I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t open your smart building controls.

“Your owner data is in a proprietary silo. Don’t worry, I will hallucinate an answer.”

When we think of AI going rogue, we picture HAL 9000 refusing to open the pod bay doors.

But as John Willis recently pointed out at the SCALE 23X open-source conference, HAL wasn’t malicious. It was simply an AI agent operating with total autonomy and zero human context.

Building owners, you are facing your own HAL 9000 moment.

The building controls industry has spent the last two decades wiring up the nervous system of the built environment. But as Artificial Intelligence accelerates at an unprecedented rate, a critical vulnerability is being exposed across the smart buildings industry: The Context Deficit.

Sensors can tell an AI that a room is 78 degrees, but without the architectural context, knowing if that room is a high-density conference space, a server closet, or a sun-drenched atrium, the AI is just guessing at the solution. It lacks the space’s intent. Because our industry has historically hoarded its data in proprietary silos, flattened it into dead PDFs, and locked it in document basements, tech companies are being forced to train their Large Language Models on fake, synthetic data.

Data alone is not intelligence. Data with relationships becomes context. If we allow AI to learn about building operations through digital guesswork rather than physical reality, we invite dangerous hallucinations into environments where people actually live.

The Architects of Intelligence Are Ready

To fix this, we need a digital handshake between AEC and Operational Technology (OT). We need the people who design the physical world to provide the structural guardrails for AI.

At the recent AIA Los Angeles Technology Conference, I saw an entire ecosystem of professionals proving that the narrative is reversed: it isn’t about AI expanding architecture. It is about architects expanding AI into the physical world.

We are not just designing buildings; we are designing the intelligence behind them.

We are all Architects of Intelligence.

Here is a glimpse of how this community is already stepping into the arena to close the Context Deficit:

Jeffrey Espinoza, D5 Render

• The Aha Moment: AI is redefining creative control in visualization. We are no longer just drafters; AI allows designers to step into the role of art directors, bridging the gap between human intent and technical know-how.

Julide Bozoglu, PhD, Goettsch Partners]

• The Aha Moment: Structured data is the fuel, and AI is simply the augmentation. By demystifying AI-enabled BIM workflows, she proved that you don’t need to buy every shiny new tool; you need to organize your data and test it against real-world constraints.

Jason Rostar, AIA, CM-BIM & Roan Isaku, AIA, NCARB, HED

• The Aha Moment: AI adoption doesn’t mean boiling the ocean; there is massive value in “low-hanging fruit”. By tying BIM model health directly to their CRM and using AI to analyze past RFIs, they are turning everyday project data into actionable intelligence. They proved that successful implementation is ultimately about fostering a culture of transparency, experimentation, and solving real problems for your people.

Leo Salce, Avant Leap

Enrique Galicia, Avant Leap

• The Aha Moment: The future belongs to those who solve the “protocol problem.” By leveraging tools like Model Context Protocols (MCP), we can build universal translators that finally connect our siloed tools and datasets into orchestrated, agentic workflows.

Vedran Dzebic, Entro

• The Aha Moment: We can now quantify the invisible human experience. By bridging architecture and cognitive neuroscience, using eye-tracking and brain waves, we can objectively measure how people perceive, navigate, and emotionally respond to the environments we build.

Alison Muh & Mary Clare Garrity, Space Plan Wizard

• The Aha Moment: AI shouldn’t just remove the drudgery of space planning; it should unlock real-time workplace analytics so we can bring empathy and critical human thinking back to the design process.

Maria Victoria Ortega, Hexagon/Multivista

• The Aha Moment: Real creativity lies in defining the right questions. While AI can drastically speed up coordination and clash detection, the human architect is still required to integrate context, culture, budget, and technology into one coherent intention.

Kimon Onuma, FAIA, ONUMA, Inc.

• The Aha Moment: We must stop building “digital museums” where rich design intelligence is flattened into dead PDFs at handover. By leveraging open standards like ASHRAE 223P and open-source infrastructure through C4SB, we can wire our geometry directly to real-time operations. Technology should not be used to weaponize knowledge inside firms; those who share their intelligence and collaborate will ultimately prosper.

Wiring the Ecosystem: The Open Source Infrastructure

The architectural community has the context. The OT community has the telemetry. So, how do we wire it all together without creating massive, new proprietary silos?

We have to look at how the internet was built. We need open standards like ASHRAE 223P to act as a common dictionary, and cloudBIM to act as the living, operational layer connecting our geometry to real-time operations.

In my keynote at the AIA LA Tech Conference, I broke down the exact open-source supply chain we are building with the Coalition for Smarter Buildings (C4SB) and the Linux Foundation to make this happen.

Architectural Intelligence Keynote Presentation

Watch the full 45-minute keynote below.

• Inidividual Chapters are also posted on LinkedIn here:
• 🔹 Part 1: Taking our Title Back: Architect 
• 🔹 Part 2: The Information Tragedy 
• 🔹 Part 3: The Synthetic Data Crisis
• 🔹 Part 4: Open Source Solution (coming soon ) 
• 🔹 Part 5: Waking Up the Building (coming soon ) 
• 🔹 Part 6: Stepping into the Arena(coming soon ) 

Are You Ready to Step Into the Arena?

As I challenged the audience in Los Angeles, I said that innovation always begins with a few people willing to step into the arena. We don’t want to all be isolated islands; we are looking for doers ready to connect and change this industry.

Here is what you can do today: Connect: Post your thoughts, ask a question, or share a repository you are working on. Let’s start connecting these efforts. Reach out to me on LinkedIn.

What Comes Next? Who Governs the Agents?

Waking up the building is only the first step.

As we give the physical world a voice, AI is rapidly becoming agentic—meaning it won’t just answer questions; it will take actions like adjusting energy loads and triggering maintenance.

But when an AI agent can open the pod bay doors or shut down a critical building system, who is in control? Are you an owner of your intelligence, or are you just a renter from a massive tech monopoly?

At the SCALE 23X open-source conference, I sat down with the heavyweights of digital rights, privacy, and technology sovereignty, including Cindy Cohn (EFF), Daniella Barbosa (Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust), and open-source legend Jon “Maddog” Hall.

In my next article, we will dive into the ultimate battle for the built environment: Governance, Digital Rights, and Data Sovereignty.

Because an intelligent building without governance isn’t smart. It’s a liability.

Decommissioning the Silos

If we do not establish clear digital rights and operational guardrails today, we will eventually find ourselves in Dave’s shoes, forced to manually pull the plug on a proprietary black box we no longer control. This is what we called “Decomposing the building siloed data” on MondayLive.org for the PAE Living Building with C4SB.

Let’s build the guardrails before we have to pull the plug.See you in the arena.

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