When You Tap Your Screen, a Building Answers

We expect the store to be open when we arrive. We expect the package tomorrow, or sooner. We expect the office to work the moment we walk in. No one applauds when it does. Everyone notices when it doesn’t.

We’ve grown accustomed to a world where almost everything happens at the touch of a screen. It’s tempting to assume that as business becomes more digital, the physical environment matters less.

I believe the opposite is true.

Every digital transaction, automated process and new way of working depends on physical infrastructure. AI runs in data centers that need power and cooling. The goods we purchase online move through warehouses and logistics networks. However flexibly people work, they still need workplaces that are ready when they arrive.

The faster and more connected business becomes, the greater the consequences when infrastructure fails.

Those expectations land on corporate real estate leaders. Your job has never been harder or more important.

And the role of the built environment is only getting bigger.

For years, the conversation about facilities management (FM) focused on cost, consistency and efficiency. Those priorities remain, but the opportunity is much greater. A workplace can attract people and bring out their best, while a well-run facility protects business continuity and gives an organization the confidence to grow. And a portfolio that adapts to changing needs becomes a competitive advantage.

Executives have noticed. Nearly half of the corporate real estate leaders we surveyed this year ranked operational excellence among their top three priorities, up from about one in five in 2024.¹ It is now the most common top priority, ahead of cost savings.

How we operate buildings matters as much as where we put them and how we build them out.

And yet, while we’ve made business faster, smarter and more connected in the last 20 years, the buildings we work in mostly run the way they did two decades ago. Smart buildings have long been an unrealized promise.

AI makes a different operating model possible.

This time, three things are different. First, AI can work with the messy, inconsistent data most portfolios already have, so there is no need to replace the systems you own. Also, systems can now act: Three years ago, they flagged problems, and now they can resolve them. And finally, AI ties fragmented systems into one connected loop.

For operators, this is a shift from reacting to predicting. A fault shows up as a signal before anything has failed, allowing us to dispatch an appropriately trained technician who arrives knowing the asset’s history and the most likely fix. At a leading bank we serve, AI analytics cut alarm volume by 84%, so engineers see only what needs their attention.

Smart, connected buildings open a new frontier, but won’t replace the need for a skilled workforce. In FM, the last mile is still unequivocally physical: A licensed, credentialed professional must fix the problem. Instead, new technology will ensure technicians can be proactive, highly utilized and focused on where their time and expertise are needed most.

With half of the FM workforce projected to retire in the next decade, technology lets us do more with the expertise we have—and gives the next generation of technicians a more compelling job to step into.

For that to work, AI can’t be bolted on. It must sit inside the workflow itself: the work order, the dispatch, the site visit. It simply becomes how the job gets done.

The opportunity goes beyond FM.

FM gets smarter and more effective when it stops working in isolation. Take something as simple as a badge swiped through a turnstile. On its own, it’s an access record. Connected to other data, it’s a live picture of demand: who comes in, on which days, to which floors and spaces.

That picture can shape decisions well beyond security. It tells portfolio teams how much space they need, occupancy teams how to load-level the building, cleaning teams which days and floors to prioritize, catering teams how much to order, and workplace teams which space types people prefer. Each of those has traditionally run on its own data, owned by its own team. Put them together and the gains show up on both sides of the ledger: lower capital and operating costs, and better performance where people feel it.

That requires an integrated operating model.

Technology, real estate, procurement and operations often decide independently, and performance is measured contract by contract, with no view of the outcomes the business needs. Connected data only helps if the decisions the data enables are connected, too. That means thinking about technology, talent and service delivery together, giving people the authority to solve problems as well as report them, and defining success from the business’s perspective.

It also changes how occupiers and their service partners work together. As technology takes on more of the routine work, demand for new commercial models is increasing. Outcome-based models reward earlier answers and measurable results, in partnerships that adapt with the organizations they serve.

Think of it as a portfolio that works like a network.

Every tap on a screen sets off a chain of connections: a network, a data center, a power supply, a delivery route, a building. It works because every link is designed to work with the others.

The built environment is catching up. When you run sites, power, workforce and suppliers as one connected system, each building makes the next one smarter. The portfolio becomes more resilient and more adaptable because patterns become evident, problems surface early and the whole network can respond.

Which brings us back to our expectations—the store being open, the package arriving when expected, the office being ready when you arrive. For those moments to feel effortless, the physical environment has to work in concert with all the other systems.

Get it right, and no one will notice. That’s the measure of our success.