Data and data structure remain key topics in the successful rollout of Artificial Intelligence for CAFM and IWMS, and in the Built Environment. Our CEO, Miguel Sanchez Miguel, explores this topic in detail in his latest LinkedIn article from The Digital Builder. Here is a summary:

Trustworthy, Structured Data

While people want answers rather than more data entry, Artificial Intelligence (AI) cannot deliver reliable intelligence without trustworthy, structured and connected data.

Traditional CAFM and IWMS systems have often placed a heavy administrative burden on users: collecting, entering, classifying and maintaining information before useful insights can be produced. AI appears to offer a way around this by allowing users to ask natural-language questions and receive immediate answers about assets, costs, risks, service performance, energy and priorities.

However, the article warns that AI does not eliminate the need for reliable information. If asset identities, locations, contracts, maintenance histories, costs and evidence are incomplete or inconsistent, AI may produce convincing but unreliable answers. In safety-, compliance- and cost-sensitive Built Environment Management, plausibility is not enough.

The problem is compounded because no organisation manages the Built Environment alone. Owners, tenants, FM teams, contractors, service providers, manufacturers and regulators each hold different parts of the operational reality. Consequently, the Built Environment should be understood as a Value Network, rather than a collection of isolated organisational databases. AI embedded within a single CAFM or IWMS remains limited by that system’s information boundaries—“island intelligence.”

Governed Interoperability

The proposed solution is governed interoperability, rather than one enormous central database or more manual data entry. Existing systems should remain under stakeholder control while enabling relevant information to move securely across organisational boundaries, maintaining identity, permissions, responsibilities and traceability.

For AI to become dependable, information requires five foundations: Identity, Classification, Relationships, Governance and Evidence. The article also proposes a new role—the BEM Data Manager—responsible for ensuring coherent, trustworthy information across the Value Network while minimising human data-entry burdens.

Ultimately, the vision is connected intelligence serving a connected Value Network, enabled by BruceBEM, BRUCE Platform and BRUCE AI.

Feel free to visit the article, and comment. We really need to get this conversation going, and Miguel would apprciate your input.

Watch this space for more Digital Builder articles in the coming weeks.

Archibus Hosting Services has been providing IWMS solutions in The Cloud since 2007. Our experience is many and varied. Read more about us HERE.