Vik Bangia and James Waddell discuss how AI is transforming facility management and corporate real estate, from streamlining operations to improving decision-making. They explore real-world use cases, tech like visual condition assessments, and the importance of human oversight.
Vik Bangia, CEO of Verum Consulting, and James Waddell, the President of Cognitive Corp discuss the transformative impact of AI on the corporate real estate and facilities management sectors. They share practical use cases for AI and highlight AI's potential in operational tasks, facility management and report generation. Despite challenges around data confidentiality, the duo emphasizes AI’s role in enhancing decision-making, operational efficiency, and continuous learning. They also touch on evolving technologies like visual condition assessments and stress the importance of human oversight in AI applications.
This episode is sponsored by ABM! Learn more about ABM here.
James Waddell: [00:00:00] You had mentioned earlier, potentially AI being able to control features and functions of the building. The pushback is the fear of the unknown and lack of trust and the thing or the intelligence that's controlling the building. I think we'll get there over time, just as human beings in general. We need a level of experience to build trust.
We don't give it like trust is earned. It's just how we are. And I think once we get there, we'll start seeing micro cases and then eventually macro cases where we're controlling full facilities with cognitive buildings who are optimizing the space for the type of work and the type of people that are in that space.
Host: Welcome to Connected fm, a podcast connecting you to the latest insights, tools, and resources to help you succeed in facility management. This podcast is brought to you by ifma, the leading professional association for facility managers. If you're ready to grow your network and advance in your career.
Go to ifma.org to get started. In [00:01:00] today's episode, Vic Banga, CEO of Vera Consulting, sits down with James Woodell, the president of Cognitive Corp, to discuss how AI is transforming facility management and corporate real estate. From streamlining operations to improving decision-making. They explore real world use cases, evolving technologies like visual condition assessments, and the importance of human oversight.
Now, let's get into it.
Vik Bangia: I'm Vik Bangia, CEO of Verum Consulting. We're a corporate real estate and facilities management outsourcing advisory practice.
James Waddell: And I'm James Waddell. I work at Cognitive Corp, very focused on AI innovation for the built environment. And we do a number of things including publications with experts like Vik.
Vik Bangia: Yeah. And today we wanted to talk about how we feel that AI is changing the FM industry specifically from my vantage point, how it's changing the corporate real estate and facilities management outsourcing industry [00:02:00] and also changing the overall built environment.
James Waddell: Yeah. So, let's back up a little bit, Vik. So you and I had an opportunity to set down and really talk a little bit about your life story, and I think that was the starting point. For how we were able to get some, I think, real world use cases and how AI can help anyone along their journey. Can you tell us a little bit about the book that we've recently worked on?
Vik Bangia: Sure. Yeah. So I wanted to write a book about my career path and a little bit about AI and as well, because I wanted to talk about how if I was a younger corporate real estate or facilities management person coming up in the ranks. At the time I didn't have AI at my disposal, but today people do, and AI can really help you chart your career path in this industry.
And so I started telling James' story about that. I said, you know, I sort of lament the fact that I'm the tail end of my career, where right now AI is gonna be very helpful for me in my business, but it's not gonna be helpful necessarily for me in my career because my career path is largely over.
But I thought I had enough life lessons in the way I, managed my career that we could write a book [00:03:00] about how AI can be a benefit to people who are starting out in their career, or people that are making a change to their career or even people who are trying to, you know, go out strong. And I think AI can certainly help people do that.
So we collaborated on a book and it was really fun experience and really enjoyed it.
James Waddell: It really was I learned so much about you and I think really one of the very good tactical benefits. In this book, at least from an AI technology perspective. One, it was how we wrote it but more importantly, two, it's, it really the, after reading it several times myself, 'cause I learn something new every time I read it is the practical adVike of how someone, no matter where they are in their career journey, I.
They can use some of these AI tools to help them overcome objections or develop work results or to become more productive and beneficial to their employer or clients in some way.
Vik Bangia: Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit about how AI can help facilities, managers, operationally. Manage buildings and manage them in the built environment, because that's really where your company and where you come from.
And I think. [00:04:00] AI can be so powerful in reporting and in in managing facilities. Yeah. And so talk a little bit about how you see AI benefiting those in the facilities industry.
James Waddell: You know, we had an opportunity just earlier before this podcast to hear Dean talk a little bit. So good job Dean. Dean drove a industry report called Game Changer.
And I had an opportunity to sit on the panel to help create that report. And it really goes deep into how AI can help facility managers do facility management stuff. And it's a excellent report. I, the world is moving from learning about AI and chat and how it can help me find information into being able to use, we call them non-biological or AI agents.
As personal assistants or as remote workers interns, if you will. And you're gonna see a lot more of that in 2025. But as a facility manager, just imagine if you had the ability to hire at very little cost. An intern that was an expert at something that took to take over all those [00:05:00] laborious, repetitive tasks that you do on a day-to-day basis.
Yeah, that's what AI is able to do for us. And just about any scale and across just about any kind of process. Yeah,
Vik Bangia: and you can use it in various different applications. You can certainly use it operationally for facilities management. I actually have AI agents on my website, so then anybody comes. To the website, they can ask questions of the AI agent and tell, and that AI agent will either tell 'em the answer or direct them to where they can find the answer.
And it really helps you know, folks that are, you know, visiting the website to, to understand a little bit more. But also I think what it does is it allows, for continuous learning. And for, you know, buildings to become smarter, leveraging the historical results of what's coming out from those AI agents.
If you're talking about managing multiple facilities that all, or using some of the same systems, they can become better at managing those systems and reporting on the performance of those systems.
James Waddell: There, there's some things in the wings that are coming up that are fairly new.
So imagine not a full facility. Condition assessment, but a visual assessment of facilities. So, running [00:06:00] around the show today is a really smart guy named Billy Holder. Billy Holder is developing a technology where you just take a quick video of a space and it'll develop a report, visual condition report, and then provide guidance to a facility management team that's an expert to go out and potentially do some extra deep dive conditional assessments if needed.
Vik Bangia: Yeah.
James Waddell: So those are the things that are absolutely coming. It's amazing. Yeah.
Vik Bangia: And some of what AI can do, you know, really sort of helps with what I consider the mundane you know, in, in the corporate real estate facilities management, outsourcing business, you know, developing an RFP writing RFP questions you know, things like that can be done.
Leveraging ai I tend to never write the same RFP twice, so AI is actually a great benefit to me because AI can. Make sure that I don't generate the same RFP twice. But the challenge with ai especially in my business, is there's a lot of conversations that I will have with a per prospective client before we put out an RFP.
And those conversations tend to include very sensitive discussions sometimes highly confidential discussions about business strategy and things like that. So in order to leverage ai, we have to make [00:07:00] sure that, you know, that those conversations, one, are approved to be recorded and utilized, which that gets into a.
Sort of a gray area because oftentimes to put that information, especially confidential information into an AI system can, you know, breach confidentiality. So, I'm a little compromised in, in that I can't use AI the way I would love to be able to use it. But if I have a client that's willing to.
Have that information be made semi-public or have a potential of being public then it's okay. But what comes outta that I think are higher quality RFPs RFPs that have a scope of work that's specifically tied to that client's desires and scope of work. And also to validate that scope of work can be clear, achievable, and realistic, so that we're not trying to create something that service providers cannot actually live up to, which is big.
The biggest problem and complaint and challenge that most clients have is that they need something done and that they, their serVike providers either just can't do it. Or the cost is too high. You know, and then the answer is, well, let's just leave that off the [00:08:00] scope of work. So nobody's getting you know, asking for something that they can't deliver on.
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James Waddell: No I love real world practical examples. Right. So, and really what we're talking about here [00:09:00] is how an agent, an AI agent, can be an assistant to the people who need something done. And I think the, a best example is what you and I lived and we wrote your book. We sat down in a video call and we had a, just a conversation.
Just two guys talking about your life and your lessons and the things that you wanted to tell your audience.
Vik Bangia: Yeah. With a little point counterpoint. 'cause that was kind of fun too. Exactly. Where, you know, you pushed back on some things I was saying. And we had the agent helping us 'cause they were recording and listening and interpreting and evaluating what we were saying.
James Waddell: Yeah, and it was all and then, so we took that recording and then we sent it over to the agent who was a different agent. So this one's expert at writing and our style, and it developed the drafts that we were able to then go and refine and make them a very quality, and I mean that sincerely, I'm very proud of the output that, that we've developed here, that you have in your book.
Quality deliverable, that's easy to read, very high impact. And it was done with the assistance of ai.
Vik Bangia: Yep. And the other thing too, the quality's high, right? [00:10:00] So now let's transfer that quality to how you report up the building operational data that you need to give to your senior leadership. Within your company, if you were producing reports and they weren't very high quality or they were missing pieces, AI can actually help you create a higher quality, more meaningful, more impactful report as well as the analytics. That, that come from that may allow you to make better, faster, smarter decisions.
All of that is an enhancement. Now, I always think that AI has to be done in that context because there's a lot of negativity around ai that AI can do things that are not good. And I think the important thing is that when you channel AI for the benefit and for good it's a very powerful tool.
James Waddell: You, you had mentioned earlier, potentially AI being able to control features and functions of the building. We'd like to consider that an evolution of a smart building. Selfishly, we call it cognitive building 'cause we work at cognitive core. But that's a reality. I mean, that was IBM's vision for Watson in facility management was to be able to have some level.
In fact, they coined the term cognitive building. [00:11:00] The pushback is the fear of the unknown and lack of trust and the thing or the intelligence that's controlling the building. I think we'll get there over time, just as human beings in general. We need a level of experience to build trust.
We don't give it like trust is earned. It's just how we are. And I think once we get there, we'll start seeing micro cases and then eventually macro cases where we're controlling full facilities with cognitive buildings who are optimizing the space for the type of work and the type of people that are in that space.
Vik Bangia: Yeah. When you say, when we get there, so what are some of the short term risks that you think exist for people who are just now embarking on ai? And want to get involved but are concerned or have fearful in some way of giving up that data, giving up that information, having it be semi-public like we talked about.
What are the biggest challenges you feel exist?
James Waddell: So there's two dimensions. There's the dimension of how do I use as an individual AI today. I don't think there's very many risks there or barriers there. You don't want to like put your public [00:12:00] company information on chat, GPT. So there's a risk.
Don't do that.
Vik Bangia: Don't do that. Right.
James Waddell: Don't do. Absolutely don't do that. But you should learn what it is and how you might be able to use it and reach out to an expert in ai, how you might be able to do a private deployment. So you reduce that risk and actually minimize and mitigate that risk entirely.
At an enterprise level, particularly at a full portfolio level. It gets way different, right? So there's a a matter of laws and ordinances and governance around controlling a building, and we haven't gotten there yet as a society. So there's that fear of unknown. And who holds the liability? Can it be done today?
Yeah, it can be done today. The biggest issue though, that both sides of the, those dimensions have is. What's the data that you're deriving your insights from in order to make decisions?
Vik Bangia: Yeah. Right. And from my vantage point, I think where, what I would say is that, you know, putting a human in the middle of AI so that there's an interpretation Yep.
Of the data so that it's not just being done in a hands off way with AI is really [00:13:00] important. You gotta make sure that there's still a human element to it but then it's a hugely powerful tool.
James Waddell: So what do you wanna leave the audience with as we're about out of time?
Vik Bangia: Well, I wanna leave the audience with the fact that embrace ai, first of all, it is an amazing tool, very powerful, very helpful.
Make sure that you understand it. Make sure that you rely on experts like James and others that are, you know, topnotch in their field when it comes to ai. But don't be fearful of it. It is an amazing way to augment your building facilities operations. It's a, an amazing way to enhance your corporate real estate and facilities management, outsourcing relationships.
It's just an amazing tool.
James Waddell: I would say seek out experts like, like Vik Bangia for all of your corporate real estate needs but more importantly, the world right now. Everyone that I've talked to today, and I've talked to many people in the last few days. They're all looking for practical use cases of AI and there are people out there who have done it and are doing it like Vik, and it's wonderful to get those insights from him.
Yeah.
Vik Bangia: Well, thank you ifma for this opportunity. Really appreciate it.
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