Reimagining Businesses with AI

CHAPTER 8Transforming the Built Environment with AI

“A great building must begin with the unmeasurable, must go through measurable means when it is being designed and, in the end, must be unmeasurable.”

—Louis Kahn

INTRODUCTION

Visionary American architect Louis Kahn (1901–1974) said the above in 1930 while talking about design. What he said about design is true for every aspect of a built environment. As businesses and institutions go through their digital transformation, there is an increasing realization that their facilities play a pivotal role in this transformation journey. Businesses and institutions are defined by their mission, strategy, operating model, and people. Each business and each institution has a mission that is enabled, augmented, and executed by its workforce, operating in its workspaces, through its workflows. They all come together in a building. Therefore, the digital transformation of buildings becomes a critical component of the digital transformation agenda of any organization. Citizens' experiences and city-scale decision making is also being rapidly impacted by design, data, and digital technologies.

These changes are driving significant economic opportunities. The size of the smart workplace market by 2023 is estimated to be $47 billion as per a recent McKinsey study. The global smart cities market is expected to be over $230 billion in the next five years. According to Navigant, which has a similar take on the market, the intelligent building ...