by Brianna Crandall — February 21, 2020 — Global information technology (IT) company IBM recently introduced artificial intelligence (AI) into its TRIRIGA solution to help real estate and facilities management (FM) professionals better utilize office space and deliver a more engaging workplace experience.
TRIRIGA, one of the leading integrated workplace management systems in the world, includes TRIRIGA Building Insights and combines occupancy data from sources, such as Wi-Fi and/or Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, with newly embedded AI.
This provides customers operating large real estate portfolios with insights to help them make smarter data-driven decisions about the way they manage their workspace. Greater visibility into space management can help organizations improve facility utilization to reduce space wastage, which can potentially result in savings on real estate operating costs, points out IBM.
Real estate today represents an increasing expense for organizations, yet older, siloed systems can make it difficult for facilities operators to understand space usage throughout their properties. According to a report from commercial real estate services firm JLL, 30% – 40% of commercial space is underutilized, based on organizations surveyed.
With TRIRIGA, customers can have an enterprise-wide view of their valuable workspaces. Embedded AI can help identify occupant trends and patterns, down to a single floor, to better anticipate and manage employee occupancy needs, adjust office layouts and address relocation requests.
Building occupants will have access to the new TRIRIGA Assistant, a smart, conversational AI tool that uses natural language processing to help users quickly and easily engage with the spaces around them. TRIRIGA Assistant can help remove the hassle of coordinating with colleagues to schedule and reserve conference rooms, submit service requests such as lighting and catering, or locate a colleague’s assigned workspace.
Kareem Yusuf, Ph.D., general manager, AI Applications, IBM, stated:
Employees and real estate are key elements to organizational growth and development, driving companies to create cost-effective and engaging workplaces that help attract and retain top talent. The implementation of TRIRIGA with embedded AI provides corporations and facility managers with insights into how they can more effectively utilize space across their enterprise. This technology can help companies address the growing expectations of today’s modern workforce and achieve better business results.
IBM Global Real Estate uses AI from TRIRIGA to help deliver a better workplace experience
The IBM Global Real Estate (GRE) team is tasked with overseeing approximately 1,300 office locations that cover 78 million square feet, across 110 countries. With such a large, global footprint, the GRE team is beginning to integrate new AI capabilities from TRIRIGA to help overcome the challenge of creating a portfolio that addresses the needs of employees while helping to control costs and deliver the best value to the business.
In the past, each office location used its own applications to manage space that often resulted in manual and time-consuming workflow. TRIRIGA enables the GRE team to create a single source for data that provides an instant view into its diverse portfolio that includes space for offices, labs, data and educational centers, and warehouses.
Consolidating space and lease information provides the GRE team with a holistic view of IBM’s real estate portfolio data and prepares the way for AI-generated insights. Applying AI to understand how employees are actually using office space will help GRE improve overall utilization by offering the right mix of space and amenities, says the group.
Marianne Flores, director, Global Real Estate Integrated Solutions, IBM, remarked:
TRIRIGA’s embedded AI will allow us to collect and analyze information quickly at a global level. With this information, we will be able to address one of our biggest challenges — balancing our portfolio while creating an environment that is attractive to our employees, helps boost their productivity, and improves our bottom line.
IBM TRIRIGA is an intelligent real estate and FM solution. Through the smart application of data, IoT and AI, TRIRIGA can help customers unlock key information and insights, and gain greater visibility into space and facility utilization, occupant experience, capital projects, and lease administration and accounting. With TRIRIGA, customers can get the most out of their real estate investments regardless of size, scale and configuration.
