Artificial intelligence is reshaping facility management, but technology alone isn't enough. Dr. Matt Tucker and Serena Pau, Chief Commercial Officer at Neuron Digital, explore how facility managers can prepare for AI by improving digital maturity, breaking down data silos and embracing curiosity as a critical professional skill.
Artificial intelligence is changing the way facilities operate, but successful adoption starts long before implementing new technology. Recorded live at World Workplace Asia-Pacific in Hong Kong, Dr. Matt Tucker, IFMA's Director of Knowledge and Research, sits down with Serena Pau, Chief Commercial Officer at Neuron Digital, to discuss digital transformation across the region, the importance of breaking down data silos and why curiosity may be one of the most valuable skills facility managers can develop. They also explore how AI can improve reporting, energy management and decision-making while keeping people at the center of the workplace.
Timestamps:
Serena Pau: [00:00:00] of course the AI can automate something, you know, but ultimately we still want to have the human touch, and, um, the technology is not to replace people.
I think the technology is to help people to do a better job, right?
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Artificial intelligence is changing the way facilities operate, but successful adoption starts long before implementing new technology. Recorded live at World Workplace Asia Pacific in Hong Kong, Dr. Matt Tucker, IFMA's Director of Knowledge and Insights, sits down with Serena Pau, the Chief Commercial Officer at Neuron Digital, to [00:01:00] discuss digital transformation across the region, the importance of breaking down data silos, and why curiosity may be one of the most valuable skills facility managers can develop.
They also explore how AI can improve reporting, energy management, and decision-making while keeping people at the center of the workplace. Now, let's get into it.
Matt Tucker: Welcome to this podcast. We are live at World Workplace Asia Pacific in Hong Kong, and I am delighted to be joined by my, my guest today, Serena Pau, from Neuron Digital. I'm gonna let you introduce yourself, Serena, because I think that your, your current role as chief commercial officer at Neuron, I think this helps explain a lot of the story to what we're gonna talk about today- Mm
around digital transformation, the digital maturity journey, and what's happening really here in, in Asia Pacific. Mm. So welcome.
Serena Pau: Thank you. So hello, everyone. Uh, I'm Serena. I'm the chief commercial officer of Neuron. So, um, I [00:02:00] started my journey with Neuron some two years ago. We want to bring the smart building technology to different regions and see where they are at and what kind of influence we can bring to them, so that's how we all started.
Matt Tucker: Yeah. That leads us nicely onto thinking about we're, we're obviously here, we're in Asia Pacific. We're, we're in Hong Kong right now. Tell me what your perspectives are on the, the sort of digital maturity of this region. How does it look at the moment?
Serena Pau: Yeah. I would say Hong Kong is still really leading the game, you know- Mm-hmm
in terms of... You know, I've been to many sites in Southeast Asia. We are working Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam. So these are, you know, the countries that we have seen different sites. You know, from what I see, of course, they have a huge gap compared to Hong Kong, but you know, they were kind of like, uh, maybe 10 years back, you know, when, when, when, uh, you know, maybe even 10 to 15 years back when Hong Kong is starting to, you know, make sure that we have the hardcore [00:03:00] technology in place, like the building management system and so on.
So for example, Indonesia, um, you know, we are looking to, um, how we can help our customer to save energy. But then, okay, uh, this top- is a really big topic in Southeast Asia. Everybody wants to save energy. But then when you try to tap into the base system, the building management system, there wasn't data points that you can talk to.
The SI, the system integrator resources are not enough or, you know, they're not quite there. So, you know, I was jokingly, you know, talking to some competitors in Hong Kong. I was saying, "You should go there and open an academy and teach people about building management and facility management, then we can start to do something."
You know, I think Indonesia wa- uh, was at that stage. Thailand obviously is a more developed market. Yeah. We see a lot of, uh, potential there. I think people are concerned about environment there. You know, especially lately they were saying Thailand's temperature is [00:04:00] going to rise way higher than the other regions- Okay
in Southeast Asia. Yeah, compared to, uh, Bangkok with Jakarta, with KL or the capital, Thailand's temperature will be rising more rapidly in the coming years. So what are they gonna do? You know, you, you have to use AC but you want, want to save energy. You want to emit less too. So you know how to have a balance there.
Matt Tucker: Balance is a great word. It's almost like you've read my mind here, 'cause I wanna ask you how... If we look at the, the, the human resource, the facility management professional- Mm. ... okay, in this region, and I suppose a, a British term, the, the bread and butter kind of skills of a facility manager- Mm
traditionally you'd think about operations and maintenance, and then this big thing called sustainability comes along, and then that becomes an integral part of what we do. And now we have this whole digital era of AI, we have Internet of Things, smart buildings, all of these things are now kind of essential to the [00:05:00] FM's role.
But how, how do you see that balance working within, within th- this region in terms of the talent and abilities of the FM professional in this region?
Serena Pau: Yeah. I see a lot of countries, like we even work in Japan, you know, they always talk about aging, you know- Yeah ... the, the whole society is aging, especially the facility management industry.
So... And then there is technology coming, right? There is robotics, you know, we were working with, uh, hotels in Singapore looking into how we can have robotics in the hotel, and what, what goals do you want to achieve? Is it doing facility management? Is it actually just to greet people, improve your brand? So we need to strike a balance there, and then for the individual talents, I think, you know, the challenge is how they can work with AI or how they can work with technology- Mm-hmm
and how they can change. Because I see technology as a tool, but then change management is a bigger elephant in the room, right? Yeah. Like, um, there is [00:06:00] a new technology, but you gotta use it. If you don't use it, of course the AI can automate something, you know, but ultimately we still want to have the human touch, and, um, the technology is not to replace people.
I think the technology is to help people to do a better job, right? Mm-hmm. So, and people need to embrace it, and they need to understand it. But like what I said, maybe we need an academy to really, you know, educate people on how you can work with technology and what you should, uh, change, you know, in your mind and in your daily practice to embrace this.
Matt Tucker: So if change happens positively, then it can create an impact. When we're looking at things like AI, what do you see as the most immediate impact that it can have? Is it, you know, for example, around energy optimization or- Mm ... user experience? Or where, where do you see its most biggest impact right now?
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Serena Pau: Yeah. With AI, actually, what we see right now, it's, you know, there might be more confusion. You know, we have agentic AI. You know, now we have LLM, and then we have, you know, natural language processing as well, where we can talk to the AI, right? But then the bigger question become, so, okay, I have AI. What can I ask?
You know, of course you have your daily operation question, and so on. So I think the AI needs to fit with, you know, the vertical know-how. It needs to have [00:08:00] some sort of industry knowledge, so when we ask AI question, I'm not asking in blank. So for example, in our product, we focus on, you know, questions that people always ask, like, you know, energy trend, anomaly analysis.
What is the recommendation? I don't want the AI to tell me analytics. I want recommendations which I can take actions, right? So I think these are the thing that people should really look into, how, how AI can, uh, impact their work, and how they can make AI useful.
Matt Tucker: I mean, AI is advancing every day. It's hard to, to keep abreast of these changes and- Mm.
-the, the developments and sophistication of it. I don't know what version of ChatGPT we're on right now. Mm. Yeah. But I know, you know, within 12 months it's just rapidly advancing. How do people keep up with this? How do people identify the improvements that it can make- Mm. -to help them do their jobs better?
Serena Pau: Yeah. Um, you know, with this AI age, I think people really need to know how to ask questions, right? So in [00:09:00] order to keep up with it, people need to be more curious than before, you know. Mm. We were seeing when AI takes over a lot of operation, what is the essence of human that we definitely need to improve on?
It's our curiosity. If you're not curious about a job, if we're not curious about how we can improve, then, you know, the AI will just do whatever it wants, you know. Like, okay, like HVAC optimization, those are just pattern learnings. You know, learning history, learning the weather, do predictions. You know, those can be taken over by a machine, but, you know, a human still need to be curious enough to understand, oh, so now with weather and with HVAC, you know, a very huge consumption of energy in the building, and then with other factors like robotics in the building, so, you know, where do I stand?
They still need to have the strong curiosity- Mm. -to, you know, to position ourselves into this, uh, new AI world. I think, you know, it's impossible to just be reading or, you know, just be, uh, [00:10:00] watching a lot of podcasts in order to understand how we can, you know, react to this. I think, um, having a curiosity in your heart and keep asking questions.
Uh, keep asking the AI questions. Although it might be hallucinating, you know, then you need to be able to judge, right?
Matt Tucker: IFMA published a report, uh, last year called The Rise of the FM Analyst, and it identified six key traits of what the contemporary facility manager should, should look like. And curiosity was actually one of those.
Yeah. So it's, it's great to hear you say that. Yeah. But when you were saying that then, it's, y- you know, yes, you look at pattern recognition and then being curious about what that story is, is, is behind it.
Serena Pau: Mm.
Matt Tucker: How good are we right now at actually telling that story? So yes, I'm- I've been curious. I'm trying to inquire about what I see.
Serena Pau: Mm.
Matt Tucker: Uh, but how good am I then to, to tell that story to the right people to get the results that we need?
Serena Pau: Yeah. That's why I think, you know, after asking question, the other thing we're thinking, you know, [00:11:00] stories in our industry, especially in facility management, are often told by reports. Sadly, you know, of course people talk, but report is still the number one thing that the sustainability team will look at, the hotel owners will look at.
So the question become how can we make report better? You know, there is two ways. One is we can ask the AI to generate reports to help me to tell the story, you know, without any prerequisites. Mm. You know? And the other way is I have a existing report, but how can I map all the data I have collected through a smart building technology, and then map all the data back to my current report, and maybe tell me how I can improve it, right?
So the AI reporting, I see that as a huge change in the industry. You go to talk to any, you know, facility managers, everybody's saying, you know, "This is a great thing that our industry definitely need," because we suffer too much and we spend too much time on entering every small things [00:12:00] that we have collected.
Yeah. Right?
Matt Tucker: I would love to continue this conversation a lot longer than we have. But if I could just bring this to a, a close, um, what would you think, if you could give some advice on how organizations should, should, you know, take their digital maturity journey forward, what perhaps does that future-ready journey look like to you?
Serena Pau: I think, you know, one is, you know, we need to embrace different technology working together. In the past, we have different, uh, systems in our building. They are all working in silo, and the facility managers suffer from it. And we're okay. Why is that? We need to change our mind to, you know, have the readiness to tell ourselves, "Actually, we need to embrace this change."
So, you know, this is the number one thing I think the industry really need to do in the future. And then the next thing is once you embrace that, then the data silo might be breaking. Then you can start to collect data. You can start to create AI report. You can start to use AI. But- Mm ... you know, if [00:13:00] the data collection part...
Sad to say, you know, in the past seven years, you know, that I've been in this industry, it's, we're still talking about the same thing. You know, data collection. It's boring, you know? Yeah, yeah. We, we have changed so much in the past seven years. We really need to do something today. Yeah.
Matt Tucker: So really it's mindset first.
Yeah. And then we can look at the data process afterwards.
Serena Pau: Correct.
Matt Tucker: Wonderful. Yeah. That's a great way to close. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you, Matt. I really appreciate it.
Serena Pau: Thank you.
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