Intelligent Investment

AI facilities management: A new era of efficiency

October 24, 2024 14 Minute Read

By Jen Siebrits Ricky Bartlett Ben Taylor Tony Brearley Anna Fowler

AI facilities management A new era of efficiency

Artificial intelligence (AI) is being rapidly adopted across the facilities management industry and is having a significant impact in many areas of facilities management because it is powerful, adaptable, and cost effective.

There are four main areas where CBRE is seeing AI have an impact in facilities management:

  1. Operational excellence

  2. User experience

  3. Innovation, data, and sustainability

  4. Skills and talent

This article details the potential across these four elements, demonstrating the breadth and depth of the technology’s capacity to transform facilities management.

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1. Operational excellence

Data analytics and operational efficiency

AI is helping facilities managers by transforming the way that they analyse data. It can streamline workflows, enhance operational efficiency, and reduce errors, leading to higher quality outcomes and better overall performance. Machine learning AI algorithms can analyse and interpret vast amounts of data quickly, providing valuable insights that can help in decision-making and strategic planning for facilities management.

By linking datasets from many different sources (like asset optimisation, risk, and energy consumption), AI gives a simultaneous and holistic view of a building or estate’s performance. Looking at many datasets at the same time rather than viewing them in silos, enables facilities managers to improve service across a range of indicators – such as optimising performance, reducing cost, or reducing carbon emissions. This 360-degree estate analysis enables facilities managers to work more collaboratively with their clients and colleagues to deliver an enhanced service.

AI also has the power to significantly transform the workload of facilities managers by undertaking repetitive and routine tasks, like reviewing occupancy data for workplace comfort and adjusting building management systems (BMS). Taking advantage of administrative efficiencies could speed-up many processes and deliver faster resolutions for clients. As an example, costs of supplier goods and services can be analysed against asset quantity data to provide a matrix of costs. This matrix can be used to support fast pricing of tenders and enable a quality check of the current price of third-party suppliers, offering a rapid turnaround on the pricing of client contracts – traditionally a long and complex process. 

This also allows employees more time to focus on more complex, creative, and business-critical tasks – thereby enhancing job satisfaction and overall productivity.

Automation, optimisation, and predictive maintenance 

AI is having a transformative impact on automation in facilities management. It can automate Planned Preventative Maintenance (PPM) scheduling and work order allocation, leading to more efficient asset life cycles. Predictive maintenance and algorithms can identify risks of equipment breakdown – this replaces manual detection from a spreadsheet or static system data.

This is already having an impact on the performance of lifts. Using real-time data and predictive analytics, AI can predict failures, schedule maintenance, and analyse usage patterns. This reduces downtime, improves reliability, and enhances user experience in buildings. 

Digital twins is a concept that has been around in the facilities management and real estate industry for several years, but now, AI is turbocharging the tool’s benefits. Digital twins create virtual replicas of physical assets, enabling real-time monitoring, predictive maintenance, and optimised buildings. AI’s usage in digital twins is delivering enhanced insights into building operations, enabling facilities managers to confidently adjust the service to provide greater operational efficiency, significant cost savings, and better data for long-term decision-making.

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2. User Experience

The adoption of AI is adding value for clients and improving workplace experience across all facilities management services via several mechanisms. Chatbots and virtual assistants can provide personalised, 24/7 assistance. AI can also help in predicting occupier needs and preferences, allowing for better service customisation within buildings. The use of AI analytics is also having a transformative impact on client relationship management in facilities management by identifying patterns and trends in client behaviour and looking at an estate’s overall performance.

Workplace experience 

There are numerous ways in which integrating AI can enhance the experience of building users. Helpdesk chatbots and virtual assistants can transform the experience for building users when logging reactive requests. For example – “I need to book a desk”, “it’s too cold on my floor”, or “I need to check-in a guest”. A chatbot can respond to these requests and log the required work order to ensure that they are resolved quickly. AI can also analyse these types of requests, identifying patterns and trends in building user behaviour, leading to improved long-term workplace experience.  

Building security systems powered by AI can detect and react to security risks. Technologies such as facial recognition, access control, and video analytics can bolster the security of a building by pinpointing unauthorised entrants and unusual activity. This technology can also expedite security checks when entering buildings, improving the user experience.

AI can enhance occupant comfort by adjusting temperature, lighting, and air quality based on individual preferences and occupancy. Smart thermostats and sensors can create a more comfortable environment while reducing energy consumption and wastage.

Case Study: Space Utilisation: Optimising seating for nearly 100,000 people

Companies in every industry are still calibrating their workplaces to match hybrid strategies or employee patterns. That’s where the CBRE Occupancy Planner tool comes in – it’s a space utilisation and planning tool, powered by AI and machine learning. The technology streamlines the occupancy management process, enabling planners to deliver faster solutions that meet the hybrid work needs of clients. The CBRE Occupancy Planner has already optimised seating for 94,000 people across 89,000 available seats at CBRE operated sites.

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3. Innovation, data, and sustainability

AI is at the forefront of technological innovation: it is driving innovation in sustainability and data, leading to unique offerings that enable facilities managers to deliver benefit to client businesses. By also integrating wider technologies into operations, facilities managers can further adapt to changing market trends and offer innovative solutions to clients.

Net zero 

The built environment significantly contributes to the UK's emissions. According to Government estimates, buildings account for 30% of the country's emissions, with 23% resulting from heating and 30% of that is due to inefficiencies. Facilities managers and facilities management teams, as stewards of these buildings, must collaborate with organisations to reduce emissions, enhance energy efficiency, and ensure a positive environmental impact.

With net zero deadlines approaching and companies looking for support to achieve commitments to reduce emissions, there is more focus on what AI and emerging technologies can do to accelerate progress. Smart systems that use AI can study patterns in a building’s energy usage and suggest tactics for decreasing energy consumption. By optimising heating and ventilation systems, and lighting schedules according to occupancy and other external factors, leveraging machine learning algorithms can result in substantial energy savings. 

Extended reality, spatial computing, and AI

CBRE has been using mixed reality (MR) head-mounted displays for several years, making the jobs of our technical workforce more efficient and enabling teams to provide better customer service. The main applications for CBRE have been for remote support, inspection, and training, and they have brought significant improvements in cost and emissions reduction, as well as delivering time efficiency gains.

Soon, extended reality (underpinned by spatial computing technology) will become the eyes and ears of facilities management virtual AI assistants – the AI would use extended reality glasses or head-mounted displays to retrieve real-time data and provide insight accordingly. This will be transformative for technicians, engineers, and facilities managers, allowing them to access knowledge (like manuals, training, processes, work orders, the BMS, etc.) through a virtual AI assistant whilst wearing extended reality glasses or head-mounted display. This could enable them to carry out repairs, maintenance, training assessments and walkthroughs with live information coming through the device.

This AI extended reality solution can be used to solve technical issues, saving carbon emissions, cost, and time. Though more importantly, it can help to reduce the skills gap the industry is currently facing by expediting the onboarding process, enabling knowledge sharing, increasing uptime, increasing productivity, modernising services, and streamlining frontline operations.

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4. Skills and talent 

Facilities management is not always an obvious career choice for those beginning their career; this is partly due to a limited understanding of what facilities management entails and uncertainty about the best way to join the facilities management workforce.

With technology advances, the role of a facilities manager is evolving, resulting in a lack of qualified workers and a considerable skills gap. The changing nature of buildings requires facilities engineers to have a diverse skill set, ranging from knowledge of old mechanical plant systems in heritage buildings to understanding building automation systems in modern skyscrapers. There is no doubt that the growth of AI in facilities management industry will create an even wider skills gap. The sector needs to adapt quickly to grow an AI-literate workforce and upskill existing employees.

Despite exacerbating the skills gap, AI is supporting training and recruitment processes. It is starting to impact hiring processes through streamlining candidate assessment and recruitment, which is helpful for an industry which employs large volumes of people. It can assist facilities management providers in finding and assessing the right candidates to fill roles, as well as streamlining tasks and creating opportunities for new hires. AI-enabled companies could also be a bigger pull for new talent and facilities management providers that can capitalise on this could become a company of choice for next generation talent.

Case Study: CBRE Ellis AI

CBRE has developed its own secure generative AI tool – Ellis AI helps our global workforce turn data and content into information to boost efficiency, productivity, and security. 

Ellis AI has revolutionised how we access data, helping teams quickly comb through libraries of information to extract essential information – advanced capabilities include document abstraction for contracts, invoices and leases, and library search capabilities. Since launching Ellis AI, thousands of employees have discovered new ways to unlock efficiencies and enhance their jobs with the power of generative AI. 

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Conclusion

AI is rapidly reducing in cost and becoming exponentially more powerful. We are making substantial investments in AI development and collaborating with leading technology innovators to create facilities management solutions that improve client outcomes across all sectors.

AI in facilities management offers significant potential to advance services, but several factors need to be considered: 

  • Technology adoption: The rapid advancement of AI requires organisations to promote its adoption through training and skill development. Organisations with a culture that encourages embracing new technology will gain a competitive edge.
  • Integration: Incorporating AI into legacy systems and the required investment remains a consideration for organisations.
  • Risk: Risk assessments and business continuity planning should be applied when implementing artificial intelligence. This will mitigate possible risks like data security, data loss and power failure impacts.
  • Reliability: The reliability of AI-powered systems depends on the quality and accuracy of the data they are trained on – robust data governance frameworks are essential.
  • Over-reliance: There are still unanswered questions around the macro-impact of artificial intelligence. Notably, on the ability of users to think critically, solve problems and be creative without the use of technology. While there is significant potential for AI to drive efficiencies and support the automation of many facilities management workflows, for more complex and strategic tasks the technology should for now largely be used to augment the capacity and productivity of experienced FM resources.
  • Adherence to regulation: Organisations have a responsibility to remain up to date with emerging AI regulations.

Within facilities management, it is the providers that can bridge theoretical knowledge with practical implementation, while managing the ongoing risks, that will be able to most significantly capitalise on the benefits of AI.

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