AIP Podcast Episode 67 - Intelligent Facilities Management with AI Outcome's Root Cause Solutions

This episode's guest, Francois Labrie, CEO of AI Outcome, joins host Anne to dive into the critical yet often overlooked world of intelligent facilities management. Francois shares how he found his calling in transforming building operations, a field essential to our daily lives but rarely in the spotlight, by leveraging AI to solve complex challenges. He discusses overcoming skepticism about AI replacing jobs, offering insights on building trust in AI-driven solutions. Plus, Francois reveals how AI Outcome integrated GenAI into their architecture and shares practical advice for companies looking to unlock value from generative AI. Tune in to learn how AI Outcome is creating smarter, more reliable buildings for healthcare, defense, and beyond, all while driving operational excellence. 

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Website: https://aioutcome.ai/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aioutcome/

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Website: https://www.aipartnershipscorp.com/
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The AIP Podcast is hosted by Anne Cheng, on behalf of the AI Partnerships, a Railtown company

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Facilities management is quickly becoming a sticking point for operational efficiency, with much of the world returning to normalcy and global populations returning uh returning to public commercial and industrial spaces. When toilets don't work and doors don't open, the risks are astronomical when it comes to healthcare campuses or even defense facilities. Enter AI Outcomes founder, Francois Labris, whose work in tracing the root causes of issues has led to the creation of truly intelligent buildings. Welcome back, friends and family, and our wonderful audience to yet another episode of the AIP podcast. Once again, I'm your host on behalf of the AI Partnerships Corps, and today I am joined by Fonsoa from AI Alcome, who is solving for the root cause of issues in managing buildings. Fonsoa, thank you for joining me on our show today.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Thank you very much, and I'm excited to be with you today, and I'm ready to answer your questions.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Absolutely, let's rock and roll. So tell me a little bit about you and how you got here.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Yeah, indeed. Uh so I started this career in uh 1978, believe it or not. I started in the IT industry at the time. And obviously the computers were not doing much more than what your watch is doing now, but uh they were the big thing at the time. And um so I evolved for many years in the industry. I started with working with Honeywell at the time that was making computer, and then I moved to uh consulting, and I moved to uh a company called Tandem that was very active in the banking industry. We were doing the debit and credit in the uh in the banking industry, and it's one of the most successful uh adoption of debit in the world here in Canada. So that was a very fun time, and we had a great time there. And then I moved to Teradata, which is a great company when it comes to data analytics and data warehouse. So after all that time, you know, in the corporate life and so on, I said, I'd like to try, you know, to be an entrepreneur and do something about what we we've learned in all those years and so on. So I met a friend in 2017 that we knew each other for 40 years, but he was retiring from being the CEO of a large service provider in North America. A service provider, our kind of engineering services managing facilities and buildings. And then he was telling me about all the problems they had there and the issues and so on. So I said, why don't we create a company and resolve those issues? So that's how we started this company. And uh uh initially we had uh plenty of IDs, but we needed data, and then we we went after some partners to get the data and eventually create the algorithm and the application that we have now.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

That's amazing. But you know, building management isn't a particularly sexy field, mostly because most of us don't really think very much about it and take it for granted. However, I'm sure that it is essential to our everyday lives and how we live, work, and play. How did you decide that you wanted to get into this particular industry?

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Indeed. So obviously uh he has an expertise. My partner has a great expertise in this industry, so it was something uh certainly very valuable that we could leverage. Uh indeed, it's not the sexiest place, and it's probably very conservative, and people, uh, when you tell them that you have uh you know such an application to help them, they kind of uh uh take it back, you know, a little bit taken back. And uh but when we looked at it, we said, oh my gosh, it's a real problem because a building may cost, uh, say to build a nice building downtown London or Montreal or New York, may cost uh three, four hundred thousand uh four hundred million dollars. And uh the thing is in 30 or 40 years, you will pay as much in maintenance and operation than the construction of this building. So, whatever we can save and help them with, I mean, is a big plus for them because if you're saving failures that would cost them a large amount of money to replace key components or whatever, it is a very big value. If you can avoid them to have failures in their system or the quality of their service, it improves and keeps the quality of their or the satisfaction of their client. And again, uh just by saving a few activities, that's great, but on top of that, we're increasing the value of this asset because if your asset that is a building X cost you uh let's make a number, a thousand dollars a month, and you can reduce this to 950. I mean, your cost is going down, therefore your cash flow and how you manage this building and so on is is improving, and then the value of this asset improves as well. So that's that's another aspect that was uh very intriguing for us. And uh finally, uh, I mean, obviously a building is passive. I mean, once it's built, it stays there for many, many years, it doesn't move, but it consumes a lot of energy. It consumes a lot of and it emits a lot of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. So we're tracking obviously the energy that is consumed, where and how, and we're calculating how much greenhouse gases you're emitting. Then we can compare that with equivalent building and similar climate. Can you improve? Are you are you good? Are you bad? Are you very bad? And uh then so that's the kind of thing that we can do. So we're saving a bit the planet and the environment, and uh we're certainly contributing to a better quality of life and all of that while you're improving the value of your assets. So that's in a nutshell is why we decided to get there.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

That's amazing. You know, one of the things that happened when I first got into AI myself, I realized that so many people were just simply afraid that AI would replace their jobs. I'm sure in the building management industry it's just the same. How did you overcome this rejection?

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Well, I mean, it's true. It's true for any solution. Uh being in this industry for 40 years, anytime you're selling a new application that changes the process of a business or so on, people are afraid. They're afraid why? Because it's uncertainty. They don't know exactly what it will do, and so on. And indeed, there's a lot of vibes and a lot of news about AI, so people are intrigued and they the imagination factor goes in and they think it's gonna do everything. Uh, you know, in 1996, I was recommending AI solutions. So this is not something that is entirely new to some client. At the time, mind you, it would take one week to make the calculation of one iteration. So obviously it wasn't acceptable because it was too long. But it's not something entirely new and it's part of the process. So usually it's try it, test it, and they adopt it, you know, because they can start seeing the value of okay, uh, there's a lot of things I didn't see, uh, there's a lot of new knowledge, new uh expertise that I get. You know, this this guy, this AI, acts a little bit like my assistant and he knows, understands, and remembers everything that did happen. So yeah, it's good, it's good to have him around and uh helping us. But yeah, usually the human factor is as important as technology and as important as how you integrate that in the process of managing this building. If you don't do this and you don't take into consideration the human factor, you may have a rough time because I mean it's human that will use this at the end of the day. Even even if it's sounds and looks very automated and uh autonomous on itself, unto itself. I mean, obviously you need humans to make a decision at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

Absolutely. Um you mentioned in our pre-show call that you recently added generative AI or Gen AI into your solution. Um I'm sure a lot of companies are trying to unlock value from Gen AI. What advice would you give to someone or some an organization trying to do that?

SPEAKER_01 9:26

It is a great way to resolve some specific issues. As an example, in this case, um this uh organization that I'm thinking about is an hospital. And uh they needed to know, you know, is there a specific issue with uh, say, doors or uh elevators or some rooms? Uh they want to always keep the uh obviously the surgery room clean and uh and available. So, what is it that they can do to help improve the availability, improve the quality, and so on? And this is a great way to feed all the information that you've accumulated over the years and uh feed this to the system. See it as an open AI, and and and in fact, we use the algorithm of open AI, but you make it private, and then you start uh asking, you feed the information like the manual instruction manual of your HVAC system or chiller or whatever. And uh obviously it takes all this information, it boils it down, and so on, and then you can start asking questions, saying, Oh, I'm in this place, I hear this sound. Is it normal? No, it's not. Uh probability one is uh it is a vibration due uh to a strap or to this or that, and uh then people go and check that. So all of a sudden it's it's all the experience, all the knowledge, all the uh behavior also of your building. Because every building has a different behavior when you think about it. And uh so you're adapting to it, and then you're coming up with oh my gosh, I can I can do this or that. Or even it can be the management that are asking questions. Is this system really good? Is uh you know, we've invested so much in doing this and that to save energy in this area. Are we saving enough energy? Are we doing the right program? Boom, boom, boom, you can ask the question, yeah, yeah, isn't that uh no, it it didn't produce all the results because people didn't adopt uh a new behavior, but here's a way to look at it. Here's a way to help you uh certainly implement or get your objective. It's it's like a sharp mind that remembers almost everything that did happen and can be creative, can can suggest new ideas, new ways, a new perspective. It could be a very complex report that could take four pages. Uh the prompt could be extremely long, as you know today. It can be pages long of uh what is it that you want it to do, and boom, it's gonna do it every month. So that's a kind of thing that that creates a lot of value. But again, what is really key is how do you integrate that in your process of managing this building is as important as the tool itself. In fact, it's more important. It's it's it's where where the um how could you say where the art meets the science.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

It's brilliant. Well, Fonsois, that's all the time we do have for today. It's been incredibly fun chatting to you. And once again to our audience, if you've enjoyed our show today, remember to like, share, and follow our show. You know that it means so much to me and our community. Once again, my name is Ann Chang, and my guest is Fonsois Lebris of AI Outcome. And on behalf of the AIP, the AI Partnerships podcast, thank you all of you for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Thank you, um, thank you. It's been a real fun uh time speaking with you guys.