In Facilities Management, AI Inflection Point Arrives With Focus on ROI

The promise of AI in boardrooms rarely matches its reality on the front lines. There, a different conversation is unfolding. Stretched thin, facility and restaurant managers are asking: "How are leaders _actually_ using AI successfully in their facilities operations?" For many, the sentiment is a blend of cautious curiosity and outright skepticism, born from the pressure of daily operations. But in this new, automated era, most leaders don't have time for tools that don’t solve an immediate, tangible problem.

Bridging the gap between AI's potential and the practical needs of frontline operators is the challenge right now. Optimizing operations is a key driver for AI adoption, according to Deloitte. But the path forward is anything but clear. The emerging consensus is that a targeted approach is the most successful strategy. Now, the focus for leaders is on solving the most fundamental (and costly) problems: downtime, rework, and the struggle to manage at scale.

• Downtime blues: In the retail and food service industries, downtime is a direct hit to revenue and brand reputation. When a freezer fails at a grocery store or a kitchen hood goes down during a dinner rush, the impact is immediate. With operators sharing stories of how a single equipment failure can derail an entire week's profitability, the anxiety is palpable online.

• Direct diagnosis: For most, the first line of defense against downtime is a faster, more accurate diagnosis. This is where practical, embedded AI is making its mark. By allowing a store employee to describe a problem in plain language, these systems can instantly capture critical details to dispatch the right technician faster and shorten the entire repair lifecycle.

This is the principle behind the new FexaAI Work Order Agent, which acts as the sidekick facilities teams desperately need. By allowing teams to submit issues in plain English, the system automatically prompts for missing details and applies location-specific context. The result is a clean ticket, routed to the right vendor the first time, leading to fewer callbacks, less downtime, and store teams who are actually happy to use it.

The cost of miscommunication in facilities management is staggering. Most often, it manifests as duplicated work, like sending the right technician with the wrong information, or sending the wrong technician entirely. Usually, this type of issue is a direct result of incomplete data at the start of the service request. Now, the journey beyond a reactive "break-fix" model begins with clean data.

• An artificial expert: To tackle this, AI is being deployed as a digital expert that interacts directly with users. By prompting for specifics like location and severity when a user reports a leak, this built-in intelligence ensures a work order is complete before it's dispatched.

• The smell of success: Brian Diehl, Project Manager for Bath & Body Works, already sees the impact of a more proactive approach to work orders in his daily operations. “The built-in intelligence reduces the back-and-forth of triaging tickets. It’s an ideal solution for cutting downtime, reducing rework, and helping both our field and corporate teams focus on higher-value work.”

Unlike bolt-on dashboards or experimental pilots, FexaAI is embedded into the workflow engine, designed for operators with hundreds or thousands of locations. Because it requires no additional tools or training, it’s built to deliver ROI at scale. By aligning with enterprise privacy and security requirements, the platform provides a secure way to manage smarter.

For multi-site operators, the sheer volume of data across hundreds or thousands of locations can be overwhelming. Most managers want to move toward strategic, predictive maintenance. But they are often too busy tackling the administrative tasks of the present.

Before they can predict the future, leaders must get control of today. This is where AI serves its most strategic function yet, creating a foundation of reliable data. By confirming every work order is clean, complete, and structured, AI tools build the high-quality dataset needed for future analytics. In this context, solving today's tactical problems is what will enable tomorrow's strategic vision for facilities managers.

• Delivering value on demand: Endri Gina, Director of Global Real Estate for instant commerce platform Gopuff, adds, "The goal is to redefine what facilities can deliver for the business.”

• 10x productivity: Central to this vision of empowerment is the new wave of AI tools from leading industry software providers. “AI can’t turn a wrench, but it will make facilities managers 10× more productive by cutting out the busy work,” says Kurt Smith, CEO of Fexa.

• A new command center: This shift is a recurring theme among industry leaders. “I’m leaving with big ideas on how to elevate facilities from a ‘cost center’ to a true business driver,” says Faith Espinoza, Director of Facilities for the co-working space Industrious, after a recent Executive AI Forum.

Moving forward, successful AI adoption won't be defined by complex, top-down platforms. It will depend on practical tools that solve the most persistent problems first. The advice for leaders is simple: start with the immediate pains of downtime and rework. By embedding AI into the daily workflow to ensure every service request is complete and accurate, you build the reliable data foundation required for future predictive strategies. For most facilities management leaders, the journey from reactive to predictive begins with a perfectly captured work order.