AI'll Be In The Office: Innovations In Hybrid Workplace Tech

AI'll Be In The Office: Innovations In Hybrid Workplace Tech

Remember commuting to work five days a week? No? It’s okay, neither do most workers. Hybrid working has surged from a novelty to an expectation, with 28% of UK workers taking a hybrid approach as of March 2025 and 44% of EU workers following hybrid schedules in 2024. In response to this boom, workplace management software vendors have been investing in functionality that helps implement, manage and improve hybrid working processes.

Desk-perate measures: granular hybrid rules take over
Solution providers have heavily invested in capabilities that help managers define granular hybrid rules and ensure employee adherence to them. For instance, managers can configure their custom booking rules in Appspace by location, department and role title, down to specific employees. Planon enables users to define work-style habits for different positions – such as creating a work profile for software developers that says they will spend 60% of their time at their desk and 40% of their time in collaboration areas. HubStar helps firms in the early stages of their hybrid workplace strategy offer employees leniency with regard to certain rules by allowing admins to choose to enforce hard or soft booking controls.

Lights, camera, integration: hybrid work gets automated
To provide frictionless employee journeys in the office and greater automation, workplace solution vendors have built out deeper integrations with operational technology (OT) systems and business solutions. For example, Johnson Controls’s OBEM Workplace Advisor Companion Plus offering integrates with OT systems, enabling employees to use a single app to book spaces, access buildings, and control HVAC or lighting systems. Similarly, Siemens’s Enlighted Connect allows users to control lights, room temperature, window shades and elevators, leveraging ML algorithms to learn users’ personal temperature preferences over time and automatically set rooms to those preferences. On the software side, vendors are investing in integrations with calendar, messaging and HR solutions. Thing Technologies’ platform, for instance, will leverage integrations with HR solutions to automatically remove bookings for employees on vacation or sick leave.

AI spy with my little eye: solving office problems before you see them
Vendors are also leveraging various forms of AI to improve analytics, reduce employee touchpoints, and automate employee and manager processes. A growing number of hybrid workplace solutions on the market are offering chatbots that help employees find the best days to go into the office, book spaces, find information about the office and submit requests. Some are also offering chatbots for managers – for example, managers can ask OfficeSpace Software’s chatbot, Ossie, “What was the utilization rate by site last year?” to get a chart of this information. Mapiq uses AI to identify potential problems, such as locations with lower room-to-person ratios compared with others, and provides recommendations on how to fix them. Software providers are using AI to simplify day-to-day processes for employees. For example, Eptura’s smart healing services use AI algorithms to automatically book the next-best alternative space when a user changes the date or time of an existing meeting. Meanwhile, digital blanket plans to introduce an AI solution that will provide employees with ideal departure times based on traffic, weather and meetings that day.

Hybrid working will become the norm, especially as younger generations enter the workforce expecting hybrid programmes to be an option. Workplace management vendors are under immense pressure to innovate their offerings to keep up with the latest demands and trends. Going forward, Verdantix expects vendors to make greater use of AI for advanced planning and analytics, develop deeper integrations with building infrastructure, and find new ways to boost employee collaboration.

For more insights on key capabilities, industry trends and use cases for hybrid workplace management solutions, join our Mastering Hybrid Workplace Management: Choosing The Right Tools webinar on June 11^th.