Butlr Expands into Corporate Lab Space as Demand Grows for Anonymous AI-Driven Utilization Insights
CAMBRIDGE, MA - Butlr is moving beyond offices, retail, and healthcare into corporate laboratory environments with its Heatic™ sensor platform. The physical AI (PAI) system uses body heat detection and machine learning to map occupancy and movement without collecting personally identifiable information.
For real estate and construction teams, this means a practical way to measure lab utilization in real time, flag safety risks, and steer high-stakes fit-out decisions with data. In sectors where build costs and compliance are tight, knowing exactly how space is used reduces guesswork and unnecessary capital spend.
What the Heatic platform brings to labs
Heatic sensors anonymously detect presence and movement across benches, instrument bays, corridors, and shared rooms. The output is occupancy and flow data that shows which rooms are at capacity, which zones are sitting idle, and how teams actually use space across the day.
No cameras. No PII. Just thermal activity interpreted by AI to deliver utilization, safety, and facilities insight that can be shared across real estate, EHS, and operations.
Why this matters for CRE and construction
Lab buildouts are expensive, slow, and often misaligned with real usage once teams move in. One global medical technology company used Butlr sensors to baseline occupancy before greenlighting an expansion. The data showed 30% underutilization.
Instead of building new, they reconfigured existing labs and converted surplus areas into administrative workspaces. With life sciences fit-outs averaging roughly $846 per square foot, avoiding even a modest expansion can mean millions preserved for core R&D. For context on life sciences cost drivers, see Cushman & Wakefield's industry insights here.
Safety and compliance without surveillance
Labs handle hazards: chemicals, bio agents, pressurized systems, and specialized equipment. Butlr's anonymized occupancy data helps managers set thresholds, monitor zones around hazardous materials, and trigger alerts when rooms exceed safe limits or when required supervision drops below policy.
Because the system is anonymous by design, facilities teams gain visibility without creating surveillance concerns or adding risk under privacy regulations.
Integrates with your stack
Butlr's data can feed common CRE and FM platforms, building management systems, and safety alert networks. That means one source of truth for space planning, cleaning schedules, energy optimization, and EHS triggers.
For project teams, this opens a tight handoff from design to operations: validate test fits, right-size equipment bays, and adjust layouts using live utilization instead of assumptions.
Where owners and project teams see value
- Capex deferral: Prove reconfiguration beats expansion before committing to a new build or lease.
- Right-sizing: Resize benches, amenity space, and instrument zones to match actual usage.
- Energy and operations: Align HVAC and cleaning to verified occupancy patterns, not static schedules.
- EHS assurance: Monitor safe occupancy levels in hazardous areas and escalate through existing alert systems.
- Portfolio strategy: Compare performance across buildings to consolidate or repurpose underperforming footprints.
How to pilot in 30 days
- Select a representative lab cluster (core labs, write-up areas, specialty rooms).
- Install Heatic sensors and define target metrics: peak load, dwell time, queueing, safe occupancy thresholds.
- Integrate with your IWMS/BMS and EHS alerting for a full view.
- Run a 4-6 week baseline; publish heatmaps and recommendations to project and ops stakeholders.
- Execute low-cost changes first (bench reallocation, equipment sharing, schedule tweaks), then reassess before major capex.
- Add clear privacy signage and a simple data policy to build trust with lab users.
Quote from Butlr
"The cost and time required to set up or reconfigure a lab space goes beyond fit-out expenses and includes additional costs due to underutilized equipment and space," said Honghao Deng, CEO and co-founder of Butlr. "This is driving medical technology and life sciences firms to rely on Butlr data to make more strategic decisions about commercial real estate investments."
Bottom line for CRE and construction
Measure first, build smarter. Anonymous utilization data helps owners, developers, and GCs validate program needs, reduce change orders, and reconfigure with confidence. In high-cost, high-compliance environments like life sciences, that discipline compounds into real dollars and fewer surprises post-occupancy.
If your team is building AI fluency for data-driven CRE operations, explore practical training resources at Complete AI Training.
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