Are We Ready For Autonomous Buildings

Are We Ready For Autonomous Buildings?

Real estate leaders' desire to have one single command centre to coordinate all activities within a building, and broader property portfolio, is a growing phenomenon.

For many, the ideal version of this kind of technology is found in popular culture. If we consider the computer on the Starship Enterprise from the science fiction series Star Trek, it could:

• Identify exactly what was happening with every component and occupant of the ship.
• Present status of conditions to operators through various screens and voice interfaces.
• Control and change conditions on command.
• Adapt conditions automatically based on analysed needs and occupant preferences or requirements.

Now imagine a building or campus operating like the Enterprise - a seamless, flexible building environment, with a technical underpinning, that provides:

• Integrated views of the building, occupants and overall environment for operational and financial reporting, analysis and decision-making.
• Connected processes to streamline building services and maintenance for efficiencies, cost savings and quality of outcomes.
• Adaptive systems infused with intelligence, automatically adjusting building conditions.
• Effortless experiences for occupants as they engage with the environment and one another, integrating building services with other enterprise, personal and external systems.

This isn't science fiction anymore. All of these core technical capabilities exist today - as can be seen in the Verdantix Green Quadrant report on IoT digital platforms for building operation. Each organization falls on a spectrum regarding the degree of autonomous computing it is willing and able to embrace. Overall, this vision is about evolving the built environment to be highly connected - both to its occupants, and as an integral part of the broader enterprise and wider physical environment. This also entails the capacity to manage a fleet, aka a portfolio, of buildings and assets in a coordinated fashion as they react to internal and external influences, such as climate events.

A critical element of achieving this vision is creating a strong architecture and digital foundation. The market is still in the early stages of bringing together disparate silos of data and solutions. Vendors all across the real estate and built environment technology landscape aspire to supply broader smart building platforms, or seamlessly integrate with them, armed with the latest innovations in IoT and AI. Traditional building technology markets are and will be further disrupted as information and access to operational systems are increasingly unleashed into the digital world - paving the way for greater innovation, and greater competition.

We are in for an interesting ride.

Find out more about advances in digital building platforms in the Verdantix Green Quadrant: IoT Digital Platforms For Building Operation 2024. The report provides property owners, asset managers, real estate executives and facilities managers with comprehensive insights into 12 prominent IoT digital building platforms, helping them select the best-fit provider for their needs.

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