Some of you remember Chuck.
We quietly launched Chuck last year as a prototype—a way to test whether natural language queries could actually work against our massive permit database. We collected emails. We ran some beta tests. And we learned a lot.
Today, Chuck is gone and we are introducing Charlie.
Why the rename?
Honestly? "Chuck" had some baggage we didn't anticipate. (Google "chuck in a truck" if you're curious.) But more importantly, we rebuilt the product from the ground up. New name felt right and a dog persona fits well with the idea that Charlie is a dependable assistant who's always at the ready to do the hard work: astute, loyal, focused, and trustworthy.
What Charlie does
Charlie is an AI agent that searches our database of millions of building permits and contractor records using plain English.
No SQL. No API calls. No learning our filter syntax. You just tell Charlie what you need, "Find all data center permits in Virginia from 2024" or "Show me the most active roofing contractors in Houston," and Charlie goes to work.
A few things that make Charlie different:
- She understands what you mean. Ask for "battery storage permits" and Charlie knows to also look for "energy storage," "BESS installations," and related terms. Traditional search requires exact matches. Charlie doesn't.
- She filters the noise. Our beta testers were hunting for niche permit types buried in 185 million records. Charlie found them—filtering out false positives and surfacing only what mattered.
- She's iterative. Most database queries are one-shot: you get what you get. Charlie lets you refine, pivot, expand, and explore until the data is exactly right.
What our beta testers said
We've been running Charlie with a handful of customers since late 2025. One of them, Gary Stein from 61HAWK, was searching for very specific contractors who worked on very specific permit types. Not at all a common search.
His words: "We were shooting an arrow through a hole in the fence and hoping we were hitting a target. Charlie changed that completely."
Gary got hundreds of qualified leads within six days. That's the kind of result we built Charlie to deliver.
Who should use Charlie
If you've ever:
- Spent hours manually filtering permit searches
- Wondered if you're missing results because you didn't use the right keywords
- Wished you could just ask for what you need
- Needed answers fast
Charlie's for you. She's useful whether you're in construction tech, real estate, energy, home services, telecom, or research. Basically: if you need permit or contractor data, Charlie can fetch it.
Have Charlie dig our data
Charlie is live now at charlie.shovels.ai or learn more here.
