What makes a building smart? 

While some might think it is the technology inside, the real test of a smart building is the plan its operations team has for using it. 

“You can put as much smarts as you want into a building, but without utilizing and leveraging the technology with an operational game plan, the investment's really for no reason,” said Sean Edwards, CEO of Rittenhouse Communications Group. 

RCG helps teams streamline day-to-day building operations by ensuring a plan is in place for how they will use technology, particularly with the rise of artificial intelligence tools. The goal is to help property management teams do their jobs more efficiently with the assistance of technology, not replace them, Edwards said.

RCG’s AI camera monitoring and virtual concierge platforms work as a backup for a building’s front desk teams, acting as an extra set of eyes to keep a building safe so these agents can focus on assisting tenants and other crucial work.

“We're not looking to replace anyone. We're looking to augment them,” Edwards said.

Buildings will often install a camera system that is primarily designed to be reactive. It is there so staff can look through footage after an incident has occurred to determine what happened. RCG’s virtual camera monitoring platform utilizes AI to reduce false positives and can alert the command center or the front desk to triggers, including tailgating and loitering, so staff can intervene before anything happens.

At the same time, the company’s AI tech can instantly trigger a strobe, a siren, a recording or another type of alert outside to deter people from causing problems on or near the property.

Edwards said that as AI becomes more robust, RCG continues to hone its hybrid system that uses AI and people to provide a “safer, smarter, connected asset.” While a front desk concierge can handle the door intercom during the day and buzz in guests and delivery drivers, RCG’s virtual concierge can take over after hours or multiple shifts, ensuring the building and amenity spaces are being monitored at all times, eliminating the need for one or more shifts and decreasing operational costs for the asset.

All hardware that RCG specifies and installs for its projects has open application programming interfaces and is integration-friendly, he said. It is critical not to have a closed ecosystem for cameras and access control where management is tied to specific software. They need to have the ability to integrate whatever they want, Edwards said. RCG can layer its solutions, including camera monitoring, virtual concierge and its AI analytics platform, on top of most existing hardware in a building, so there is no need for costly replacements.

Edwards said many security and AI platform systems on the market are entirely proprietary, but RCG doesn’t use these platforms in its designs or installations because he doesn’t want an owner to be held “hostage” by technology.

“They should be free to do whatever they want with their property, whenever they want,” Edwards said.

He said the on-site team is the most important part of a building’s operations and should be focused on tenant satisfaction as much as possible. RCG's AI platform can assist by tracking key data about amenity spaces and determining which are actually being utilized and which may need to be transformed into something tenants would use more frequently. The technology provides real-time data on these key statistics and can automate surveys to get fast feedback on what tenants want most.

“A human can deal with one or two people at a time,” Edwards said. “By leveraging virtual concierge, we can deal with unlimited people at the same time. You won't have tenants waiting, packages waiting to be delivered or cameras not being monitored. It helps the team focus on what matters.”

This article was produced in collaboration between RCG and Studio B. Bisnow news staff was not involved in the production of this content.

Studio B is Bisnow’s in-house content and design studio. To learn more about how Studio B can help your team, reach out to studio@bisnow.com.