SAVANNAH, Ga. — Thousands of building operators and other real estate professionals are gathering this week for Realcomm IBcon, the annual conference showcasing the latest technology for improving properties and their operations.
The focus this year, unsurprisingly, is the potential of AI and how to implement it.
“There are now two worlds,” Jim Young, founder and CEO of Realcomm Conference Group, said Monday. “The real estate world that works at one speed, and the AI world that is not slowing down.”
Those that put in the time and effort to adapt to the new technology will define the future of real estate, technology leaders said at the opening session – while those that don’t are destined to be defined by it.
AI proliferates
This year’s conference — The New ROI: Return on Innovation — features more than 150 exhibitors showcasing their use of AI, 5G, immersive experiences, IoT, cybersecurity and other innovations changing the way building operators do their work.
Among the companies represented are property management software providers like MRI Software and Visitt and data analytics providers like Cherre and VTS.
Big and small building automation companies like Johnson Controls and Kode Labs are there, too.
Omar Tabba, chief product officer at BrainBox AI, a building management platform provider, was there to show how his company’s ARIA platform can enable facility managers to diagnose comfort issues from anywhere, arming them with an AI-driven tool to respond to out-of-the-ordinary conditions or building systems that aren’t functioning correctly.
“ARIA does an analysis, like any facilities professional would do,” Tabba said. “It fetches the outside air temperature, the average indoor temperature, the set point range and the outdoor and indoor relative humidity. It goes through each of the rooftops and sees that cooling is active with all three stages going on the rooftop units. Basically, it’s comfortable, but humid, and the recommendations are to check the dehumidification and system balancing.”
While these are standard checks for any facilities manager or HVAC maintenance technician, it may normally take 30 to 40 minutes to pull up and look at all these factors, he said.
“This takes about five seconds [with ARIA], and is a great example of agentic AI and generative AI being used in real buildings, with real equipment, solving real-world problems,” Tabba said. “Basically collapsing the time required for someone to diagnose the same exact thing.”
Seminars, workshops and exhibitions begin Tuesday. A number of companies will have a forum later this week to showcase how they’re using AI. Attendees will be able to walk around at their own speed and have conversations and get answers to questions they have about AI opportunities and challenges, said Sarah Bemporad, strategic director of content development and production at Realcomm.
