AkitaBox’s Quantum Leap: A Look at the Breakthroughs Coming in 2024
Great software supports great facilities management. Great facilities management means your organization is better equipped to fulfill its mission. And when your organization has the facilities management it needs to do that, it can make a real impact.
We’re proud to support the organizations that are making our world better. It’s why we do what we do – so that people have the facilities they need to perform at their best.
Speaking of “better” and “best,” we’ve got plenty of advancements in store for 2024 to share with you. But first, a quick look back at 2023.
Wow, What a Year 2023 Was!
We spent 2023 focusing on making our software easier, faster, and more capable. In fact, many of our feature releases in the last year were requested or strongly influenced by our customers.
These 5 features in particular are ones worth highlighting:
AI-Powered Data Collection in the Capture App
When you’re collecting asset data, the time it takes to create new asset pins and type in asset data like manufacturer info and serial numbers can really add up. Now AI can do all that for you in seconds.
Here’s how it works:
- Open up the AkitaBox Capture App on your tablet
- Take a photo of an asset’s nameplate
- Place the resulting asset pin on the digital floor plan
In the background, AI-enabled Capture “reads” the information on the nameplate. It uses that information to determine what type of asset it is and creates a draft pin using the correct pin type.
Capture also pulls in the manufacturer info, model number, serial number, etc. from the nameplate and places them in the correct data fields for that asset pin. It attaches your photo of the nameplate as well.
This feature is currently available to our beta users – and they’re already experiencing significant time savings during onsite data collection. We’re using feedback from the beta users to make improvements, and soon AI-enabled Capture will be fully rolled out to everyone.
And this is only the beginning. We’re also working on incorporating AI into other aspects of our software to help with actions such as cost estimating, data analysis, preventive maintenance, and much more. I discuss this in more detail later on in the post.
Field Groups
Many of our clients have multiple teams that need to focus on different data fields or different projects that only need a certain subset of fields. Having to scroll through dozens (if not hundreds) of fields every time you need to enter data is time consuming.
For example, an electrical team is only going to look at energy-specific data fields across all assets. By creating a custom field group for the electrical data fields, those engineers no longer have to scroll through tons of different fields just to get to the ones they care about. They can navigate to their custom field group and all the fields they need are right there.
Field groups can greatly reduce the visual clutter of many data fields while eliminating needless scrolling and speeding up data collection.
Photo Annotation
They say a picture is worth a thousand words – but sometimes a photo of a breaker box or mechanical room needs some explanation. With the photo annotation feature, you can markup the pictures you take. Add notes, draw a circle, put in an arrow – it’s completely up to you.
It’s as easy as 1,2,3:
- Take a picture using the Capture App
- Tap the markup icon
- Draw on the image
Building Cloning and Creation
At AkitaBox, we’re all about making our software “self-serve.” We enable our users to do things on their own without needing to request tons of technical support. These features are a great example of that. AkitaBox users can create their own new buildings within the software. They can also clone existing buildings – which comes in handy if you want to create a new building but don’t want to start from scratch.
Cost Estimation
Whether you’re conducting an FCA or doing some capital planning, AkitaBox’s cost estimation feature makes it easy to determine replacement costs for key assets. Currently, our cost estimation feature uses costs from the RSMeans cost catalog. Coming in 2024, clients will be able to upload their own asset cost data using our soon-to-be-released Asset Catalogs feature. Beta users of this feature are already reaping the benefits.
What does all this mean for 2024? In short, it sets the stage for incorporating AI into our software in even more ways – and giving facilities teams a super charged tool for managing their data.
AkitaBox’s AI Go-Forward Plan
When our clients are successful, we’re successful – and AI is going to be central to that ongoing success. How? By automating lower value and time-consuming work. AI is also excellent at parsing and summarizing vast amounts of information, which allows it to spot trends and synthesize data in ways that would be too cost prohibitive for a person to do.
That’s not to say AI can do everything, but it can work alongside people as a powerful assistant, making everyone better at what they do. It allows you to offload time-consuming, low-value tasks so you can focus on higher value work. Ultimately, this provides a lot of efficiency for facilities teams – allowing them to take on more or bigger projects and enjoy a greater return on investment. AI quite simply pays for itself.
That’s the big picture. Now let’s drill down into some of the specific ways we plan to leverage AI in our software. AI will play a major role in improving asset auditing and management in AkitaBox. Here are three examples.
Data Capture: In the Capture App, AI will quickly gather information from photos and from your voice. It’ll use this information to fill out data fields and match assets with your asset catalog for quick cost estimation.
Asset Management: AI will help fill in the blanks. It can find additional asset data such as “size” and other details of an asset that may have been missed or can’t be ascertained in the field.
Insights Reporting: Insights is our assessment reporting tool. With AI, you’ll be able to create reporting charts and summaries of your data with simple text-based prompts rather than complex queries. This will also help automate reporting, as these prompts are saved as a part of templates. Ultimately, this should allow you to have your reports and capital plans complete before you’ve even left the building.
AkitaBot – Your AI Assistant
AkitaBot is our umbrella term for all of the upcoming AI and assistive capabilities we’ll be rolling out in AkitaBox. Basically, AkitaBot = AkitaBox’s AI functionality. Here’s a look at our roadmap of AkitaBox functionality.
Today
AkitaBot creates asset listings within AkitaBox using a photo of the asset label. It can also create asset listings based on voice input.
Near Future
AkitaBot will automatically match your assets with existing catalog items, saving you countless hours of time spent doing cost estimation.
Long Term
With AkitaBox, you’ll be able to talk to your assets. AkitaBot will ask you to look at things or ask for more information in order to conduct faster and more complete data collection. It could tell you:
- “Open the panel and check to see the condition of the wires.”
- “You should find the panel label on the back of the chiller.”
- “It looks to be in good condition. Here are some things to check to confirm this.”
- “It would be helpful to know the installation date of this asset.”
You’ll also be able to talk to your data by asking AkitaBot to generate various reports, for example:
- “Show me all the assets I should replace next year and how much that will cost.”
- “Create an executive summary for my FCA report.”
- “Show me pictures of all the assets in poor condition.”
AkitaBot will also provide helpful notifications and reminders, such as:
- “Looks like you have a tech working in an area with assets that could be checked on.”
- “Here is a report on what assets you should look at replacing next year.”
- “There are some overdue work orders on high-risk assets in poor condition.”
- “Here is a list of assets that are costing more to continue repairing than to replace.”
It’ll even be able to help with preventive maintenance:
- “Here’s a PM schedule for this asset.”
- “We recommend the following for your inspection checklist.”
- “Based on the attached manual, we recommend you replace this filter every 6 months.”
AkitaBot will also be able to fill in gaps in your data – for example:
- “AkitaBot found the following sizes for your assets.”
- “Would you like AkitaBot to attempt to find manuals for your assets?”
To learn more about AI in AkitaBox – and keep up with our latest AI feature announcements – check out our AI page.
The Future is Yours
Make 2024 the year you take charge of your facilities data with help from AkitaBox. Explore how the power of AI and the simplicity of our easy-to-learn software can solve your facilities headaches with a customized demo.
