That's a wrap for Pantheon 2026!! Thank you for an amazing conference! We'll keep adding more recaps and videos, in case you missed anything in Orlando! And then mark your calendars for Pantheon 2027 — Sept. 13-16, 2027, in Nashville, Tenn.!
Breakout Session: Charging Ahead with AI and Max
‘With Max, we’ve gone all-in’
Jennifer D'Ambra kept looking at the same number.
HomeX Services Group had Dispatch Pro running across its Northeast brands, and the optimization rate stayed flat. "We'd had it on, we just weren't seeing the optimization rates, we just couldn't get it above that 30%," D'Ambra, the company's chief technology officer, said.
Three businesses from three corners of the trades had gone all in on the same package.
'All of a sudden'
Max gave HomeX a reason to reset.
Jennifer D'Ambra, CTO of HomeX Services Group, said her team used the move to Max to standardize how the company's environment is built, putting time into skills, job types and business units — then went back to Dispatch Pro.
"All of a sudden, we went back into Dispatch Pro, and we see this huge leap, driven mostly by our redefining of our skills and job types and business units," D'Ambra said.
She had a clear view of the cause.
"I don't care how cool and sophisticated the AI tool is, if you don't standardize it and set it up and build it the right way, all it’s doing is churning through bad data and giving you bad results," she said.
She brought this view to the Pantheon stage, where ServiceTitan Chief Revenue Officer Ross Biestman had seated her beside two other early Max customers: Jake Wold, chief operating officer of Guild Garage Group, and Steven Gurley of the Goodrich family office.
“When you think about what AI is going to do in this business, it’s about who’s going to use AI quicker … and better,” D’Ambra said. “Contractors who figure this out faster and better are going to succeed dramatically.”
'I don't want to be at 2,000 employees'
Wold has a growth problem of a different kind.
Guild Garage Group runs 29 businesses, with more than 1,000 employees and about $350 million in revenue, and Wold sees AI as a way to keep the people Guild has.
"With AI, you can actually keep people, focus on them and allow them to operate the AI systems that you implement in the business," Wold said.
Then he put a number on the alternative. "I want revenue to grow rapidly, but I want headcount to grow slower,” he said. “I don't want to be at 2,000 employees at $700 million of revenue.”
Two Guild businesses already run the way he describes: AI answers the call, books it and dispatches the technician. Moving to Max also let Guild eliminate 29 other monthly invoices, including API add-ons living outside ServiceTitan.
Gurley runs the thinnest margins of the three. Retail backup power pays less than HVAC, plumbing or garage doors, so he hunts for every bit of efficiency.
Branch leaders call him with apps they built over the weekend, and he has settled on a position. "If there’s not a very clear benefit, why are we doing it? I’m going to leave AI to the experts, Gurley said.
Technicians are his test case. They struggle to open one app, he said, which makes the next question easy. "Do we really want them to open up 6 other apps on their phone?" Gurley said.
‘Most of you are under-utilizing ServiceTitan’
Asked what a contractor in the audience should do next, Wold said to take the demo, build a detailed business case and take the leap. D'Ambra said to be intentional: go all in, and get the team on board before starting.
Wold was also direct. “Most of you are under-utilizing ServiceTitan,” he said. “Max forces you to lean into it, and optimize everything. Get your (stuff) together.
“With Max, we’ve gone all-in.”
Photo Gallery
One last look at Pantheon 2026
Keynote: The Proven Playbook for Maximizing Big-Ticket Sales in the Field
At Pantheon, a million-dollar July went to the salesman who followed the process
Tom Howard needed a salesman, fast.
Howard, who works for ServiceTitan and also owns Lee’s Air and other companies in the Southwest, had just let go of the No. 2 salesman at his Fresno operation. Summer was starting, and the heat was heading toward 100 degrees. His top salesman, Phil Pilaski, got to pick the replacement. He picked Orlando.
Howard questioned the choice.
Pilaski’s answer, as Howard told it: “Orlando does exactly what I say every single time.”
Pilaski also wanted to send the team a message. “I can train anyone at any time, and get them going on sales,” Howard recalled him saying.
Orlando sold $1 million in July.
“I was blown away,” Howard said.
He told the story at Wednesday’s Pantheon breakout, “The Proven Playbook for Maximizing Big-Ticket Sales in the Field,” moderated by Tamar Rosati, ServiceTitan’s vice president of product.
Chris Masterson, director of field sales at Redwood Services in Memphis, turned the lesson into a coaching method. His team uses call-recording software and AI to check whether salespeople hit the main steps of the process, without a script and in their own words.
“Let’s drive the behavior and then behavior will drive the results,” Masterson said.
The panel kept coming back to why the process matters more now. Customers arrive with answers from a chatbot, and with a price in mind. Chad Peterman, CEO of Peterman Brothers in Indianapolis, said more callers ask for a price on the first call, and he ties it directly to ChatGPT.
His fix is speed. When a technician finds a broken system, the customer is connected to one of six virtual salespeople over Zoom, who close sales in the 60 percent range, Peterman said. The old routine, a two-hour wait for an in-home comfort advisor, gave the customer time to shop.
“They’re calling their uncle. They’re looking online,” Peterman said.
Howard found the same thing with water heaters. His plumbers were fighting a lower price online, so he had them put the heater on the truck and offer to install it on the spot. Close rates climbed. A customer without hot water, he said, wants a shower in two hours, not tomorrow.
He borrowed another idea from Ismael Valdez of NexGen Air in California, who sends a rip-out crew to remove the old system as the salesman leaves. Valdez told him it cut his cancellation rate in half, Howard said.
Masterson added a caution. Faster tools do not replace the customer’s experience of the person at the door.
“We still have to make sure that the experience the homeowner gets is second to none,” he said.
Orlando never needed a clever line, only the same steps every time. Pilaski wanted the team to see what that was worth. By July, they had.
– Deborah Goldman
Kevin Richardson loves the energy of his first Pantheon
What makes a first Pantheon memorable? For Kevin Richardson of Rainforest Plumbing & Air, it’s the energy in the room and the innovation shaping what comes next. He shares his first impressions with ServiceTitan’s Brendan Meyer.
The Roofing M&A Playbook: Insights from Industry Leaders
At Pantheon, Roofing Buyers Listen for One Question: ‘What About My Team?’
Tim Russell listens for one question from a founder selling a roofing company.
Russell, CEO of Canopy Services Group, was one of three buyers on Wednesday’s Pantheon session “The Roofing M&A Playbook: Insights from Industry Leaders,” moderated by Nina Katsman, general manager of Exteriors at ServiceTitan. Dennis Elliott of Vertex Service Partners and Chad Colony, CEO of Trusspoint Roofing & Exteriors, joined him.
The question usually arrives late. About two weeks before closing, Russell said, founders panic. The check is not what keeps them up.
“It’s what happens after — what happens to my team,” Russell said.
When a founder asks, Russell knows what he has.
“I know the minute that’s asked. I’m like, yes, this is someone that we can work with. They care about the team,” he said.
Reputation is one of the biggest things Vertex weighs in a target, he said, and its brands average 35 years in business, with one close to 100.
“So trust is everything in this business, particularly when you’re, like, touching someone’s home and with such a big ticket,” he said.
Colony said every successful business has a secret sauce. “Every single location has something that’s made them great,” he said. It’s different from state to state and region to region. “Work with owners to identify that and empower them to make it even stronger.”
After closing, changes come, Colony said, and “it’s really important to tell this entire team why you’re doing this, what are the expected results and how we’re going to get there.”
Russell’s advice for the founders after closing is keep doing what you did before the deal. He meets the team on day one, over breakfast or lunch, then lets everyone get back to work.
“So if you come in on Tuesdays and sign checks and then you golf, then that’s what you should do — because your team’s watching you,” Russell said.
Elliot said the model Vertex has followed from the start is, “Preserve culture, leverage existing talent, lean into the talent. Give them a great opportunity through training.”
All three panelists agree that selling one of their companies can be a huge opportunity for founders. Russell said it’s a life-changing decision.
“It’s a marriage. You’re selling your prized possession. It’s the most emotional thing you’ll go through professionally.”
—Deborah Goldman
Prometheus Awards
Haley Comfort Systems and Goettl Air Conditioning and Plumbing Receive Prometheus Awards
Recipients of ServiceTitan's Prometheus Awards in the Flamekeeper and Torchbearer categories, announced Wednesday at Pantheon:
Flamekeeper: Haley Comfort Systems
Location: Rochester, Minn.
Why Haley was selected: In 2021, Haley Comfort Systems built an Oktoberfest for Suicide Prevention from the ground up, creating a place where the community could talk openly about suicide and mental health. The event now draws nearly 2,000 people, along with hundreds of local sponsors, donors, and volunteers.
The event raised more than $164,000 in 2025 and has raised $500,000 since launch, supporting the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, NAMI, and Aidan's Light. What began as a company initiative now belongs to the whole community.
Torchbearer: Goettl Air Conditioning and Plumbing
Locations: Arizona, Nevada, Texas
Why Goettl was selected : Goettl brought its back-to-school giving to every market it serves for the first time this year, investing $23,500 to support about 25,000 students and donating 7,200 pocket folders. Each market partnered with local organizations, from Fill the Bus drives in Nevada to a Kids Zone in Phoenix and a backpack giveaway in Austin, Texas. Beyond that campaign, Goettl's Kindness in the Air program has each of its six branches give $1,000 a month to associate-nominated nonprofits, totaling $72,000 a year.
About the Prometheus Award: Created by Titans for Change, ServiceTitan's internal philanthropy community, the Prometheus Award spotlights customers who are exceptionally committed to positive change, making a remarkable impact on their customers, communities, and industries.
Keynote: Fireside Chat with Peyton Manning & Eli Manning
Playbook for the trades: Lessons in leadership
Chris Crew, appropriately, came prepared.
The president of The Blue Collar Success Group wore his No. 18 Indianapolis Colts jersey and brought a Sharpie to a Pantheon keynote session featuring former NFL stars Peyton and Eli Manning.
Crew, an electrician of 30 years who leads a coaching and training business for contractors in HVAC, plumbing and electrical, believed the preparation that made the Mannings so successful in sports translates equally as well to the trades.
"Preparation is key for everything," Crew said. "When you're prepared, the pressure doesn't seem real, right? You can feel it, but you can get through it because you prepared for this moment and this situation.
"I owned and operated a business. You're going to have a lot of pressure moments in business. But the reality is most everything in this business is never a surprise."
The Mannings gained respect as leaders of NFL franchises, Peyton with the Colts and Denver Broncos and Eli with the New York Giants. Those skills hit home with Brian Nienstedt, chief development officer at NexCore, a buy-and-build commercial HVAC roll-up.
"The leadership in terms of gaining respect of teammates through hard work and preparation, coupled with just a tenacious work ethic, really stood out," Nienstedt said. "Hearing Peyton speak about the calm, cool nature of his leaders and coaches really stood out. And just having fun."
Dante Cantu, managing partner of Rhino Roofers, admires the way the Mannings present themselves.
"What they display always, and what they displayed here, is humility," Cantu said. "They're extremely successful, some of the greats in NFL history, but they always carry themselves with humility, always taking care of other people, treating everybody else well. They believe in everybody supporting each other.
"For us, one of the things we take away is their leadership. They're always prepared and set that example for everyone else and expect that from everyone else. I love that they talk about the people that inspired them — their coaches, their parents — and how they've tried to instill that in their children. One of the most important aspects of leadership is influence, and you have to earn that right to be influential."
Scott Melice, a ServiceTitan product analyst at Zephyr, compares the trades to a sports team. Skill levels vary across the roster, but every player has to be dependable.
"It's the people who show up that don't always hit the mark every time," Melice said, "but you know you can count on them to show up every time. That's really a core belief."
Crew's preparation for the day, he says, was symbolic of how these service industries need to be managing AI adoption, essential in ServiceTitan's platform as the agentic system of the trades. Crew pointed to a Pantheon session that featured Jay Caiafa, CEO of Authority Brands.
"He said all AI is going to do in your business, if it's not well run," Crew said, "is it's going to fast-forward all of the problems in your business and they're going to compound. A lot of contractors try to gravitate to what looks fun and exciting, and then they miss the preparation components of answering the phones correctly, having people show up in the uniforms, making sure that technicians are on time, making sure they're trained.
"All of those are really the fundamental things in business that people need to do. When you hear the Mannings, who get paid millions of dollars to throw a football around, still go and follow on the basics, that really resonated with me."
- Eddie Wooten
Keynote: Partner Ecosystem
At Pantheon, ServiceTitan Follows a Job Through Its Partner Ecosystem
Before joining ServiceTitan six months ago, Girish Chander (VP, Product), spent about 25 years in cybersecurity. Wednesday's Partner Ecosystem Keynote started there.
"One bad integration puts at risk your data, puts at risk your customers' data, and puts at risk your ability to run operations on Monday morning," Chander said. He then described a pattern seen across the industry: an attacker compromises a third-party app connected to a major platform, then uses the connection to reach customer environments.
ServiceTitan's response is a certification program. It sets a bar for security and data handling, and for how partners integrate. Contractors use certified apps without vetting each one themselves. "It has to be one where we offer you a choice that you can trust," Chander said.
From there, the keynote followed a job from first call to final bill.
Booking came first. Avoca, which answers calls and texts for contractors, books jobs against a contractor's real capacity through an API now open to certified partners. Avoca said it tests every change, down to the greeting, by splitting calls between two versions and rolling out a winner only when the result is statistically significant.
In the field, Ford Pro's Matt Atkinson said vehicle data from Ford trucks, model year 2020 and newer, flows into Fleet Pro with no additional hardware. Contractors keep their existing Ford contract, and location data feeds arrival times and timesheets.
Materials followed. ServiceTitan is building a catalog connected to suppliers, so a pricebook stays current at negotiated prices and ordering happens inside the platform. SRS, Ferguson and Lennox are design partners, and roofers get access by the end of the year.
Payment closed the job. Affirm's pay-over-time options are live in estimates, and Ramp's bill pay and expense management is now generally available. Affirm’s Head of Platform, Caroline Meehan, called the principle behind each partner "no information black holes," meaning whatever happens in a partner app flows back into ServiceTitan.
Two infrastructure changes support all of it. Webhooks, due by the end of the year, will notify connected apps when a job changes, so apps stop polling for updates. Programmatic onboarding will cut the manual steps between a contractor and a new partner to minutes.
The keynote's final demo needed no partner app. Chander asked Claude, working through a ServiceTitan Model Context Protocol (MCP) still in development, to list every material unused in a year, then widened the window to two years. The MCP is how an agent learns what ServiceTitan offers, so a contractor describes the task in plain language and the agent finds the right tools. Claude then offered to deactivate the stale items on the spot.
"You didn't need to know what the APIs were. You didn't need to learn to write code," Chander said.
Chander began with what a bad integration puts at risk on a workday morning. The keynote ended with what a certified ecosystem puts in a contractor's hands: a stale pricebook cleaned up in one conversation, with no code written.
– Andrew Nicoletta
Piper gives Superior Plumbing’s CSRs more time for the human touch
In a college town, turnover never stops. Superior Plumbing found a team member who isn't going anywhere. CRM Business & Systems Manager Melissa Mohr says Piper, the company's AI Virtual Agent, took about 30 minutes to get running. Piper handles customers who just need to book an appointment. That leaves CSRs free to give hands-on help to callers who need it. Hear why Mohr says no one has taken more stress off her plate.
Keynote: Welcome to Pantheon with Co-Founder and CEO, Ara Mahdessian
From concept to reality in a year: 30 agents that act together expand ServiceTitan Max’s capability
When the Cloud reshaped the digital world more than a decade ago, ServiceTitan Co-Founder and CEO Ara Mahdessian’s task was to convince contractors it was their future, but the industry was behind the curve.
With AI, he said in Tuesday’s keynote address to open Pantheon 2026 in Orlando, ServiceTitan’s task is to make sure the home and commercial services industry leads the transformation.
To that end, at Pantheon 2025, the AI-powered, self-running contracting business was a concept. ServiceTitan launched Max with 50 contractors who would help build on that idea.
A year later, Max is no longer just a concept. Now, more than 30 AI agents draw on context across demand, field, and office to help customers better understand their business, determine what should happen next, and then execute and coordinate that work across connected workflows.
But rather than optimizing each workflow in isolation, Max can orchestrate nearly the entire business.
“The AI race is upon us,” Mahdessian told the thousands of contractors in attendance. “But … you are a different leader. AI is still emerging, but you are already leading from the front. … Last time, we had to convince you to catch up. This time, the trades are in a much better position.”
ServiceTitan’s Max customer base will approach 700 by the end of the year, Mahdessian said.
“The magnitude of this investment only makes sense if AI can completely revolutionize how we operate a business – a business that runs itself, and a business that gets better every day. That is what this is all about.”
The trades example
To illustrate the importance of that point, Mahdessian broke down a residential service business into the tasks a contractor needs to get right, every day. They fall into three buckets: Generating demand, booking jobs, and selling the work.
Contractors know all those tasks matter. Doing all of them at once, and excellently all day every day, is another matter.
Human teams hit two limits: time and speed. A marketer can't retune ad spend every time capacity shifts.
A CSR can't take a call on one line and also answer a text within 15 seconds, before the customer turns to a competitor.
No manager can review every call and field recording to coach every employee every day.
"The only way to be great at everything, concurrently, all the time,” Mahdessian said, “is to automate it."
What a year it has been
Building a brigade of AI agents alongside Max customers, Mahdessian told the crowd in Orlando, revealed two effects:
Small gains in leads, booking rates and average ticket compound into large revenue gains.
And the added revenue carries a higher margin, so profit grows faster than sales.
Mahdessian walked through a hypothetical contractor. With 10,000 leads, a 60% booking rate and an $800 average ticket, the business brings in $4.8 million. At a 10% margin, that means $480,000 in profit.
Improve each of those three metrics by 10%, and the same contractor generates 11,000 leads, books 66% of them and averages $880 a ticket. Revenue climbs to about $6.4 million.
“But the best part is, costs don’t have to increase proportionally,” Mahdessian said. “More leads from the same marketing budget, and more appointments from the leads coming in, and more revenue from the same truck rolls. A good chunk of the additional revenue from each truck goes straight to the bottom line.”
Revenue in that hypothetical only increased by 33%, he said, but profit doubled.
“That is how disproportionate this effect is on profit vs. revenue,” Mahdessian said. “If we can shrink the connection between revenue growth and cost growth, for the next two decades we don’t have to talk about profit margins anymore. We can celebrate them instead.”
How ServiceTitan Max helps us get there
That’s because the agents within Max will work together to get the best outcome, not just accomplish a single agent’s primary goal. There is shared context and shared judgment among the agents, Mahdessian said.
“What the voice agent hears, the dispatch agent will know,” he said. “Each agent works from the same formulas. We built a best-in-class lead scoring that predicts how much any appointment might be worth based on all the
signals – what was said on the call, all the details about the home, the homeowner, the equipment and so-on. We built something similar for demand forecasting.”
There is also coordinated action and arbitration, built in.
“(And) one agent can ask another to act,” Mahdessian said. “A plan no longer stops at the agent boundaries. …
“When several agents can act, the system decides which one does, based on the highest estimated value for the lowest expected cost.”
What does that lead to?
“Outcomes improve assumptions, assumptions improve judgments, and judgments improve the next decision,” Mahdessian said. “It’s a system that gets better over time.”
All that, Mahdessian said, means the trades are better positioned for the AI shift than most industries.
“Whenever the technological disruption happens, the companies that leverage the innovation thrive, and the ones
that don’t suffer a different fate,” Madessian said. “As we speak, every industry is chasing. But for once, this industry has the advantage.”
-Mike Persinger
Nell takes the peak-season pressure off Davis AC's team
During HVAC’s busiest season, a team member’s sick day adds pressure on everyone else. Heather McCain of Davis AC in Houston says Nell, the company’s AI Virtual Agent, helps ease that strain with a 98% booking rate and the ability to answer multiple calls at once. Her next goal is to let Nell cover the queue while the team steps away for a holiday lunch or team-building event.
Breakout Session: Private Equity Doesn't End at the Payout: It Sets Up Your Second Act
Late-night calls, two PE deals and a winning brand
Eric Van Dam's wife kept asking who was calling at 10 or 11 o'clock at night.
The caller was Tommy Mello, founder and CEO of A1 Garage Door Service. Mello wanted to learn everything he could before choosing a private equity firm to partner with for the first time and take his business to the next level. In 2019, A1 earned about $4 million in EBITDA, and Mello had questions. Van Dam, a managing director at Piper Sandler & Co., took the calls despite the late hour.
This week at Pantheon, the two shared a stage to talk about where those calls led: two private equity transactions, a company with more than $400 million in revenue and 1,400 employees, and a case for what comes after the first payout.
Build the company to be sold
Van Dam's first piece of advice, Mello said, was to hire a CFO. Audited financials, a quality of earnings report and a data cube followed. The finance team carries a sale, he said, and buyers spend about $5 million on diligence before they commit to a big deal.
"Don't bring a knife to a gunfight," Van Dam said. Private equity firms arrive with top law and accounting firms, so owners need advisors of their own. Mello said a competitive process gets the highest outcome.
Vet the buyer like a spouse
Mello questioned firms as hard as they questioned him. He asked them about the last two or three deals and the multiple on invested capital. He asked for references, including companies where the investment went poorly. He asked what happens if the company misses the budget by 20% in a quarter. He, lightheartedly, compared the conversation to a prenuptial agreement.
“A good partner mostly asks questions,” Mello said. One of his was asking why receivables ran over 5%. A1's installers weren't collecting at every job. After retraining, Mello said, bottom-line margin climbed from 17% to 27%.
Van Dam said A1 reached $27 million in EBITDA over its first 15 years and added more than $75 million in the four years with a private equity partner.
One playbook in every market
Mello said every A1 market runs the same pricebook, truck, uniform and software stack, with one call center and
one dispatch center. Van Dam said buyers now look past shared systems to shared people and processes.
"You gotta deal with people"
Mello talked about prioritizing the team at A1. He started something called the Dream Manager program. It’s part life coaching, part marriage counseling, Mello said. One six-month cohort of 60 employees lost 450 pounds, saved $400,000, paid off $500,000 in debt, welcomed three babies and bought 10 houses.
Plenty of investors are trying to figure out how to Uberize home services, Mello said. His answer is good luck, because "you gotta deal with people."
Two weeks ago, he said, a participant cried and told him he wished he could rejoin. The program, the man said, saved his life.
Mello said he doesn't have to be involved in the company anymore. He is anyway, because "it's so fun watching
people win."
- Deborah Goldman
Head's Plumbing leads with inclusion to keep pace with AI
Head’s Plumbing Sales & Service has been in business for 45 years, and CEO Khadija Head says growth means being willing to change. In this walk-and-talk with ServiceTitan’s Mike Persinger, she shares why she leads with inclusion when introducing new technology and why she believes no company can afford to sit out the AI shift. And after getting a closer look at Max at Pantheon, Head says she can definitely see how this new technology can help her move the needle on her business.
Overheard at Pantheon
Some conversations are too good to keep to ourselves. We’re keeping our ears open. Flip through for the lines we couldn’t wait to pass along.
Keynote: Run Your Business. Not Your Software.
One Open Slot, One AI Agent, and the Case for Max
Max is not another tool to manage. It's a package of 30-plus AI agents sharing one self-improving "company brain" across demand generation, field work and the back office.
"Over the last year, we've built it to autonomously do the work for you, not just track it," said Abhishek Mathur, chief technology and product officer for ServiceTitan.
Mathur, addressing contractors during the Pantheon keynote, "Run Your Business. Not Your Software," stressed that everything shown is "real and in production today."
Atlas, the ServiceTitan conversational agent and assistant, lets employees ask questions, get guidance and take action using the capabilities in their package.
Mathur said some customers using Pro and Max products grew revenue twice as fast year-over-year as non-Max peers. He credited four factors: insights, automation, a connected brain and personalization.
Other takeaways from the session:
Money on the table: Vincent Payen, ServiceTitan senior vice president, said the average revenue realization in the room is about 60%, while top performers reach the high 80s.
Payen's demo showed agents holding a slot for a more valuable job, then refilling a same-day cancellation gap in minutes.
Your best tech, every call: Tamar Rosati, ServiceTitan vice president for product, showed Atlas delivering job briefs, pre-screened financing, hands-free voice logging and AI-built good-better-best estimates tailored to the homeowner’s preferences.
Leaks plugged: An invoice review agent caught a smart thermostat that was installed but never billed, then drafted the fix for one-click approval.
New tools: Launches include the Atlas app for the office on mobile, a no-code Automation Hub and an MCP server connecting Claude or ChatGPT to ServiceTitan data. The Atlas app and Automation Hub are part of the base package.
Availability: Max will be open after Pantheon to all ServiceTitan customers in plumbing, heating, electrical and garage doors with four or more technicians.
What if AI gave your team more time with customers?
Kimberly Darby of Service Experts shares her takeaway from the “Run Your Business, Not Your Software” breakout session at Pantheon. She says teams need to learn how AI can support technicians, customers and office staff. In this walk-and-talk with ServiceTitan senior content writer Eddie Wooten, she explains how she sees Max working as a virtual assistant.
Photo Gallery
Around Pantheon on day two
Breakout Session: How AI Grows Service Agreements and Recurring Revenue
How Gallo Mechanical turns service agreements into 45-50% margin work
John Harrison stood in a Charleston mechanical room with a Gallo Mechanical supervisor on one side and a hospitality group's new director of facilities on the other. Harrison, Gallo's COO, asked the director what worried him most.
The director's real worry, Harrison said, was showing his bosses the maintenance work paid off so he could secure next year's budget. As the director put it, "how am I going to prove out and get the money that I need next year."
The supervisor, who worked the account in the field, had never heard an answer like it. Gallo, Harrison said, had not asked the question before.
Gallo's service agreements have grown 38% this year, part of 80% growth for the company. Harrison spent his Pantheon session talking about what he does with an agreement once it is signed.
He does not count on the agreement for margin. On a $100,000 agreement, he said, he expects $100,000 to $150,000 in additional work from the same customer every year. The agreement itself might run near 15% margin. The work behind it runs 45% to 50%.
"It's about pull through, right?" Harrison said.
Investors see recurring revenue the same way, he said, and value a service agreement dollar at about three times a project dollar.
Keeping the customer takes proof. Gallo builds its annual review from the customer's own survey scores, technician photos and job recaps, and Harrison measures whether technicians show up for every visit an agreement promises. His target is 90% or better. Commercial retention of 90% or better is good, he said, and 95% is excellent.
ServiceTitan's product team showed how the data behind those reviews gets captured. Technicians log findings by voice, photo or text, and the application scans notes, photos and job summaries for problems no one wrote up. When the same issue appears three times, the application flags the pattern, which gives a sales team a reason to revisit a declined recommendation.
The agreement review agent does similar work in the office. The first time the team ran it on a live Gallo agreement, it flagged a problem with the first two quarterly invoices. The information already existed, spread across several places. Now it arrives on one screen with a recommended next step.
Harrison wants to go further. He described a quarterly report for each customer showing equipment age, expected life remaining and time and material spend by asset, something a facilities director could build a budget request around.
Every customer is solving either a revenue problem or a cost problem, Harrison said. The director in Charleston had a cost problem and a budget to win. By the end of the year, he said, everybody is asking the question the director asked. A service partner with the asset history, Harrison said, is in the best position to answer it.
Keynote: Main Stage Session with Co-Founder & President, Vahe Kuzoyan
Max, Atlas, and Homh take the next step at Pantheon
In his annual Pantheon keynote, ServiceTitan co-founder and president Vahe Kuzoyan announced three major moves that put AI agents to work for the trades.
Max opens to commercial and roofing. ServiceTitan is launching a limited pilot, opening today.
Atlas gets a major upgrade. It's now a chief-of-staff-level agent that takes action, with a new mobile app.
Homh, a consumer demand-generation platform, is live on ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Claude. Your customers' AI agents can now find and book you through our curated contractor marketplace.
Here's what each one means for your business, and why Kuzoyan says this is the moment to move.
Max opens to commercial and roofing
Max started in residential in-home trades. But as of today, it's no longer exclusively for residential. ServiceTitan announced a limited Max pilot for commercial and roofing contractors.
“We want to work closely with our first customers, support your teams through adoption, and help you turn these agents into more revenue, stronger margins, and better experiences for your customers and your team,” Kuzoyan said.
Here's what ServiceTitan plans to add to Max by next year:
For commercial
Cross-sell agents that turn new installs into service agreement proposals and surface replacement opportunities, complete with a total cost of ownership analysis
A technician development agent that schedules techs toward the hours they need to advance their certifications
A construction estimate variance agent that forecasts project variance from your historical budget and actual data
For roofing
A claims and supplement agent that reconciles the adjuster scope to your estimate and drafts supplements
A production agent that breaks a sold estimate into jobs, books crews and deliveries, and reschedules for weather
A subcontractor management agent that matches jobs to subs, issues work orders, calculates pay, and scores performance
Atlas stops being a chatbot
Atlas, ServiceTitan’s AI assistant, is now a chief-of-staff-level agent. It takes action, delegates work through tasks, and runs from a new dedicated mobile app.
Here's what Atlas does today:
Reporting. It pulls from your existing reports, including custom reports. When the metric you need doesn't exist, it writes a custom query.
Deep research and analysis. Ask "why" about any answer. Atlas can review customer conversations from jobs that ended in recalls, including in-home recordings with the technician (with consent, of course), and recommend ways to improve.
Automation. It builds and modifies rule-based workflows, and it recommends the right person to take on a task when a report shows a problem.
Monitoring. Tell Atlas what to watch, and it notifies you when a rule trips, such as variance above 5%.
Return on ad spend. It pulls your marketing costs from your account and cleans them up for analysis.
Atlas also changes how ServiceTitan talks to you. Instead of a no-reply email or text alert, you start a conversation, ask questions, and dig deeper. Kuzoyan's favorite use is voice mode on the drive in, where you can keep asking why and slice and dice every number that looks off. Pick it up on the web when you reach the office, right where you left off. Over time, Atlas will replace the Office app.
Atlas is in closed alpha for admins only. Max customers get access first, for all users, and then Atlas opens to everyone. We haven't set pricing and packaging yet.
Kuzoyan also set stretch goals for next year's Pantheon. They include connecting Atlas to your email and calendar, joining meetings to capture commitments and answer questions live, and building and modifying other agents.
Your customers are bringing agents too
"Whether you like it or not, the agent is now your customer," Kuzoyan said. Homeowners will ask their AI agents to find a contractor, and those agents will pick the one they believe is most likely to solve the problem. We built the Homh consumer demand-generation platform to help you win that moment.
Homh is a curated marketplace that connects the best contractors with consumers. The Homh app plugin is live today on ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Claude. Over time, we want consumers' agents to tap Homh's contractor network, real-time availability, and booking directly inside the tools they already use.
Homh scores contractors on three things:
Punctuality. Do your techs show up on time?
Hired rate. After meeting with the homeowner, do they choose to move forward with you?
Job quality and satisfaction. What do your customers say about the work?
These metrics are becoming part of your ServiceTitan reports, so you can see exactly how each score is calculated. They matter whether you're on Homh or not.
What you can count on from Homh
Your Homh profile builds on your history in ServiceTitan, so you won't start from scratch. And our commitments are clear, Kuzoyan said.
You can't pay to rank higher.
We will never charge you to remove a negative comment.
We won't charge you to promote a positive review.
Homh is invite-only in a few key areas — for now.
You can also capture demand from agents through Max. Advertise directly on the major agentic platforms, or add a direct booking connection (MCP) to your website so agents can book jobs. The numbers are small today. Kuzoyan asked everyone who remembers the early days of the internet to think about where their digital marketing stood then, and he expects this wave to move much faster.
Why Kuzoyan says now is the time
Kuzoyan opened with Paul Erdős, a Hungarian mathematician who spent 64 years cataloging roughly 1,200 unsolved math problems. For decades, the best mathematicians in the world solved them at a remarkably steady pace. Then 2023 arrived. Based on the yearly average before 2023, this year's progress adds up to more than 14 years of work, with almost three months still to go. The problems left unsolved are generally the harder ones.
"This is not normal," Kuzoyan said.
He explained the shift with a simple picture. AI models are wild horses, powerful but hard to use. A harness is the software that connects that power to a purpose. A model plus a harness gives you an agent, and both keep getting stronger.
What to do now
Keep testing. "The most dangerous thing you can do at this moment is treat one failed attempt as proof of what will never be possible," Kuzoyan said. Something that failed yesterday can work today.
Track the three Homh metrics. Punctuality, hired rate, and job quality tell you how you look to customers and their agents, whether or not you're on Homh.
Get in line. Register for the Max pilot, and ask your success manager about Homh.
The great multiplier
Kuzoyan closed with a message for every contractor in the room. Some say AI will be the great equalizer. He disagrees.
"It will be the great multiplier," he said. "The gap between those who do and those who don't will broaden faster than ever before."
He said he feels "an immense sense of responsibility to guide you through this next evolution." In this new world, success isn't about doing more. It's about becoming more.
“We're ServiceTitan, the agentic operating system of the trades.”
- Scott Goldman
Keynote: The Next Era of Commercial Contracting
Max brings AI agents to commercial contractors
Picture a technician on a hot Arizona rooftop, phone in hand. He notices liquid pooling near an HVAC unit, indicating a disconnected condensate line nobody had caught yet.
He opens Atlas, ServiceTitan's AI assistant, describes what he's seeing and snaps a photo. By the time he's back in his truck, it's already a documented finding waiting in the office.
That scenario set the tone for Pantheon 2026's Commercial Service and Construction keynote. Atlas captured the moment — but it was Max, ServiceTitan's automation package for commercial contractors, that turned it into action.
"It takes on the heavy lifting, connecting your entire business, and multiplying the capacity of your team," said Alex Kablanian, GM of Commercial & Construction at ServiceTitan.
Max builds on more than 100 new foundational features delivered over the past year. A few of the automations highlighted at Pantheon:
Equipment Agent: Automatically populates manufacture dates and links compatible parts (filters, belts, refrigerant type) based on a unit's model and serial number.
Findings Agent: Reviews completed work orders in the office and recommends Findings technicians may have missed. "A Finding is a little like finding money in the couch cushions," said Shwetabh Mittal, VP of Product.
Daily Log Agent: Builds a foreman's daily log from voice notes and photos, and calls in the RFI Agent or Change Order Agent when it spots a conflict in the field. "Let the documentation build itself as they work, and hand them their time back," said Kaahini Shetty, who leads product for construction.
Invoice Agent: At Gulfshore Air and Heating, invoice prep time dropped from 30 minutes to under 5 minutes, and they now get paid in under five days — days to payment are down 70% — with the help of Invoice Agent.
"Max turns habits that you have to remember, into automations that happen without you thinking about it," Kablanian said.
- Brendan Meyer
Photo Gallery
The first day of Pantheon, in pictures
Breakout Session: How Process Grew One Roofing Business Into a Regional Powerhouse
Victor Smolyanov made $700,000 on $19 million of roofing work. Then he saw another owner's P&L.
In 2019, Victor Smolyanov's roofing company installed more than 2,400 roofs. He left home at 5 a.m. and got back at 10 most nights, and much of his team kept the same hours.
The company earned $10 million the year before. Smolyanov wanted $20 million. He finished at $19 million, and to suppliers and manufacturers it looked like a win. Then he checked the bottom line.
"Our bottom line was 3.5%. We made [about] $700,000 on installing $19 million worth of business," Smolyanov, founder & CEO of Build Brands, said during his Pantheon session, Built to Scale, How Process Grew One Roofing Business into a Regional Powerhouse.
His leadership team spent the next meeting planning how to avoid the same outcome. They talked about hiring more sales reps, call center reps and production staff, then realized they could only afford those hires by doing more work. Smolyanov floated a 10% price increase. His sales manager disagreed. The meeting ended in tears.
A few weeks later he attended a conference in Florida and watched another contractor’s presentation. This window-company owner put his P&L on the screen: a $6 million top line and a bottom line of $1.5 million.
"That dude did a third of the work that we did and made double the money," Smolyanov said.
Establishing the best price scared him from the start. "I'm a nobody," he remembered thinking, so he undercut companies that had been around for decades. He also said he didn't know how to sell value.
"I was like, ‘I'm an idiot. I'm not running my business correctly,’" Smolyanov said.
He flew home and raised prices "quite a bit," he said, and the company worked on how to provide a better customer experience, how to hire better crews, and how to take better care of its team. Revenue fell to $16 million in 2020. But the bottom line increased to $3.2 million.
Smolyanov said sales training had to change, too. He tried to coach reps himself for about three months and concluded he couldn't do it well. The company hired a sales manager from a window company known for selling on value and built its own training system from there. Some reps who were used to selling on price left. Others stayed, and one now trains incoming salespeople.
The leadership team now meets every Thursday at 8:30 a.m. to review the prior week's scorecard, a habit from the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) system the company adopted around 2018. Smolyanov said the first session with an EOS implementer started with seven people in the room and ended with five.
By his account, the company grew from $16 million in 2020 to $160 million in 2025. He later sold it to a private equity firm, then left with 25 members of his original team to start businesses in flooring and plumbing, with roofing to follow.
The standard he returned to was less about revenue and more about his phone.
"You know it's working when you're not getting those calls and you're getting to work on the things that you actually enjoy and the things that bring you happiness as well," Smolyanov said.
Breakout Session: The Year Headcount Stops Being the Growth Plan
The year headcount stops being the growth plan: Enter Atlas + Command Center
Juliette Armour started with a heat wave.
Armour, a group product manager at ServiceTitan, took a Pantheon breakout room through the first hot week of a summer to demonstrate how Atlas and Command Center can save businesses from costly miscommunications. Marketing sees demand climbing and doubles the ad spend. Leads arrive. The scheduling tool, booked solid for nine days, has no record of the marketing campaign. The CSR tells each caller the next opening is Thursday. The caller hangs up and dials a competitor.
The company paid for the lead and lost the job.
Armour built the scene from six disconnected AI tools, each with its own contract and support line. Every vendor claims to be the answer, she said, while the people connecting the tools are the CSRs copying text from one screen to another and the operations manager with a browser full of open tabs at 6 a.m.
Reserve the schedule before the calls come
Deanna Kawasaki, senior director and product manager for data and AI, said the handoffs are only part of the problem. Timing is the other. A direct mail campaign needs about seven days to produce responses, and other campaigns need three to five. For that whole window, the system of record shows open capacity the campaign is about to fill.
Atlas places a hold on that capacity when someone launches the campaign, Kawasaki said, much like a reservation on a ticket. The next dispatcher or marketing manager sees the board as it will look, not as it looks today. If bookings fall short, the hold releases. She said the system also needs to register when someone else has already acted on the same recommendation, so an owner and a marketing manager do not both click the same button.
A ranked list that shows its work
Armour showed Command Center, which has three parts: goals, insights and automations. Owners upload the goal spreadsheet they already keep, and Atlas reads it and asks a couple of clarifying questions. Insights arrive ranked, each with a recommended action. Crucial time is saved and high priority items get immediate attention.
One example on screen showed a business 52 hours under capacity next week. Atlas built the forecast from historical demand and weather data, compared it with the business's capacity and recommended raising marketing activity.
"Every recommendation tells you why Atlas made it and what it expects to happen," Armour said. The owner approves it, asks a question or dismisses it. Showing its reasoning is one of Kawasaki's tests for any vendor's tool. The other two she touts are: does the tool ask before it acts and does it talk to anything else you use? Atlas does all three.
Max customers go first
Command Center is in private preview for Max customers only, Armour said. “The reason being that if you’re not on Max, a lot of your data isn’t in ServiceTitan.” Atlas needs call and field data inside ServiceTitan to see why one technician averages a $5,000 ticket and another $10,000 and other details like that for Command Center to work properly. Max customers can sign up for the private preview right away.
– Deborah Goldman
Photo Gallery
Day One at Pantheon, Caught on Film
Doors are open and the floor is buzzing. Watch now.
Community Building: On and Off The Floor
Customers took to Masterminds, our community group for ServiceTitan customers, to share their behind-the-scenes experience from the floor!
Customers can network with industry professionals, ask questions, share tips and tricks, and learn from community and brand resources.
