the same label and the same attributes, so you will not be placing the wrong assemblies.

Note: If a count came back with under five results, or if those results were low confidence, Inspire Search flags those rows as not found. Work through the flagged rows and bring in the other items it did recognize.

 

Part 8 — QA/QC the Sheet with Hide Background and Hide Detected

Button	What it does
Hide Background	Drops out the traditional light gray background and leaves the bold black active layer, giving you a clean view to review
Hide Detected	Hides everything already counted, making it very obvious which symbols IQ or Inspire Search did miss

 

Part 9 — Add a Symbol the Search Missed

You do not have to re-run Inspire Search to pick up a missed symbol.

Best practice: Staying inside the tool for the entire QA/QC pass means you are not running Inspire Search multiple times to accomplish the final task. Finish the review in one session and you can be as accurate as you can possibly be.

 

Part 10 — Resolve Duplicate Results

 

Part 11 — Place Assemblies

Note: Placement takes the rotation of each symbol into play, so all of your placed symbols should be very much aligned with the drawing.

When placement finishes, you have your symbols plus all of the default labels you had set in the system — your initial placement and your initial counts with your assemblies.

 

Quick Reference

What you need	Where to find it
The three Smart Count tools	Inspire Search tab
Power, outlets, switches, data symbols	Smart Count Devices
Lighting-specific symbols	Smart Count Fixture Tags
Sheet selection for the agent	Smart Count Devices → sheet list → Next
Recommended sheet count on first runs	1 to 3 sheets
Initial counts and recognized icons	Results table, right-hand side of screen
Assembly mapping and Name and Label	Results table, right-hand side of screen
Symbol-by-symbol review	Review Results, first column of the results table
Confidence legend	Green = high, yellow = medium, red = low
Accept an entire result set	Select All Results
Zero out a symbol you are not counting	Ignore
Save mid-review	Save Review Progress
Bring all mapped assemblies into view	Select All Assemblies
Clean-view QA/QC buttons	Bottom center of screen — Hide Background and Hide Detected
Add a missed symbol	Save Review Progress → Add Symbols → drag a tight box
Duplicate resolution	Review Now
Confirmation that duplicates are cleared	"Duplicate results are reviewed" green indicator, top of screen
Final placement	Place Assemblies

 

Troubleshooting

Issue	Resolution
The review list is overwhelming on the first run	Limit the agent to 1 to 3 sheets your first couple of times through until you have your own workflow.
A row shows a generic assembly name	The agent applied its own naming. Toggle down and select the correct assembly from your assembly library.
The Name and Label field did not update after mapping	Type the value in manually — for example a 2R for a duplex. To avoid this on future runs, set defaults in your assembly template.
A count came back flagged as not found	Inspire Search flags rows with under five results, or with low-confidence results. Open the row and review the items it did recognize.
Symbols were counted that are actually in floor, or otherwise wrong	Click the item to jump to that point on the sheet and uncheck it directly on the drawing. It unchecks in the right-hand list as well.
A symbol type is out of scope for this takeoff	Click Ignore. The row stays in the list, the count goes to zero, and Inspire Search will not place an object for it.
Several separate rows are clearly the same symbol	Give every one of those rows the same name so they resolve to one assembly with the same label and attributes.
A symbol was missed entirely	Turn on Hide Detected to expose it, then Save Review Progress → Add Symbols and drag a tight box around it.
Duplicates reported after saving	Click Review Now and uncheck the hits you do not want to apply. Duplicates are usually symbols embedded inside another symbol.
Placed symbols look rotated wrong	Placement accounts for symbol rotation automatically. If alignment still looks off, re-check the mapping for that symbol row.