The industry has long reached for singular answers: a single pane of glass, a single source of truth, a unified BIM.
Those phrases carried good intent, but maybe it’s time to evolve them.
What we need now is not singularity in control, but singularity in purpose:
A system of systems, built to connect.
A Single Pane of Glass?
Many in the industry still use that phrase, and I get why.
It’s about clarity, simplicity, shared insight.
But over time, it’s been twisted into a pitch for one app, one vendor, one pane to rule them all.
Just like in aviation, where a cockpit may look unified but depends on dozens of connected systems, our digital environments should work the same way.
Not one pane for everyone. But many panes, role-specific, built to connect, and aligned in real time.
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Flying a plane takes much more than one screen: flight control, weather data, passenger systems, safety protocols, airport ops, and even passengers have their own panes of glass to check gates, boarding, and seats.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:World-airline-routemap-2009.png
And even passengers have their own pane of glass, the boarding pass app, the seat map, the gate change alert.
Just like in aviation, a digital twin isn’t one system.
It’s a system of systems — role-based, federated, and constantly in motion.
A complex system doesn’t need a single pane of glass; it needs connected panes, each fit for purpose.
1. A Real Pain in the Glass
At ASHRAE 2025 and other conferences and online, I keep hearing the same promise:
“We provide a single pane of glass.”
“We offer a single source of truth.”
It’s the industry’s version of the Singularity, one system to rule them all.
But what if that’s the wrong future?
To be fair, I understand the intent. These terms, “single source of truth,” “single pane of glass,” “centralized platform,” “unified control”, often begin as shorthand for positive goals: alignment, shared understanding, data integrity, and simplicity. But in practice, they’re frequently twisted into marketing slogans, used to justify proprietary platforms that promise ease but deliver lock-in. The spirit of interoperability gets lost. Instead of open systems, we get closed ecosystems. Instead of connection, we get control.
And that’s where it breaks down.
We don’t live or work that way anymore. Just look at your phone. You don’t have one app to do everything, you have many. You move between panes of glass constantly: messages, navigation, camera, payments, weather, chat. Each serves a different role. Each reflects your needs.
That’s the digital environment we already thrive in: real-time, role-specific, app-driven, infinitely reconfigurable.
So why does the building industry keep pitching the idea that everyone, from facilities to designers and engineers, to CFOs, should work inside one universal dashboard?
Because when we try to cram every stakeholder, standard, and system into one screen, it becomes a real pain in the glass.
The built environment isn’t one thing. It’s a living, layered, federated system. It needs flexibility, not consolidation. What we really need is:
Many panes. Real-time context. Connected systems. Shared meaning.
That phrase, pain in the glass, stuck with me throughout the conference. This was my first time attending the summer ASHRAE conference. I arrived as an architect and systems strategist, and I have to say, I was genuinely excited by the people I met. It was a different kind of crowd from the average BIM or architectural conference. Much less talk about form or space-making, and far more focus on data, controls, operations, and how systems actually perform. This is where I started to see more of the application of the ‘I’ in BIM, the information, in action.
I stepped into a deeply technical, engineer-driven world full of grounded questions about how to structure data, align teams, and make smarter decisions across domains.
This is what our Tiger Team is working on with Parastoo Delgoshaei and the Linux Foundation: ontologies, schemas, and open standards to bridge the divide between HVAC, BIM, GIS, AI, and operations.
Because the way forward isn’t more dashboards or digital products to buy. It’s:
- Exposing what we already have
- Aligning it through semantics
- Building agents and interfaces that respond to user roles, not vendor lock-in ontologies, schemas, and open standards to bridge the divide between HVAC, BIM, GIS, AI, and operations.
2. A Live Rebuttal to the Dashboard Trap
In our session, “What Is a Digital Twin? Unlocking Its Power for Smarter Operations and Workforce Development,” we didn’t just explain ideas; we demonstrated them. This wasn’t a theoretical panel. It was live, participatory, and grounded in real use.
Zahra Ghorbani kicked things off by defusing the common digital twin hype. She broke down the differences between digital models, shadows, and true cyber-physical systems. Zahra reminded the audience that synchronization, especially across time, is what defines a twin. If it’s not updated, it’s not a twin.
Cyril Verley then showed the foundational role of BIM in operational use. He emphasized that owners already have data, but it is not structured for lifecycle value. Using a digital twin, he launched a real-time poll where attendees interacted with the digital twin using their phones. It was live, contextual, and personalized, each user navigating through their own pane of glass.
I stepped in next to tackle the usability gap and the myth of the “single interface.” I drew the analogy to Uber, not because of maps, but because it’s invisible tech. The user just wants a ride. Likewise, facility staff don’t want a dashboard; they want answers, alerts, and the ability to act. I also emphasized that owners must expose their digital twins to emergency responders, rather than hiding them in archives.
Raj Setty brought it all together with a look at AI’s role in workforce development. He demonstrated how standards like ASHRAE can be used inside digital twins, not by copying PDFs, but through AI agents that already know the standards. His message was clear: if the data is structured and accessible, AI can meet people where they are, and engineering knowledge can provide incredible value. The session was a systems-thinking demo of how semantics, usability, and AI converge when we get the foundation right.
Parastoo Delgoshaei, who served as our moderator, played a critical role in keeping the discussion grounded and focused. She also framed the broader effort behind the session: the work of the Tiger Team under the Coalition for Smarter Buildings (C4SB), hosted by the Linux Foundation. Parastoo emphasized that what we’re doing isn’t just about smart buildings, it’s about creating shareable, machine-readable frameworks that can align government, industry, and academia. The Tiger Team’s work is a beacon for how to scale this thinking across sectors, and her moderation helped connect our session’s tactical demonstrations to that broader strategic arc.
3. Other Voices, Same Signal: A Broader Shift
Beyond our session, I was energized to see other presenters and researchers tackling the same core challenges, connecting systems, clarifying semantics, and applying AI with intent. These weren’t theoretical discussions. They were real projects with real stakes.
Judah Goldfeder is applying reinforcement learning at Google to optimize HVAC systems in live buildings. He’s building explainable, open-source tools for scalable control strategies. At ASHRAE, he announced the first Buildings + Machine Learning workshop at ICML, a major step in bridging the AI and facilities worlds.
Jayson Bursill from Delta Controls dove into the gap between BIM and operational controls. His work on BACnet, RDF, and ASHRAE 223P highlighted how semantics and tagging are key to making AI actually useful, not just flashy. As he put it: “Once AI understands asset class and context, it can finally help.”
Sagar Rao of NeuMod Labs showed how their AI agent, Jarvis, ingests unstructured documents, PDFs, specs, and energy models, and turns them into actionable insights. Their focus? Human-AI collaboration, not replacement. As Sagar said, “Consistency and clarity across disciplines is where we find real value.”
Each of these perspectives confirmed what we already knew: the future isn’t about a single system. It’s about intentional interoperability, semantic scaffolding, and lightweight, connected tools.
What stood out to me most in these conversations, especially with forward-thinking teams is how they are transforming their design and engineering knowledge into systems that not only function alone, but also collaborate. They’re building environments where systems can connect, interoperate, and improve each other.
And that’s exactly what I’m looking for as an architect with a system: I want to connect my pane of glass to engineers’, to owners’, to standards organizations’, suppliers’, and many others. We’re moving on from the era of file sharing, document transfers, and ETL pipelines, or just dumping everything into a data lake. That approach won’t scale.
What’s emerging instead is a new kind of alignment, built in real time, grounded in shared semantics, and shaped by use.
And yes, AI was everywhere.
4. From Dashboards to Decisions: A New Kind of Singularity
The next layer is AI. And here’s where things really shift.
In our session, Raj Setty was asked, “How did you load ASHRAE standards into the twin?”
His answer:
“I didn’t. The AI already knew them.”
This is what happens when we move beyond dashboards and panes altogether. Agents don’t care about UIs — they care about access, structure, and context. When systems are aligned and semantically rich, AI can meet people where they are.
And this brings us to a bigger idea: the Singularity.
In AI circles, the Singularity is a moment when machines surpass human intelligence and everything changes. But maybe the more important tipping point isn’t technological — it’s cultural. Maybe our real singularity is when we choose to align systems, semantics, and roles instead of consolidating everything under one vendor, one pane, or one app.
Not a single platform — but a shared commitment to interoperability, accessibility, and role-based simplicity.
Maybe it’s time we, as an industry, take that word back. Let’s redefine “singularity” as a human-driven moment of coordination. A decision to prioritize connection over control, and context over ownership.
Because the pitch for a “single pane of glass” or “single source of truth” is seductive — but it’s the wrong goal. The reality is more nuanced, more modular, and more human.
Maybe the simplest shift we can make is in language.
What if we said “multiple panes of glass” instead of one?
What if instead of insisting on a single source of truth, we focused on connecting many sources of truth, aligned through semantics and intent?
It’s a small adjustment, but one that could reframe how we design, collaborate, and build.
What do you think? Post your thoughts here.
Let’s stop trying to sell a single-source twin.
Let’s stop forcing everyone into one dashboard.
Let’s build open, adaptable, human-centered systems that reflect the way we actually work.
Otherwise, it’ll always be a pain in the glass. To continue this dialogue, listen to my new Café Zai podcast with Jack Dempsey, where we unpack why, despite having the tech, leadership, and standards, the system is still broken.
