August 24, 2021 – Congratulations to Montreal-based start-up BrainBox AI, which is one of 10 companies--and the only Canadian company, it says--selected to present at COP26's "Tech for our planet" program, an initiative at the upcoming 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference. BrainBox was selected by the U.K. government to display its technology in Challenge 3–Thinking Smart, which is dedicated to solutions that can capture and share data to better predict and manage energy consumption. In the three months leading to COP26 (being held in November in Glasgow), BrainBox will demonstrate the benefits of grid-interactive buildings to achieve net zero objectives for the electrical grid. "By implementing technologies like BrainBox AI in one of the world's greatest energy consumers--buildings--we can turn the tide and help the real estate industry play its part in stopping the effects of climate change," said Sam Ramadori, president, BrainBox AI. Currently installed in over 100 million sf of real estate across 17 countries, BrainBox's flagship product combines AI and cloud computing to create a fully autonomous commercial HVAC solution that reduces energy consumption and emissions.

October 28, 2020 – "It has been a wild year," says Montreal-based Brainbox AI's president, Sam Ramadori. When the company launched in May 2019, it had just shy of 20 people, and worked on six development buildings totalling half a million square feet. "Today, we're in over 30 million, and with the commitment here, getting us over 40 million installed square feet." The commitment to which Ramadori is referring is that of AMP Capital in Australia, which is set to roll out Brainbox AI's energy-saving AI technology--which promises a reduction of carbon footprint by 20-40% and 15-20% in energy spend--across its entire managed real estate portfolio of central business district (CBD) office buildings, retail shopping centres and logistics facilities. Six AMP Capital-managed buildings across Australia are already trialling the technology, which will then be rolled out across the entire portfolio of over 40 buildings in Australia and New Zealand by Q1 2021. "We have a very young team, of very highly-capable technical folks, and they're all driven, not only by the truly autonomous solution, but we can really make a strong impact on climate change… but the only way to do that is to be able to scale quickly," said Ramadori, referring to the solution's ease of deployment.

Evolve Energy uses AI and machine learning to optimize energy usage, providing customers with the best wholesale energy prices on fluctuating renewable resources. "We want to help our customers save a significant amount of money on electricity costs and help them decarbonize the grid," CEO Michael Lee tells InnovationMap."There's been a serious of emerging events that enable us to do both at the same time, it's no longer a choice." Evolve Energy, founded in 2018, sells wholesale electricity at cost to residential customers in Texas, charging a $10 monthly subscription fee plus the cost of wholesale electricity. Using their AI technology, they predict when price surges are likely and determine how much energy the customer needs to hit the parameters set on the app by the customer and usage history. The customer does not need to do anything but pair Evolve with their smart thermostat.

The global market for intelligent buildings, or smart buildings as they're also called, is projected to reach $31.74 billion by 2022, at a compound annual growth rate of 33.7%, according to Research and Markets. Artificial intelligence, which is enabling this market, has the potential to revolutionize energy management and the commercial building sector. According to a new whitepaper by Navigant, the management of commercial locations has been transformed by the accessibility of new data streams and the tools to analyze and operationalize associated information. In this new paradigm, business insights and actionable priorities are automatically delivered to corporate and site-level energy managers. In addition, customers can ask technical questions 24/7 in their own terms and get understandable answers without laborious software training or data science skills.