Artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t limited to image generation and ChatGPT. It also exists in the physical world. And when you look around, the physical AI boom seems to be everywhere. More warehouses are starting to use autonomous robots to stock, pack, ship, and move items, autonomous vehicles are carrying deliveries and passengers, and drones are dropping off hot meals on people’s doorsteps. But for some reason, the buildings we occupy every day are being left out. This is a massive blind spot considering buildings are where people interact more than anywhere else.
It’s estimated that the average American spends around 90 percent of their time inside. You’d think our modern buildings would be equipped with high-level tech to capture important data about what goes on in these buildings, but they aren’t. Despite being a massively underutilized source of real data, most commercial buildings aren’t taking advantage of this possibility. In many cases, buildings are already equipped with the technology that captures some of this data. It just needs to be turned into something property owners can use. The problem is that most property owners don’t even know they can or should be capturing this data.
Every single day, commercial and public buildings have the ability to capture information about important factors like occupancy, airflow, temperature, equipment performance, schedules, and how use patterns change. Most of this data is trapped in a patchwork of legacy systems from different vendors, each built for a narrow job and none built to share what it knows.
A wealth of valuable data could be extracted from modern commercial buildings, but the biggest challenge is making it useful and easy to act on so owners see the payoff right away.
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Building owners can learn from Waze
Many years ago, drivers started using Waze because they wanted faster routes. As they used the app, their location, speed, and road condition reports generated real-time data that Waze used to improve the system and help reroute other drivers. The data needed to improve the system was collected as a natural by-product of people simply using the system for something they already wanted.
Commercial buildings could benefit from a similar model. Instead of asking property owners to invest in some abstract vision of an “AI-ready building,” physical AI can be built around reducing costs. When a software application can interpret what’s happening inside the building and connect it to financial outcomes, data collection becomes a critical component in running the property. Seeing an immediate payoff gives property owners a reason to participate, and the data that gets collected becomes even more valuable over time.
“Commercial buildings are living systems. Occupancy shifts, equipment ages, schedules change, and conditions are constantly evolving,” says Jennifer Nuckles, CEO of R-Zero, a company whose sensors detect how spaces are actually used and connect to a building’s existing controls, so heating, cooling, and ventilation match real occupancy patterns. “The opportunity is to turn that raw telemetry into an understanding of what’s happening, what’s inefficient, what action should be taken, and what happens afterward.”