“The right people don’t care about a corner office – they care about the culture, if you’re mission-driven, what you’re going to do to make the world a better place.” said Adam Neumann, Former CEO and Founder of WeWork. But while WeWork famously became WeCrashed, here we have a company that is bringing a new twist to the market. Which is of course with AI.
Now that hybrid work and evolving workplace dynamics is the new norm, the challenge of creating spaces that are both efficient and enjoyable is becoming increasingly complex. Enter Butlr, a company that is not only meeting these challenges head-on but is also redefining the very concept of a workspace. By combining technology with a deep understanding of human behavior, Butlr is bringing in a new approach to how we interact with our surroundings—be it in an office, a retail space, or even in senior care facilities.
Butlr, a spin-off from the prestigious MIT Media Lab, founded by Honghao Deng, a computational designer who is the company’s CEO, and cofounder Jiani Zeng created a wireless sensor that uses body heat to infer anonymous activity on how space is being used. They developed the world’s most scalable and privacy-first ambient sensing platform. But what does that mean in practice? Imagine walking into a meeting room designed for eight people but finding it almost always occupied by just one or two individuals. Or consider the energy waste of heating or cooling an empty office. These inefficiencies aren’t just annoyances; they represent significant costs and missed opportunities for organizations striving to optimize their workspaces.
In 2022, Butlr addressed a pressing challenge faced by many companies grappling with the uncertainty of hybrid work environments and office space utilization. As organizations faced economic headwinds and fluctuating employee attendance, Butlr’s innovation provided a much-needed solution. Their sensors, developed from MIT research, utilize body heat to deliver accurate occupancy data without compromising privacy. This technology comes at a crucial time when “72% of businesses lack clear hybrid work strategy,” as noted in a March AT&T poll. Honghao Deng, co-founder and CEO, emphasized, “Real estate and workplace executives need to establish a new baseline and make data-driven decisions given the dollars at risk with regard to office space and employee productivity.” By offering insights into space usage through thermal sensing, Butlr enables companies to make informed decisions about their real estate needs amidst the uncertainties of the modern work environment.
Source: Butlr
In March 2023, Butlr took a step forward with the launch of its next-generation Heatic 2 sensor. This new sensor nearly doubles the field of coverage and offers stronger signal capabilities, meaning any given space requires fewer sensors and less installation time. This advancement isn’t just a technical upgrade; it’s a fundamental shift in how organizations can approach space management.
Source: Butlr
Butlr’s comprehensive software platform, which includes a user-friendly dashboard, device management capabilities, and AI-powered spatial analysis, is the backbone of this innovation. This platform empowers companies to visualize and understand their spaces in ways that were previously unimaginable. As of the end of 2023, Butlr was working with approximately 150 companies globally, including heavyweights like Qualcomm, Walmart, Uber, Verizon, and Carrier. The number of devices Butlr deployed grew an astonishing 1,307% from 2021 to 2022 and an impressive 222% from 2022 to 2023. But it’s not just about the numbers; it’s about what these numbers represent—a growing recognition of the value that Butlr brings to the table.
Privacy at the Core
Unlike cameras or other surveillance solutions, Butlr’s sensors collect data that is inherently anonymous. Protecting employees’ privacy isn’t just a feature; it’s a core tenet of Butlr’s mission. This approach has earned the company a partnership with the World Economic Forum in its Yes San Francisco program, where Butlr is working with the city and major employers to help revitalize the business district.
Butlr’s unique approach to people-sensing technology combines AI and machine learning with body heat sensing, creating a platform that can infer human presence and activity without collecting personal information. This is not just about building smarter offices; it’s about respecting the privacy and dignity of every individual who enters those spaces.
Beyond the Office: Aiding Senior Care
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Butlr’s technology played a crucial role in helping organizations adapt to the new normal. By providing real-time occupancy data, Butlr enabled companies to safely manage office spaces, ensuring social distancing and reducing the risk of transmission. Their sensors were instrumental in creating safer environments, whether in offices, retail spaces, or senior care facilities, showcasing the versatility and importance of Butlr’s solutions in times of crisis.
While Butlr is revolutionizing workspaces, its technology is also making a significant impact in another critical area: senior care. As the global population ages, the demand for innovative solutions in senior care is more urgent than ever. The U.S. Census Bureau projects that the number of Americans aged 65 and older will increase by 47% between 2022 and 2050. Coupled with a persistent labor shortage in the industry, the need for technology that can support both caregivers and residents is clear.
Butlr’s sensors and data are used in senior living communities to identify subtle changes in movement, providing early warnings for potential health issues such as frailty or the risk of falls. This privacy-first approach goes beyond traditional monitoring methods, offering a way to ensure safety without compromising dignity. Butlr’s solutions are being implemented in senior care communities like Shell Point and acute care facilities in Sweden’s Halmstad City. These deployments enable faster emergency responses, mitigate acute health risks, and help address the labor shortage by making more efficient use of staff.
Crafting the Future of Workspaces with $71.1 Million in Funding
Butlr, the physical AI startup as they like to be known, recently secured $38 million in Series B funding to meet the rising demand for its innovative sensors and anonymous data solutions. This latest funding round, led by Foundry, brings Butlr’s total funding to $71.1 million and will support the company’s expansion, particularly in senior care communities and workplaces. Co-founder and CEO Honghao Deng highlighted the company’s vision, stating, “With the ability to better understand how people use interior spaces, we can imagine a not-too-distant future where Butlr sensors and data are the essential nerve system for buildings throughout the world.”
We are thrilled to share that Butlr closed a $38M Series B round of funding!https://t.co/rNqsOwKah3 pic.twitter.com/P1NyBTmXcr
— Butlr (@butlr_io) August 26, 2024
The new funding will also enable Butlr to continue developing products, such as sensors with ultra-long battery life and an open API platform, to support the growing need for safer, more efficient spaces. Co-founder and Chief Product Officer Jiani Zeng emphasized the impact of this investment, noting, “The infusion of funding and the release of our new products enables Butlr to strategically scale and respond to customer demand across a variety of industries, most notably senior care.”
Communication and Serendipity is the Human Element
Butlr’s technology isn’t just about optimizing space—it’s about enhancing the human experience within those spaces. One of the company’s key insights is the importance of movement and interaction in the workplace. Open-plan layouts, often assumed to enhance communication, can sometimes have the opposite effect. In reality, these layouts can overexpose employees to information, leading to a decrease in movement and exploration. Butlr’s data has shown that uniform, expanded open-plan layouts—those infamous seas of desks—often perform poorly in encouraging communication and collaboration.
Instead, Butlr advocates for creating “focal nodes” within a workspace—areas designed to attract attention and encourage exploration. These can be as simple as whiteboard walls, workshop rooms, media walls, or coffee bars. But sometimes, the most effective focal nodes are those that are unexpected.
Take, for example, a project Butlr worked on in Paris in 2022. The office in question had all the makings of a contemporary workspace, complete with high-tech equipment and beautifully designed spaces. But what caught the team’s attention was a small terrace at the end of the office. At first glance, it seemed like a typical break area. However, after spending just 30 minutes observing the space, it became clear that employees were gravitating to the terrace not just to socialize, but to work. This small, unassuming area became one of the most dynamic workspaces the Butlr team had ever encountered.
By using occupancy data to identify dynamic and static spaces, companies can create environments that encourage serendipitous encounters—those chance meetings that can lead to the next big idea.
Flexibility and Contextualization: The Future of Work
As organizations grow and evolve, the factors contributing to a happy and productive workforce become increasingly complex. Diverse teams bring a range of communication styles, cultural backgrounds, and work processes, making it difficult to address every potential issue through traditional methods. This is where Butlr’s data-driven approach shines.
Instead of relying on surveys or anecdotal stories, Butlr provides organizations with actionable data on how their spaces are being used. For example, occupancy data can reveal whether employees are hijacking meeting rooms for quiet workspaces, leading to overbooked rooms and underutilized areas. By understanding these patterns, companies can make informed decisions about how to optimize their spaces for the needs of their teams.
But Butlr’s impact goes beyond individual offices. In December 2022, one of their enterprise clients came up with an innovative solution to the challenge of leading a highly decentralized and fragmented team across the globe. The client created a “Jedi Council Chamber” of sorts—a space with screens that displayed the active time zones and current activities of teams around the world. This room quickly became a hub for coordination and collaboration, fostering a sense of community and transparency within the organization.
A Question for the Future
Recently, a documentary on WeWork surfaced, highlighting the challenges and failures of the coworking space.While a lot of their mission is similar to Adam Neumann’s, their approach is so much more different and unique. Butlr is flipping the script on office management while WeWork’s failed experiment is still fresh in our minds. Unlike WeWork’s high-stakes gamble with rapid, reckless expansion, Butlr is playing it smart with a tech-first approach. Rather than piling up physical properties, Butlr is using AI and sensors to turn existing spaces into efficient, adaptive environments. Imagine ditching the costly real estate spree for data that fine-tunes how you use your office. While WeWork’s grand vision crumbled under financial strain and bad management, Butlr’s strategy of optimizing what you already have offers a more sustainable and insightful way to shape the future of workspaces.
But this raises an important question: As we continue to blend physical and digital experiences, how will spatial analysis shape the future of workspaces? Will the office of tomorrow be a place of inspiration and connection, or will it merely serve as a hub for transactional interactions? And more importantly, how will companies like Butlr influence this evolution?
With its innovative approach to privacy-first sensing technology, Butlr is not just asking these questions; it’s providing the tools to answer them. Whether it’s creating more dynamic workspaces, enhancing senior care, or optimizing energy efficiency, Butlr is at the forefront of a movement that is reshaping how we think about the spaces we inhabit. The future, it seems, is being built on data—but it’s the human element that will truly define it.
As Butlr’s founder noted, “Our goal is to make every space smarter and safer by understanding the people who occupy them. This funding will help us push the boundaries of what’s possible in physical AI.”
