Smart buildings are no longer the purview of science fiction, but a reality in today’s commercial building landscape. According to one industry survey, 91% of respondents adopted smart building systems—predominantly for HVAC, electrical, and lighting—in 2025, spending on average more than $550,000 per organization on smart technology investments.1 The global market for smart building systems reached $141.79 billion in 2025, with commercial segments capturing 47%-60% of that market.2 In short: smart buildings are here, and they’re only getting smarter.
With a shift from siloed, static systems to data-driven platforms, commercial buildings are embracing intelligent solutions to reveal opportunities for cost savings, drive energy efficiencies, enhance the occupant experience, and bolster operational resilience. From IoT sensors that capture a wealth of operational data; to cloud platforms that provide enhanced access, visibility, and cybersecurity; to unified and actionable analytics; to AI-enabled controls — smart building systems can now be found in every corner of commercial facilities.
Bringing them all together are building automation systems (BAS). In fact, recent research reveals that around 63% of commercial buildings use BAS platforms as a jumping-off point for a smart building strategy. 2 What’s more, when used to monitor and control energy usage in real-time, and building stakeholders find that BAS implementations help reduce energy consumption by up to 30%.2
As more commercial buildings adopt smart building systems, and as these systems continue to emerge and evolve, facilities departments find themselves tasked with making sure these investments generate a return. Here we take a closer look at some of the top trends in smart building systems that facilities departments are likely to encounter, if not today then in the very near future.
IoT Sensors: Real-Time Monitoring and Control
IoT sensors are proliferating across commercial buildings, providing unrivaled visibility into a wide range of spaces and systems, down to the most granular detail. While typical BAS sensors are generally limited to core building systems (temperature, humidity, CO2a, and occupancy) and are tied to a specific purpose (such as occupancy comfort), IoT sensors expand the scope to practically anything that can measured: leaks, water flow, equipment vibration, added factors that impact indoor air quality, and can even integrate with external data like weather or utility rates.
In essence, IoT sensors see the entire building(s) as a large network of “things” that can be unified, monitored, and optimized together. Often wireless, IoT sensors typically feed data as a continuous stream into the cloud, which can make deployment faster, but which also comes with added considerations around selecting the right cloud service provider and contract.
Other attractive advantages of IoT sensors over traditional BAS sensors are their flexibility and scalability. IoT sensors are designed to be plug-and-play, which makes them easier to add and expand across multiple floors and buildings. But rather than a replacement for BAS sensors, IoT sensors serve as an effective additional layer, pulling data from BAS and adding more granular data.
So, it’s no wonder more commercial buildings are moving to adopt IoT sensors. In fact, around 60% of BAS installations now integrate IoT-enabled features to allow for real-time monitoring and automated control.2 This percentage will continue to grow. Indeed, recent surveys indicate that IoT deployments are projected to reach 4.12 billion—more than double today’s number—by 2030.3
These sensors are used to measure a spectrum of performance metrics, including occupancy, indoor air quality, humidity ranges, water leaks, and other real-time data within specific zones. Sensors transmit this data to a central system and feed directly into control loops, enabling automated management of building systems for improved energy efficiency, space utilization, occupant comfort, and cost-reducing predictive maintenance.
Common types of IoT sensors include:
- Occupancy and motion sensors: These detect room and/or desk usage to optimize space as well as automate lighting and HVAC.
- Temperature and humidity sensors: In addition to controlling HVAC for comfort, these sensors are often used to monitor server rooms and track water systems for leaks and needed flushing.
- Air quality sensors: Designed to support healthy indoor environments, these sensors monitor air for CO2 and VOCs and automatically adjust ventilation.
- Water leak detectors: These sensors identify leaks in pipes and drainage to enable early intervention, reducing damage and waste.
- Smart lighting sensors: Based on occupancy and natural light levels, these sensors adjust brightness and schedules to save energy and costs.
- Asset and equipment trackers: These sensors monitor inventory and equipment location for better management and utilization.
Analytics: Insight You Can Act On
All this data captured by IoT sensors needs to be translated into understandable intelligence that facilities managers can use to make faster, smarter decisions that drive energy and cost savings, enhance occupant comfort, and optimize building performance. The ROI for building system analytics is clear. According to research by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, buildings that use analytics have reduced energy consumption by up to 50%.4
It’s not enough to simply capture operational data, however; you must also be able to access, understand, and use it. Recent trends in analytics are moving toward enhanced visibility of data. Beyond visibility, advanced analytics also deliver intelligence facilities managers can act on. For example, by analyzing metrics such as vibration, temperature, and runtime patterns, modern analytics platforms have the capacity to forecast equipment failures, days or even weeks before they happen. This allows for early intervention, prevents unplanned downtime, and helps extend the working life of assets.
Advanced analytics platforms can also deliver granular energy usage breakdowns in real-time, separating out the energy consumed by HVAC and lighting systems, for example, so you can pinpoint exactly where the waste and cost centers are. Today’s powerful analytics can track occupancy levels to adjust lighting, heating, and AC for optimal comfort and savings, and to optimize space usage.
One thing to keep in mind as analytics become a key driver of operational improvements: the quality of results relies on ensuring data cleanliness, along with knowing what data you want to collect, how you intend to use that data, and what you want to accomplish with it.
Cloud Environments: Secure, Scalable, Simplified
Commercial building stakeholders have historically struggled with the fragmented nature of siloed building systems that make it harder to find opportunities for improved performance, efficiency, and cost savings. Confronted with this challenge, more commercial buildings are turning to the cloud to unify disparate building systems into a single, scalable platform that enables improved access and visibility via web or mobile.
More than 50% of new commercial buildings now are specifying the installation of BAS whose controls and data platform run in the cloud versus on local servers inside the building.2 Moving these systems to the cloud allows for faster deployments, easier updates, quicker disaster recovery, seamless scaling for growing demands, anywhere/anytime access to critical apps and data — all while lowering the capital expenditure of on-premise servers.
Facilities departments in particular stand to benefit from moving operational technology (OT) systems to the cloud, with a centralized and simplified way to access, monitor, and adjust systems and equipment from one interface, and real-time dashboards for faster, more informed decisions.
Cybersecurity: Protecting OT from Threats
Cloud-native platforms offer a solution for another relatively new and growing area of concern for facilities departments: cybersecurity. According to a Honeywell survey, seven in 10 facilities managers are worried about whether they have enough operational cybersecurity to protect their buildings.5
Around 27% of facilities managers have experienced a cyberattack in the last 12 months, and two-thirds consider managing OT cybersecurity as one of the most difficult parts of their jobs.5 In a Fortinet survey of OT professionals, 73% of organizations reported intrusions that impacted OT systems, and 37% of ransomware attacks on facilities impact both OT and IT environments.6,7
Moving OT systems to a secure private cloud environment helps address this pain point and reduce cyber risks by uncoupling these systems from the IT infrastructure and its vulnerabilities. Security updates and firmware become faster and easier to deploy in the cloud, ensuring your OT systems have the latest and most robust protection. Cloud platforms can also be monitored, managed, and maintained by outside experts to ensure uptime and avoid costly disruptions. This relieves facilities managers of the burden of keeping up with ever-evolving cyber threats and security measures.
AI-Enabled Controls: Predictive and Continually Learning
While AI remains largely untested territory in smart building systems, AI-enabled technologies and applications are likely to have an impact on multiple areas that fall under the responsibility of facilities departments.
According to a Honeywell survey, 60% of commercial buildings are already employing AI to streamline maintenance and repair processes, particularly in the area of predictive maintenance. That’s not all. Around 55% of respondents currently use AI for overall building energy management, 41% use it for water usage monitoring, and 40% implement it for temperature comfort. And 84% of commercial building decision-makers plan to increase their use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the next year.8
With the ability to quickly analyze massive datasets, AI can be used to identify patterns that predict HVAC and equipment failures before they happen, helping reduce downtime and costs. AI-enabled systems can automatically and dynamically adjust lighting levels, HVAC setpoints, ventilation rates and other building system parameters based on occupancy and usage patterns to reduce waste and improve efficiency. What’s more, continually learning AI algorithms can figure out how to improve efficiency without manual intervention—freeing short-staffed facilities departments to focus on other critical tasks.
Preparing for the Future of Smart Building Systems
Smart building systems are the backbone of next-generation energy management and operations, and facilities managers must be prepared to embrace and leverage them.
While simplifying and streamlining many aspects of facilities management, smart building systems can also be complex and confounding — ever-evolving with new technologies that bring with them new capabilities. Finding the right partner can help you stay ahead of trends and capture the full advantages. Reach out to Albireo Energy today to discuss your smart building strategies and how to build more intelligent building systems prepared for the future.
Sources
1. “New Research Released on Smart Building Trends & Technology Adoption.” Smart Buildings Center. December 11, 2025.
3. “Building Management Systems Market is set to reach US$ 47.6 billion by 2031, at a strong CAGR of 13.6%.North America leads the market with 45.4% market share.” DataM Intelligence 4 Market Research. CET. January 21, 2026.
3. “IoT Devices in Smart Commercial Buildings 2025 to 2030.” Memoori. Q1 2025.
4. “Building Analytics Tool Deployment at Scale: Benefits, Costs, and Deployment Practices.” Lin Guanjing et al. Energies. May 24, 2022.
5. “Facility Management Worried about OT Cybersecurity, but Few Plan to Fix It.” David Jones. Cybersecurity Drive. August 27, 2021.
6. “2024 State of Operational Technology and Cybersecurity Report.” Fortinet. June 12, 2024.
7. “The Global State of Industrial Cybersecurity 2023: New Technologies, Persistent Threats, and Maturing Defenses.” Claroty. 2023.
8. “Report Finds Most Commercial Building Leaders Are Embracing AI.” Joe Bebon. Facilities Management Advisor. March 13, 2025.
