The RICS has launched an insight paper which explores the impact of using artificial intelligence (AI) in the built environment, and the urgent need for industry professionals to understand how it will influence their role, as the future will rely less on human labour and more on technology. Authored by Chris Hoar, Brian Atkin and Katie King of AIinFM, the report examines the potential impact of AI on the built environment, with a focus on facilities management. One sector that the Artificial Intelligence: What it means for the built environment highlights as facing a significant impact of AI is facilities management (FM), due to the labour-intensive and repetitive nature of many FM jobs, making it an ideal place for automation of previously human-dominated tasks. However, the report weighs up the positives and negatives of such changes and how companies should deal with them. FM will always have a vital role to play within the built environment, and even though many operational roles will become more technology-led, the sector could benefit hugely from AI at a strategic level.

We are pleased to announce the findings of our recent survey and should like to thank all those who gave their opinions on the impact of artificial intelligence on the facilities management (FM) and real estate sectors (RE). For practical purposes, artificial intelligence (AI) covers developments in software and hardware that include, but which are not limited to, smart applications, cognitive frameworks, robotics, actroids and drones. A summary of the findings is outlined below. The age distribution of respondents placed 52% in the 51-67 age group, with 32% in the 36-50 age group and 8% in the 26-35 age group. Our first question asked for an opinion on the impact that AI will have had on the FM and RE sectors 5 years from now. Just 4% considered that the impact would be negligible.