How AI and Data Are Transforming Smart Buildings in APAC

You know, 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

people. I think the technology is to help people to do a better job. Right.

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today's episode, we're sharing a conversation recorded live at IFMA's [music] World Workplace Asia-Pacific Conference and Expo, bringing you insights straight from the event [music]

floor. Now, let's get into it.

floor. Now, let's get into it.

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 uh Serena Pal from Neuron Digital. I'm going to let you

Neuron Digital. I'm going to let you introduce yourself, Serena, because I think that your your current role as chief commercial officer right at Neuron. I think this helps explain a lot

Neuron. I think this helps explain a lot of the story to what we're going to talk about today around digital transformation, the digital maturity journey and what's happening really here

in in Asia Pacific. So welcome.

Thank you. So hello everyone. Uh I'm

Serena. I'm the chief commercial officer of Neuron. So um I started my journey

of Neuron. So um I started my journey with Neuron some two years ago. Before

that actually you know I was Neuron's client. You know we were buying Neuron

client. You know we were buying Neuron in Hong Kong and we were trying to resell it as CLP and then afterwards I joined Neuron and we started our overseas journey. You know being in Hong

overseas journey. You know being in Hong Kong is great but we need to expand overseas. So you know we want to bring

overseas. So you know 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.

We're we're obviously here we're in Asia Pacific. We're we're in Hong Kong right

Pacific. We're we're in Hong Kong right now. Tell me what your perspectives are

now. Tell me what your perspectives are on the the sort of digital maturity of this region.

Uh how does it look at the moment?

Yeah, I would say Hong Kong is still really leading the game, you know, in terms of you know I've been to many sites in Southeast Asia. um we uh work in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore,

Thailand, Vietnam. So these are you know

Thailand, Vietnam. So these are you know the countries that we have seen different sides 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 maybe even 10 to 15 years back when Hong Kong is starting to you know make sure that we have the

hardcore um technology in place like the building management system and so on. So

for example, Indonesia we are looking into um how we can help uh our customer to save energy but then okay this do it's 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 I I was jokingly you 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 um Indonesia was at that stage.

Thailand obviously is a more developed market. We see a lot of uh potential

market. We see a lot of uh potential there. I think people are concerned

there. I think people are concerned about environment uh there. you know,

especially lately, they were saying Thailand's temperature is going to rise uh way higher than the other regions in Southeast Asia. Yeah. Compared to uh

Southeast Asia. Yeah. Compared to uh Bangkok, with Jakarta, with KL, all the uh capital Thailand's temperature um will be rising more rapidly in the

coming years. So, what are they going to

coming years. So, what are they going to do? You know, you know, you you have to

do? You know, you know, you you have to use AC, but you want want to save energy. You want to, you know, emit less

energy. You want to, you know, emit less CO2. So, you know, how to have a balance

CO2. So, you know, how to have a balance there.

Balance is a great word. It's almost

like you've read my mind here because I want to ask you how if we look at the the the human resource, the facility management professional, okay, in this region

and I suppose a a British term, the bread and butter kind of skills of a facility manager. Traditionally you'd

facility manager. 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 you know AI we have you know in in internet of things smart buildings all of these things are now kind of

essential to the FM's role but how how do you see that balance working within within this region in terms of the talent and uh uh and ability ities of of the FM professional

in this region.

Yeah, I see a lot of countries like we even work in Japan you know they always talk about aging you know the the whole society is aging especially the facility

management uh you know industry. So I

think you know and then there is technology coming right there is robotics you know we were working with hotels in Singapore looking into how we can have uh robotics in the hotel and

what what goals you want to achieve you know is it doing facility management is it actually just to greet people improve your brand you know 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 and how they can change because I see technology as a tool

but then change management is a bigger elephant in the room right like um there is a new technology but you got to use it if you don't use it you know 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 so and people

need to embrace it and they need to understand it. But like what I said,

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.

Mhm. 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 user experience or where where do you

see its most uh you know biggest impact right now?

Yeah, with AI actually what we see right now is 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 what what can I ask you know of course you have your daily operation question

and so on so I think the AI needs to feed with you know the vertical knowhow it needs to have some sort of industry knowledge. So when we ask AI question

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

you know 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 the world and how they can make AI useful I mean AI is advancing every day it's hard to to keep a breast of these

changes and the developments and sophistication of it. I don't know what version of Chachi PT we're on right now, 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 to help them do their jobs better?

Yeah. Um, you know, with this AI age, I think people really need to know how to ask questions, right? So in order to keep up with it, people need to be more

curious than before. You know, we were saying 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. Yeah,

if we'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 HAC 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

understand. Oh, so now with weather and with uh HVAC, you know, um a very huge con uh 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 this strong curiosity 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 watching lot of podcast in order to understand how we can you know react to this. I think um having a curiosity uh 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.

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 uh look like and curiosity was

actually one of those. So it's it's great to hear you say that, but when you were saying that then it's, you know, yes, you look at pattern recognition and then being curious about what that story

is is behind it.

How good are we right now at actually telling that story? So yes, I'm I've been curious. I I'm trying to inquire

been curious. I I'm trying to inquire about what I see.

Uh but how good am I then to to tell that story to the right people to get the results that we need? Yeah, that's

why I think you know after asking question the other thing we were thinking you know 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 report to help me to tell the story you know

without any prerequisite 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

the industry. You go to talk to any you know facility managers, everybody is 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 that we have collected. Yeah.

Right.

Yeah. I would love to continue this conversation a lot longer than we have, but if I could just bring this to a close, what would you think if you could give some advice on how organizations

should should you know take their digital maturity journey forward?

Yeah.

What perhaps does that future ready journey look like to you?

Yeah, I think you know one is you know we need to embrace different technology working together. In the past we have

working together. In the past we have different 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 right. Um 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

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

collect data. You can start to create AI report. you can start to use AI but you

report. you can start to use AI but you know if the data collection part I sad to say you know in the past seven years you know that I've been in this industry we're still talking about the same thing

you know data collection it's boring you know we we have changed so much in the past seven years we really need to do something today so really it's mindset first and then we can look at the data process afterwards

correct wonderful that's a great way to close thank you so much for your time today I really appreciate it thank you thanks for tuning in to the Connected FM podcast. If you enjoyed

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