Smart Building Technologies Driving Buyer Demand

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Before smart buildings using connected sensors, automation and software to run their systems together, early forerunners include the thermostat in the 1800s, pneumatic controls and relays and then central control panels in the 20th century through the 1960s. Early in the following decade, an oil embargo resulted in skyrocketing energy prices – to manage energy usage better, computers were used, replacing pneumatic controls and ushering in the era of building automation.

In 1981 the phrase “intelligent buildings” was coined, attributed to United Technology Building Systems. It was used “to categorize projects that prioritized optimal relationships between structures, systems and services to save money and make better use of available resources at the same time,” according to Victoria Hanscomb in Security Journal Americas.

With the introduction of the internet to the public in the 1990s and its wider deployment from the 2000s, the term evolved into “smart building.” Technological advancements eventually enabled expansion to cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence, leveraging them to optimize sustainable use of resources and ensure improved comfort of occupants while providing real-time data for predictive maintenance.

New and better solutions

From collecting data and running software, smart buildings can now react more precisely. Instead of just monitoring and reporting conditions, AI enables systems to adjust heating, cooling, lighting and air quality on their own.

Here are the technologies that are widely deployed, commercially available but still at an early stage of adoption and mostly in pilot runs or under research.

Tried and tested

Under the tried and tested category are building management or automation systems, which act as the central control covering HVAC, lighting and equipment. They are considered standard in commercial buildings, being in use for decades now. IoT sensors are also broadly deployed now for measuring occupancy, temperature, humidity, air quality, leaks and light. There is a dedicated smart lighting option as well, consisting of luminaires that respond to occupancy and daylight as well as networked LED systems and lighting powered over Ethernet cables. Smart thermostats together with zone HVAC systems, meanwhile, allow schedules, learning setpoints and remote control. To cut glare and cooling loads, there is smart glass that enables windows to tint automatically.

For access control, a cloud-based approach is available, and this covers mobile credentials, video intercoms, smart locks, remote unlock and audit logs that are usually linked to property management software. This method enables revocation of door access, intercom listing and amenity bookings of residents, guests or tenants moving out in one step.

To track energy and water usage by floor, tenant or equipment, buildings employ submetering technology, while fault detection and diagnostics help flag broken equipment or wasted energy.

In public, commercial and shared-use buildings, space and room-booking tools help manage common areas, prevent double bookings and generate occupancy data. Tenant apps and digital signage provide additional means for comfort requests, building notices and wayfinding.

Found in both residential and commercial smart buildings are Matter and Thread, the first a standard and the other a protocol. Both let smart devices from different brands work together.

Early-stage adoption

More options are showing up in the sphere of smart building technologies and have started to be deployed.

There are now BMS and energy platforms with built-in AI, and they are moving beyond fixed rules to systems that keep tuning efficiency without manual intervention. For predictive maintenance and remote services, vendors are selling machine-learning models as a monitored service that predicts equipment failures from trend data.

To test changes and plan work without disrupting operations in buildings, virtual models or digital twins are created. However, they are currently expensive, plus their value varies between projects.

Combining data streams, such as badge, Wi-Fi, CO₂ and camera counts, to form a reliable insight instead of adding single-purpose sensors is another automation and optimization option. So is merging building automation, IT, security and property-tech systems into one software layer. This is done using open APIs and data models. Several academic, industry and institutional sources have compared the Brick, Project Haystack and ASHRAE 223P data models.

Grid-interactive buildings are one technology that the US Department of Energy envisioned for the future. These are structures that shift or reduce load in response to grid signals and prices, and coordinate solar, batteries, EV chargers and thermal storage. Research shows a clear trend toward treating buildings as flexible assets on the grid. However, a lot of evidence still comes from simulations.

With all these interconnections, cybersecurity is becoming a basic requirement. BACnet/SC is a protocol that adds encryption to the long-standing BACnet standard, alongside network segmentation and zero-trust security for building systems.

Research, design and experimental testing

Providing a roadmap for the future are a few more technologies being explored.

Agentic AI is what Frost & Sullivan's 2026 analysis calls the biggest growth area in this sphere. The concept revolves around software agents that coordinate HVAC, lighting, air quality and occupancy. This trend is supported by the joint announcement of Schneider Electric, HPE and NVIDIA on “the industry's first Industrial AI Agents at the Edge, providing a practical pathway to Physical AI."

Also in the works is running AI on-site or edge AI. In this scenario, processing is done in the building instead of the cloud. This model is said to give faster responses and can continue working when the internet is down. It also stores data locally, safeguarding sensitive information.

For managing building clusters, there are AI platforms that can run them together, compare their performance levels and share what works between them.

Some delivery, cleaning, security patrol and inspection robots using elevators and doors through building system connections are deployed today. A quick search on the internet listed NAVER 1784 in Seongnam, South Korea, and two in Japan, Hotel Keihan Universal Tower in Osaka and Yaesu Central Tower in the Tokyo Midtown Yaesu complex.

There are ideas in research papers as well, such as “From automation to agency: Prototype for self-owning intelligent buildings enabled by blockchain.” Authored by Hongyang Wang of ETH Zurich, Jens Hunhevicz of Empa and Daniel M. Hall of Delft University of Technology, it was published by ResearchGate in September 2025.

Regulations and the future

Rules will shape the future of AI implementation in smart buildings.

For instance, more EU AI Act requirements have taken effect since August 2, 2026, with major rules for high-risk AI systems scheduled for December 2027 and August 2028. In the US, some states are also passing laws on automated decision-making. These regulations matter most where building AI affects people, such as access, security monitoring, tenant screening or pricing.

Enhancing building performance while complying with carbon rules, meanwhile, will continue to drive investment in metering and automation.

References:

https://securityjournalamericas.com/considerations-intelligent-building/

https://www.hereworks.io/tech-talk/a-timeline-in-the-history-of-smart-buildings

https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/smart-buildings

https://ensmart.ai/blog/traditional-bms-vs-ai-powered-bms-key-differences-2026

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/15/14/7682

https://www.cisco.com/site/us/en/learn/topics/networking/what-is-a-smart-building.html

https://omdia.tech.informa.com/blogs/2026/sep/the-importance-of-physical-security-in-smart-building-architectures

https://www.itcon.org/papers/2026_43-ITcon-Elias.pdf

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378778826005761

https://medium.com/@erik_paulson/a-comparison-of-the-brick-schema-and-project-haystack-2a9adde5013a