People-Centred Building Intelligence platform takes home both Most Innovative New Product (Digital) and Best Asset Management Innovation Awards, after helping universities unlock more than £19 million in actual and potential avoided capital spend.
SmartViz has won both categories it entered at the Building Innovation Awards 2026, taking home Best Asset Management Innovation and Most Innovative New Product (Digital).
The awards celebrate pioneering organisations using emerging technologies and digital innovation to advance the UK construction and built environment. Both wins recognise the same idea at the heart of SmartViz: that buildings can only be run well, retrofitted well and designed well once we understand how people actually use them.
The results behind the award
SmartViz is already changing how some of the UK’s largest estates make decisions:
- University of Glasgow uncovered surplus space across 12 buildings and 50 teaching spaces, equivalent to more than £14 millions of potential avoided capital investment, plus over £1 million in annual operating cost savings.
- Cardiff Metropolitan University avoided £5.1 million of new construction and identified opportunities to reduce utility consumption – the university subsequently implemented changes that resulted in £1.8m+ in operational savings.
- Vodafone achieved $40 million in annual property savings, with a further $140 million now being explored across its global portfolio of more than 3,000 properties.
Why this matters: the buildings we have versus the buildings we need
Today’s buildings consume more than twice the energy they need. Not because the technology is missing, but because they’re run on assumptions about how people use them. Hybrid working and hybrid learning emptied buildings years ago. Yet most estates are still heated, cleaned, secured and timetabled as if it were 2019.
The evidence is stark. AUDE estimates that 10–40% of university estate footprints are underutilised. SmartViz’s own data across more than 15 UK universities shows teaching space utilisation around 20% during term, and office space at around 30% even on the busiest days. Meanwhile universities are cutting maintenance budgets while still adding new floor space.
That’s why SmartViz exists. Its vision is a built environment that’s evidence-led rather than assumption-led: buildings that understand how people actually use them, adapt to that demand, and put the money and carbon saved back into better teaching, research, care and work. You can’t reach net zero by heating empty rooms. And you can’t plan the estate you need without knowing how the estate you have really performs.
Dr Shrikant Sharma, Founder and CEO of SmartViz, said:
“Smart buildings have been a buzzword for a decade, and most of them are still dumb. They’re full of sensors and systems that never talk to each other, and none of them ask the only question that matters: how are people actually using this space? Every university and every business is being asked to find efficiencies. Our answer is that the money is already there, sitting in empty rooms. These awards recognises a simple idea: measure buildings by how people use them, and better decisions and big savings follow.”
What SmartViz does
SmartViz brings together IoT sensors, building systems, room-booking data, energy and environmental information into a live, learning 3D digital twin, powered by more than 17 billion data points and growing every day.
That gives estate directors, facilities managers and finance teams a clear, continuous picture of how their buildings are really being used, and the evidence to make better decisions across operations, investment, retrofit and future design. Instead of asking “how much space do we have?”, they can finally answer “how much space do we actually need, and what kind?”
What our client said
David Gray, Head of Estates Digital and Insight at the University of Glasgow, said:
“SmartViz has significantly enhanced our understanding of estate utilisation by providing reliable, evidence-based occupancy data. This insight has given us greater confidence in both operational and strategic estate planning decisions, helping us identify opportunities to optimise space use and better align provision with demand.”
What the judges said
‘’SmartViz demonstrates genuine lifecycle value through measurable estate optimisation, avoided capital expenditure, reduced operating costs and improved utilisation across multiple large estates. It shows how scalable deployment can transform strategic asset management decisions, delivering major savings and measurable carbon benefits across several major clients.’’ — Building Innovation Awards 2026 Jury (summary of the feedback)
“SmartViz’s People-Centred Building Intelligence platform demonstrates a strong combination of innovation, scale and measurable impact. Its ‘peel and stick’ sensors, platform design and interoperable approach, supported by multiple major deployments with quantified estate, energy and capital savings, provide strong evidence of a product ready for broad industry adoption.” — Building Innovation Awards 2026 Jury (summary of the feedback)
What these awards mean for us
Winning both categories matters because they recognise two halves of the same story. Best Asset Management Innovation rewards what the evidence does for buildings across their whole lifecycle. Most Innovative New Product (Digital) rewards the product that makes that evidence possible. Together, they reflect a wider shift towards putting people and evidence at the heart of how the built environment thinks about its buildings.
Dr Sharma added:
“We’re proud, and we’re grateful to the universities, NHS trusts and businesses that have trusted us to help supports their decisions. But the real recognition is theirs: they had the courage to act on the evidence. Our job now is to make that the norm across the built environment, not the exception.”
Our mission continues
SmartViz’s People-Centred Building Intelligence platform now supports more than 15 UK universities, alongside NHS organisations, global corporates, local authorities and major infrastructure assets. It is built on more than 17 billion data points and growing every day.
We’ll keep helping organisations make better use of the buildings they already have, and keep building the evidence base for the estates of tomorrow: smaller where they can be, better where it counts, and designed around the people inside them.
About SmartViz
SmartViz is the People-Centred Building Intelligence platform helping the built environment shift from assumption-led to evidence-led decisions. By continuously measuring how people actually use buildings, it helps organisations optimise today’s buildings while creating the evidence needed to retrofit, invest in and design the better buildings of tomorrow. SmartViz works with more than 15 UK universities, NHS organisations, global corporates, local authorities and major infrastructure assets. www.smart-viz.com
Media contact
Julie Atherton, PR for SmartViz · julie@smart-viz.com ·
