Can AI revolutionize office space design?

By collecting and analyzing vast amounts of data, AI provides companies with insights into how people are using an office, from traffic flows to employee preferences.

Take technologies like sensors, beacons, and other smart building systems that arm companies with empirical evidence that allows for data-driven decisions. By monitoring employee usage of various office areas, businesses can identify underutilized spaces, which can then be repurposed to encourage collaboration and creativity.

But the sheer amount of data that occupancy tracking systems gather can be daunting. AI helps crunch the numbers. It analyzes occupancy data to devise space programming strategies, ensuring efficient and purposeful space allocation for increased productivity and employee satisfaction.

AI also enhances the employee experience and well-being. Advanced visualization tools, such as AI-generated 3D visual walkthroughs, transcend traditional layouts and enable remote team members to experience proposed office designs as if they were physically present, fostering greater engagement and a stronger sense of belonging.

Looking ahead, Gelino envisions AI playing a significant role in creating hybrid workspaces that accommodate both in-person and virtual collaboration.

“Analyzing data on workforce habits and preferences, AI lays out spaces that incorporate necessary technology and meeting rooms for effective collaboration, aligning shared spaces with desired company culture and enhancing employee collaboration,” she says.

As AI transforms office design, challenges lie in mastering creativity and ensuring that the design aligns with the architectural drawings, specifications, and relevant building codes. Architectural accuracy is crucial in creating accurate and reliable visualizations, models, and construction plans for architectural projects.

“While AI excels at data-driven insights, its ability to generate original creative design ideas remains a work in progress,” she says. “Translating AI-generated designs into architecturally accurate plans requires refinement.”

For example, Gelino says that using a search engine to look up JLL’s Chicago headquarters at AON center, and you’ll quickly find how many floors it has, ceiling height, and the floor plans. And that is the base of the model AI will use to start to generate a floor plan. 

“When you think about it in the future, though, it needs to understand the design's needs, whether it’s driving collaboration, and you want to understand, creatively, how people will be using the space in the future,” she says. “I think that would be the next level of what AI has to achieve because all the rest is there.”