Ep 24: Power of GPTs: Exploring the Impact of AI on Facilities Management with BGIS SVP Lorri Rowlandson

Explore how AI is reshaping facilities management with BGIS SVP Lorri Rowlandson: insights on data-driven decisions, GPTs, and business impact.

Wednesday, January 8, 2025
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  • Lorri’s evolution of AI expertise: from punching cards to leading in AI
  • Strategies for implementing AI to improve efficiency in business operations
  • Exploring the power of GPTs in business innovation with real-world examples
  • AI as an enabler: exploring the impact of AI on facilities management
  • The future of facilities management: data-driven decision-making

I’m excited to kick off season 3 with Lorri Rowlandson, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Innovation at BGIS, to discuss the impact of AI on facilities management in hybrid work environments. In addition to being a strategic and operational real estate executive with global experience delivering integrated real estate services, Lorri is an authority on generative AI across all facets of real estate delivery. 

Lori actively champions AI's transformative potential by developing and implementing innovative use cases that revolutionize departments—driving efficiency, productivity, and measurable impact. I heard Lorri’s insights on AI’s impact on facilities management for the first time at IFMA this year, and it’s why she joins us as a hero of hybrid work today.

Lorri’s Evolution of AI Expertise: From Punching Cards to Leading in AI

Lorri Rowlandson discussed her career path that led her to being passionate about helping facilities leaders with the challenges and opportunities of AI. She shared her journey of success in outsourcing and real estate, starting from her experience at IBM to her current role at BGIS. She emphasized the importance of continuous learning for staying relevant in a rapidly changing work environment. She went from learning about computers by punching cards in high school to becoming an authority on AI today.

“What led me to where I am and what will allow me to ride in my career through the future is more of the interpersonal side. All of the knowledge already exists, so my natural interpersonal abilities—problem-solving, critical thinking, change management—are helping to maintain my relevancy as I get onwards in my career.” - Lorri Rowlandson, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Innovation at BGIS

Lorri Rowlandson emphasized the importance of interpersonal skills in navigating the constantly changing landscape of technology. She discussed how her natural interpersonal abilities and skills in problem-solving, critical thinking, and change management have helped her maintain relevancy in her career. She emphasized the importance of successfully implementing ideas and achieving desired outcomes.

“As we go forward in our career, especially over the next 10 years, we're about to have 40 years of change in the next 10 years. Continuous learning is going to be a mandatory skill for the future to stay relevant.” - Lorri Rowlandson, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Innovation at BGIS

Benefits and Challenges of AI for Employees and Organizations

Lorri Rowlandson mentioned the top benefits of AI for employees include increased creativity, faster implementation of ideas, and elimination of busy work. Thus, organizations planning generative AI activities aim to increase productivity, enhance problem-solving capabilities, and drive strategic thinking. However, Lorri Rowlandson acknowledged that organizations are facing challenges in managing the rapid proliferation of AI tools, with thousands of new tools coming online every month.

“There's something like 6,000 new AI tools coming online every month. It's like the worst game of whack-a-mole you'd ever play. You could never block all the sites. So how do you use those tools responsibly? How do you make sure that you're getting better quality information and not infringing on any legal or contractual issues?” - Lorri Rowlandson, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Innovation at BGIS

Lorri Rowlandson emphasized that there’s a need to create policies and ensure safe usage of AI tools to protect corporate secrets and maintain confidentiality. Organizations use AI safely by:

  • Having a policy.
  • Providing a safe environment for employees to work.
  • Assigning a champion to be involved. 

Strategies for Implementing AI To Improve Efficiency in Business Operations

Lorri Rowlandson explained that to successfully implement AI in organizations, it is important to focus on customer needs, internal efficiencies, and individual AI literacy. By understanding what customers care about, improving individual and corporate efficiencies, and empowering employees with AI literacy, organizations can make a significant impact on their operations and customer experience.

Lorri Rowlandson emphasized the importance of validating the accuracy of AI tools by conducting parallel testing and comparing results with existing processes. Validating AI-generated information is crucial as not everything on the internet is true. AI tools should be seen as an extension of humans, not a replacement, and validating the information provided is essential to ensure accuracy and credibility.

“Just because it happened so fast, maybe we think we're gonna skip a step. But AI tools are no different than any other technology tools. They should be an extension of the humans, so that doesn't give humans a hall pass t blindly accept whatever the output is just because it's so cleanly presented. AI can massively accelerate what we do, but it will never absolve us from our responsibility to validate the information.” - Lorri Rowlandson, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Innovation at BGIS

Exploring the Power of GPTs in Business Innovation With Real-World Examples

Lorri Rowlandson discussed the potential of Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPTs) in driving business innovation. She shared examples of how she has used GPTs to automate processes, such as creating tools for land acknowledgments and recommending business models based on objectives.

Lorri Rowlandson went into detail on some of the GPTs she helped develop, including one for an Indigenous program that supported land acknowledgments in Canada and one that compiled all the different business models for users to easily find information. She also included a GPT that generated various climate models to help facilities leaders construct more resilient buildings.

“I helped our professional services team look at how we were managing facilities against climate models. There are climate events impacting facilities managers. It used to be once a decade, you'd have a $1 billion event. It’s one to two times a year now. So we worked with an insurance authority to identify the top factors to make your building more resilient to weather conditions, extreme heat and cold, snow, and floods.” - Lorri Rowlandson, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Innovation at BGIS

AI as an Enabler: The Impact of AI on Facilities Management

The conversation delved into the impact of AI in facilities management, emphasizing the importance of leveraging GPTs, verifying information, and considering financial and non-financial benefits. Lorri Rowlandson highlighted the potential for significant cost savings, revenue generation, and enhanced customer value through the adoption of AI technologies.

“If you look at things from an economist's perspective, we struggle to get 1 to 2% measured productivity as an economy. If we could make everybody 20% more efficient, just think about the amount of benefit we could drive.” - Lorri Rowlandson, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Innovation at BGIS

Lorri Rowlandson shared that the role of facilities management is changing due to AI's impact, necessitating a shift in skills paradigms and the development of key skills by facilities leaders. She emphasized that the importance of AI literacy in facilities management cannot be understated. It requires leadership sponsorship and a safe environment for experimentation because company confidentiality, legal considerations, and privacy considerations are paramount.

“You absolutely need leadership sponsorships. If your leaders aren't talking about AI or providing a safe place, that's the first place. We gotta get somebody right at the top to understand and acknowledge it, not ostrich on the topic, because it's gonna happen whether they recognize it or not.” - Lorri Rowlandson, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Innovation at BGIS

When leaders fail to provide an approved environment for experimentation, they indirectly encourage employees who are enthusiastic about driving the business forward to put the business at risk at the same time. Lorri Rowlandson suggested that organizations implement the change management and training exercises needed to ensure their workers better embrace and understand the parameters around AI.

The Future of Facilities Management: Data-Driven Decision-Making

The future of facilities management is moving towards a data-driven approach, where the use of sophisticated tools and information will help facilities managers make better strategic decisions. This shift will require a new skill paradigm for facilities managers, allowing them to focus on problem-solving and broader, more strategic thinking.

“We did a data mapping exercise of all the cost impacts and consideration factors to where the data source is. Now, we can look at it as an entire ecosystem and go very quickly. The sophistication of looking at the total cost of ownership and operations from asset planning is remarkable. Your visibility and ability to make bigger strategic decisions is just completely blown away.” - Lorri Rowlandson, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Innovation at BGIS

Lorri Rowlandson acknowledged that facilities management will see a paradigm shift in the near future. Facilities leaders are used to dealing with technical situations. While some of that isn't going away, AI will start to take up the brunt of the technical work. Lorri Rowlandson shared that AI will give facilities leaders an opportunity to think more strategically to make their jobs more effective instead of doing more work orders faster. When that happens, they can avoid the work orders altogether if they’re really smart about managing the ecosystem of information.

“The skill that I think is relevant everywhere is problem solving. Just broader thinking. When you have all of the answers, what questions do you ask?” - Lorri Rowlandson, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Innovation at BGIS

2025 and Beyond: The Impact of AI on the Modern Workplace

Lorri Rowlandson discussed the evolving role of AI in the modern workplace, emphasizing its potential to revolutionize processes, enhance automation, and optimize efficiency. She explained that AI will be an enabler, creating new opportunities in areas like robotics. She also mentioned the impact of AI on various facets in the modern workplace:

“Augmented reality powered by AI is going to be another powerful combination that’s coming out. In the immediate 1 to 3 year horizon, enhanced automation and efficiency. Predictive maintenance and energy management is a huge opportunity for another frontier. There are still some opportunities in space utilization and optimization. And even at an individual level, you have an opportunity to use AI in some application that only you or your department know about.” - Lorri Rowlandson, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Innovation at BGIS

In thinking about how AI affects hybrid work, Lorri Rowlandson shared that AI is going to make organization’s occupancy information a lot more efficient and allow them to allocate and distribute people and communicate differently. She also highlighted the importance of in-person collaboration and ideation, suggesting that AI may drive a greater need for office presence to foster innovation.

“I think the pervasiveness of AI is going to create the need to be much more focused on ideation, collaboration, and innovation. And those conversations are inevitably better in person, so I indirectly feel that AI is going to create the gravity of people needing to be at the office.” - Lorri Rowlandson, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Innovation at BGIS

Lorri Rowlandson acknowledged that while we are productive in our individual spots, with the help of AI, solving bigger enterprise problems involve ideating together, preferably in-person. She believes that the office and AI will create a greater need for everyone to collaborate, solve, and design those bigger ecosystems of opportunity with each other.

References

BGIS is a global leader in integrated facility management services, managing over 50,000 facilities totalling more than 600 million square feet across several markets including government, higher education, utilities, telecommunications, financial services, oil & gas, healthcare, and cloud enterprise.

Speakers

HOST

Jenny Moebius

SVP @ Skedda | Angel Investor

Jenny is a top Go-To-Market (GTM) leader in the Greater Boston area, where she has a track record of building powerful brands and categories, generating demand (for both sales- and product-led orgs), and creating energizing mission-driven cultures of belonging in the B2B tech space.

GUEST

Lorri Rowlandson

Senior Vice President of Strategy and Innovation @ BGIS

Lorri is a strategic and operational real estate executive with global experience delivering Integrated real estate services in a distributed portfolio of diverse assets. She is also an authority on generative AI across all facets of real estate delivery.

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