California-based Occuspace has added conversational AI to its smart building products.

Called Octi, it lets real-estate stakeholders ask questions about their space and receive sourced, defensible answers in seconds. Built on sensor-verified presence data and AI-driven analytics, users can ask and discover information about their space.

“For most organisations, getting answers to questions about workspace has been difficult – pulling reports and waiting on analysts for answers,” said Nic Halverson, CEO of Occuspace. “Octi changes that. Now you have a partner that can turn complicated questions into actionable insights in seconds, not just the facilities team, but anyone whose decisions require understanding how space is being used.”

Conversational AI is only as good as the data underneath it. Octi is powered exclusively by an organisation’s own sensor-verified occupancy data, not booking calendars, wifi signals or external datasets. With wall-to-wall sensor coverage – no dead zones and no connectivity gaps – Octi is said to deliver precision occupancy intelligence.

Until now, occupancy intelligence platforms constrained users to pre-configured reports and fixed analytical views. Octi removes that limitation. Building managers can ask any question about their space, in their own words, and get sourced, defensible answers in seconds, including patterns and trends that would never surface in a pre-built report. The analytical power is grounded in nearly ten years of occupancy intelligence across 3.7 million square metres of built space, empowering users to seek answers to questions that previously would not have been possible.

Occuspace’s privacy-by-design architecture has passed enterprise IT review at hundreds of organisations, including the federal government. Customer data remain within the customer’s domain. They are never used to train AI models, shared across organisations or leveraged for any external data set.

Octi gives every stakeholder direct access to answers that previously required analyst support or custom reports:

• CFO: How much are we spending on space that’s never used?
• Real estate VP: Can I fit another 60 people in our downtown office?
• Facilities director: How do I optimise our housekeeping schedule to save on labour hours?
• Space planner: What total square metreage is needed next fiscal year given current usage?
• HR manager: Is it time to move from individual to shared desks?

“Octi gave me answers, told me what to look out for, and then gave follow-ups,” said Devin McFarland from the University of Notre Dame (www.nd.edu). “The results and experience were exactly what you would expect from the most advanced AI tools.”

Octi is available immediately to all Occuspace customers at no additional charge.

Occuspace (www.occuspace.io) is an occupancy intelligence platform for the built environment, providing a simple, scalable and cost-effective method for measuring space use in real time. Its AI-powered, privacy-first technology enables organisations across higher education, commercial real estate and government to make data-driven decisions that optimise efficiency, enhance occupant experience and improve RoI at an enterprise scale.