Eighty percent of commercial building managers using AI plan to increase use of the technology, half of them planning to “significantly increase use,” according to a Honeywell report released last week.
More than 40% said they would moderately ramp up AI use in the next 12 months, mainly for improving security, streamlining energy management and integrating predictive maintenance, Honeywell says in the report.
For its AI in Buildings study, Honeywell commissioned Wakefield Research to poll 250 U.S. building managers and decision-makers that already used AI to manage properties with over 250 occupants, according to a release accompanying the report. The company found that 55% of respondents across building types use their AI for energy management. Just over 40% use it for water usage monitoring and 40% for temperature and comfort controls implementation.
An earlier report, by JLL, points to ways property managers can leverage their AI use. Current AI capabilities, such as image recognition, data modeling and text generation, can potentially optimize an estimated 65% of sustainable asset improvement-related tasks, according to the report. To get the most of the technology, building owners must take proactive steps by defining AI objectives and priorities, assessing organizational readiness, analyzing providers and evaluating the best approach to harvest capabilities, whether by purchase, build or partnerships, JLL noted at the time.
Building control firms have been helping facilities managers make better use of AI by updating systems and introducing tools that leverage AI and automation. For example, Johnson Controls in November expanded the capabilities of its OpenBlue Enterprise Manager Suite, including customer-facing generative AI applications, more autonomous building controls and an improved user experience. Also, Schneider Electric in February released an all-in-one HVAC room controller that leverages AI-driven optimization capabilities to drive energy and emissions reductions.
Standing in front of their plans for further AI deployment among users is a skills gap, the Honeywell report says. More than 90% of respondents reported facing challenges in hiring skilled, tech-savvy individuals, per the report. Although this is a challenge, it also presents an opportunity for building operators to leverage AI's capabilities to enhance employee training, augment their current workforce and upskill labor, Honeywell says.
For JLL, which has built up its internal AI capabilities and faced the skill challenge head on over the past few years, implementing AI comes down to talent.
“The way we differentiate ourselves is that we are very intentional in terms of the technology we build, and then the talent that we recruit,” JLL Chief Technology Officer Yao Morin told Facilities Dive. After that, success technology comes down to making tools that people find useful and “relentlessly tracking the adoption and training.”
Last year, the commercial services firm trained roughly 20,000 employees on how to use AI, which Morin says “is not by accident.” She said that it was the result of a dedicated effort because of how much potential JLL sees in the technology.
“And then you see a lot of creativity out of it,” Morin added. “Because we actually see a lot of our employees being so innovative and coming up with use cases for AI without us even thinking about it. ‘Oh, you can do it this way too,’” she said.
Security and safety are also popular use cases for building managers, with 63% of respondents using AI to monitor for unusual behavior, 52% implementing location tracking systems for occupant safety and 45% integrating biometrics-based access control systems, Honeywell says.
The findings are in line with a survey by Genetec, which found that 37% of physical security end users plan to explore the integration of AI into physical security systems in 2025, compared with just 10% that did in 2024. As physical security becomes a priority for owners, operators and occupants, firms like Volt AI and Butlr are leveraging AI to improve existing cameras and develop new systems that can protect facilities and people.
“[The] common thread is ‘How do you reduce staff or reduce costs?’,” Dmitry Sokolowski, founder and chief technology officer at Volt AI, which provides dynamic tracking of people and objects in facilities’ digital twins, said in an interview. “With a system like ours, you’re able to basically remove the historical sort of non-useful tasks for people and redeploy them in a more effective way.”
