BeyondView, a data-driven, digital twin technology firm providing photorealistic, interactive, and digital commercial real estate solutions, launched a new augmented reality (AR) feature for its enterprise, digital twin software. The AR feature will be introduced across a sampling of BeyondView’s portfolio of leading real estate clients including Healthpeak Properties, Silverstein Properties, Daiwa House USA, Physicians Realty Trust, Lillibridge, Farley White Interests and WeWork.

Scott Brinker, President and CEO of Healthpeak Properties said, “The integration of BeyondView’s technology solutions across our portfolio of properties has kept Healthpeak on the forefront of innovation. We are having great success using BeyondView’s solutions and their new AR feature is proving its ability to remove the guess work of imagining a space’s unmet potential, while still providing prospective tenants with a more traditional touring process.”

The new AR feature blends the physical-world with the digital-universe, providing real-life context to BeyondView’s stunning digital twins. By scanning QR codes that are strategically placed throughout a physical space, users will plunge into BeyondView’s platform which aligns the real-life space’s unmet potential to the coordinating digital twin. From initial engagement with prospective tenants to agreement closings, this new feature will help property owners, brokers, and prospective tenants expedite deal flow.

Kul Wadhwa, Founder and CEO of BeyondView said, “It is a privilege to work with such innovative customers, like Healthpeak, that really understand the benefits of using BeyondView’s AI powered solutions. BeyondView’s Digital Twins are unlike other market offerings and we are continuously advancing our platform. We are thrilled to launch this newest feature that meshes our digital twin software with real world functionality allowing users to physically experience a space all the while using BeyondView’s technology to see what the final product will look like before it undergoes expensive and time-consuming alterations.”

BeyondView’s digital twins utilize artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to create a digital representation of a space at a fraction of current time and costs. The result is a building-specific database that is highly customizable to advance stakeholder decision-making. By integrating easily accessible and contextualized data, stunning visuals, and a user-friendly communication platform, BeyondView presents a one-of-a-kind customer experience.

BeyondView’s innovative digital twin technology provides prospective tenants with the opportunity to virtually tour newly developed and reimagined properties tailored to meet their specific needs while simultaneously managing the building-specific database. Working from already prepared materials such as blueprints, CAD drawings, or even photographs, BeyondView not only prepares digitally white boxed visualizations but can be used to completely redesign properties.

ABOUT BEYONDVIEW
Combining Hollywood movie magic with cutting-edge technology, BeyondView’s Digital Twins are revolutionizing the way commercial properties are presented, marketed, and managed. The result is enterprise software that shows data as life-like visuals with a one-of-a-kind user experience that is enjoyable to look at and exciting to use. BeyondView’s Digital Twins are an innovative and unique digital offering which are a visualization of usable data that simplify portfolio scenario and resource planning as well as facility and asset management. The 3D data is reusable and available for redeployment providing a building-specific database that is highly customizable to guide stakeholder decision-making. For more information, please visit www.beyondview.com.

Here are the individuals, teams and companies that made the cut for tech influencers this year. Commercial real estate’s technology stack has spread to include areas that just a few years ago would have seemed unthinkable, at least in this space. New features and functions, not to mention advanced computing, can be found not only in the apartment space – where the consumer-facing applications are most in use – but also in the back end processes that run most CRE operations no matter the sector. Developing these products requires more than just knowledge of, say, machine learning or predictive analytics. At the same time, the men and women who build technology for commercial real estate need to have an in-depth under- standing of the problems the technology needs to solve. They need to be knowledgeable about both subject domains and that mix is not always easy to find. But find those people we did and they are highlighted in the following pages.

BeyondView is mixing digital technology with artistic ability to revolutionize the way commercial properties are marketed and managed. Led by CEO and founder Kul Wadhwa, the firm has established itself as an industry disrupter with visualizations that use AI and machine learn-ing to bring spaces to life. The data-driven technology works from already prepared materials including blueprints, CAD drawings and photo-graphs to prepare digitally white-boxed visualizations as well as completely redesigned and reimagined properties that demonstrate a commercial space’s potential. Presenting virtual walls and furniture, BeyondView’s digital twin technology provides a level of detail that is proven to accelerate a commercial space’s leasing cycle. In some cases, BeyondView’s software cuts the cost of planning and layout by up to 80%. Since its launch in 2018, the firm has expanded its team of professionals and incrementally enhanced the platform’s capabilities. BeyondView recently announced an enterprise agreement with WeWork Japan that will digitize its portfolio of properties and transform its ability to virtually market and manage its locations. Leveraging BeyondView’s digital twin technology, prospective tenants can virtually tour the reimagined flexible office space of WeWork Japan’s newest offering in Shinagawa before construction is complete. Before establishing BeyondView, Wadhwa co-founded three technology startups and gained experience at the Wikimedia Foundation as managing director, tasked with growing Wikipedia into a global top 10 website with more than 500 million users. He also spent several years as a volunteer technology advisor to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on wide-scale technology deployments that addressed issues from global health to poverty.

Computer-generated imagery isn’t just for the silver screen anymore as engineers say no to Hollywood and yes to a real estate paycheck.

BeyondView, under the leadership of CEO Kul Wadhwa, is one firm that has stacked its ranks with defectors from showbiz who can whip up Pixar-quality digital twins and give clients an idea of how buildings will feel once barren spaces are built out.

Using prepared materials such as blueprints or photos, BeyondView is able to create digital twins of commercial and life science spaces without having to make scans like similar outfits, and they say they do it at a lower cost compared to their competitors.

Which, after a bit of fundraising, has left the small firm with some room to grow up to 100 times its current size, according to Wadhwa, who gave Commercial Observer a rundown of how BeyondView operates in November.

“No one knew anything about real estate going into this. It wasn’t what we did before,” Wadhwa said. “The original company, we digitized humans. So most of our staff work on the ‘Lord of the Rings’ and ‘Avatar.’ All we knew about real estate was paying our own mortgages.”

Wadhwa, who worked for nearly seven years in business development for the Wikimedia Foundation, among many other pursuits over the last couple of decades, said it all started when BeyondView needed new office space of its own. In order to envision what the space should look like, one colleague, Jeremy Yabrow, who formerly worked at Pixar Animation Studios as a build engineer, began playing around with the company’s own technology.

Other people who helped build the firm include George Borshukov, who was the director of creative research and development for Electronic Art — better recognized as EA Games — where he worked on projects like Tiger Woods PGA Tour and Fight Night Round 3. He has since left BeyondView as chief technology officer and works in digitizing humans for Epic Games.

Chairman of BeyondView, Peter Cuneo, the former CEO of Marvel Entertainment, was responsible for giving the Ironman franchise the greenlight. Other team leaders at the imaging firm have come from production companies such as Linden Labs and DreamWorks.

Pretty soon, BeyondView was building a client base in the office leasing industry. But as life sciences boomed with the fallout from the pandemic, the firm began turning its attention to those spaces and the need for more exact projections of labs and the equipment that would be moved in.

The firm has some big-name clients too, having recently worked with Silverstein Properties, taking spaces in 120 Broadway from white-box format and providing an interactive layout of what the built-out space could look like after a little elbow grease. The Equitable Building, as it is also known as, has been undergoing a $52 million makeover initiated in 2019 that’s restoring much of the space to its original 1915 condition.

“We used to scan humans, we used to do the same thing like with LiDAR, but now we’re just training machine learning programs and AI,” Wadhwa said, referring to laser imaging often used in computer-generated imagery. “Now we can create it if we just have a floor plan, maybe some reference photos. … Our eventual goal is [for clients to say], ‘Hey, this is all I have, I need it turned around in a few hours.’ That’s where we’re eventually going to go.”

Wadhwa is keeping his ear to the ground, too. According to brokers he has spoken with, the turnaround time for digital twins is typically slow and usually has to go through an architect, which alone can take weeks.

BeyondView is at capacity in terms of projects and hopes to grow three to five times its current size just in the next year, but Wadhwa believes Beyond View could grow to 100 times its current capacity.

“Right now, we’re just speeding up the commercial leasing process, but the fact that it’s a digital twin, we can start adding more and more stuff behind the scenes,” Wadhwa added. “Everybody we’ve talked to has said that they have to use like 15 pieces of software, and then it gets more complicated. Our whole philosophy is what you see, you should be able to understand it, it should look cool. My kid should be able to look at this and say, ‘I want to use this spot.’ ”

Once the digital twin is created, it can be accessed through a game engine that lets clients interact with it. As for deciding how the twin should look, many of BeyondView’s clients have had designers and architects on tap who collaborate with the software engineers. Other clients would like BeyondView’s team simply to handle that side in the interest of time, for which there is someone in-house at the startup who manages it.

Eventually, Wadhwa believes BeyondView will expand that department and hopes the AI will eventually provide much of the aesthetics. Then small tweaks can be made at the client’s request.

“Everything that’s in the scene is codified and summarized in a spreadsheet as data so that we can make calculations, like base costs, how many workstations, what kind of desks, how much in contracting expenses will it take to do the construction,” Yabrow, the director of engineering at BeyondView, said. “In the normal viewer, we can just go back and explore with the financial data right at your fingertips.”

In terms of cost, BeyondView’s digital twins sound like a bargain.

The baseline cost is 10 cents per square foot, according to Wadhwa, and requested design elements could tack on an additional 5 cents per square foot. Some clients who demand highly complex twins have been charged about $1.50 per square foot, but at this stage the company is still figuring out the best price for its labor.

Regardless of the uncertainty, Wadhwa said BeyondView charges the same price or less compared to other firms creating digital twins.

But with digital twins still being an up-and-coming real estate tool, Wadhwa doesn’t see a lot of crossover between what BeyondView does and what similar firms, such as Matterport, are putting on the market. For example, Matterport requires technicians to actually enter the space with specialized cameras and take complex images over 10 feet or so, a major chunk of time Wadhwa said his company has trimmed out of the equation.

But BeyondView is not the only firm streamlining the process of duplicating spaces. Others seem to have their own advantages for clientele.

Matterport, for example, captures current conditions and gives brokers the ability to show property digitally, while buyers can make better informed decisions about a property without seeing it beforehand. One in five clients who make an offer on a property end up buying sight-unseen, .

Planitar’s iGuide has its own imaging technology to create exact copies of spaces without the need for measurements. Instead, it simply counts pixels to calculate dimensions. 3D scans of spaces larger than 100,000 square feet can be completed in less than five hours, according to iGuide.

The technology is new, but an old rule still applies: Time is money.

“During the production of ‘Avatar,’ it took about 24 hours to do a rendering of a human,” Wadhwa said. “We can get [a rendering] done in one hour. We wanted to make sure that when people engage with a property, it feels like a real experience and they make really good decisions about that.”

The office market is facing significant headwinds from the trend toward work-from-home and hybrid work schedules. This has led to a competitive office leasing environment, though new technology offerings are helping office landlords with their leasing efforts.

“The last few years have been tumultuous for the commercial real estate industry, especially in terms of office leasing,” noted Kul Wadhwa, CEO of BeyondView, a digital twin technology firm, in an interview with IREI. “Over the course of this year, we have seen a rebound in specific market segments like Midtown Manhattan and expect this stabilization to continue into 2023.”

According to Wadhwa, proptech can play an important role in the commercial real estate industry and support real estate managers in the current environment.

“From high-definition renderings to better quality virtual walkthroughs, proptech will play an increasing role in the commercial real estate industry, specifically digital twin technology,” said Wadhwa. “Virtually touring the digital representation of a space in a gaming-like viewing experience is proven to accelerate a commercial space’s leasing cycle. Brokers, prospective tenants and property managers can all leverage digital twin technology to not only collaborate in real-time but also readily retrieve all relevant information about a building and easily reimagine the space’s potential uses.”

Wadhwa explained digital twins use artificial intelligence and machine learning to create a digital representation of a space at a fraction of current time and costs. “The result is a building-specific database that is highly customizable and presents easily accessible data to guide stakeholder decision-making,” he added.

From GlobeSt.com

Virtual touring of commercial real estate assets provides value, enhances marketing efficacy and brand perception, according to a recent survey by technology firm Resonai, a computer vision enterprise platform.

The survey found that 75% of commercial real estate professionals are using virtual tours and 90% of them will do so within the next two years. Nine out of 10 adopters report increased revenue from their use.

Digital Twin Technology Emerges

Kul Wadhwa, CEO of BeyondView, tells GlobeSt.com that real estate professionals are expected to continue to leverage proptech, more specifically digital twin technology, to digitize commercial spaces to accelerate the property leasing cycle and streamline property management.

“Virtual tours of these digitized spaces not only present immersive, photorealistic, and gaming-like experiences that eliminate any physical hurdles or constraints,” Wadhwa said, “and also allow for a more efficient decision-making process at a fraction of current costs.”

There is continued innovation in the space, including a recent offering of an immersive, virtual touring option where participants aren’t required to schedule a tour with agents, brokers, or onsite staff, according to Infinityy’s founder Jim Schoonmaker, GlobeSt.com reported.

Schoonmaker tells GlobeSt.com that as virtual tours have permeated the residential real estate space over the last decade, it’s no surprise that they’ve become increasingly popular in commercial real estate.

“We live in a time of increasing desire for instant gratification, where we want to obtain information immediately, and be able to access it at our fingertips,” he said. “This has driven the increased importance of virtual touring.”

Schoonmaker said that no longer is it enough to see images or read property amenities and details.
“Prospective tenants want to understand what it’s like to experience a space,” he said. “For commercial real estate professionals, we have taken the leasing process one step further, enabling them to engage prospects instantly within a virtual experience.

“This brings virtual touring to an entirely new level and optimizes the conversion of each lead. By bringing personal interactions into the virtual experience, we allow prospective tenants the opportunity to speak with property management and/or leasing teams, providing the chance to tour the space with colleagues, and ask questions along the way.”

Emil Alon, CEO of Resonai said in prepared remarks that commercial real estate is actively looking for every advantage, and visualization technologies like virtual tours are “definitely providing” them with that.
“This technology has a massive impact on marketing and sales performance — especially when used in concert with AR and VR,” he said.

Ideal for Single-Family Rentals

Kori Covrigaru, CEO of PlanOmatic, tells GlobeSt.com that property technology, including 3D tours, has “forever changed” the real estate industry.

“Specifically, the use of 3D tours to market single-family rental (SFR) properties is exploding because owners and investors recognize that in a crowded marketplace a 3D tour can help a home standout to consumers.

PlanOmatic recently conducted a study for one of its SFR clients to determine if there is a return on investment when using 3D tours rather than still photography only on property listings.
The study results revealed a 39% reduction in a property’s time on the market when a 3D tour was added to a listing. The study also found that 3D tours led to more pre-qualified leads and an increase in unique website visitors, Covrigaru said.

As CEO and Founder of BeyondView, Kul Wadhwa is revolutionizing the way commercial properties are marketed and managed. The company’s immersive, game-like experience is disrupting the commercial real estate landscape by accelerating the property leasing management process at a fraction of current costs. 

We talked with Kul about how digital twin tech will help property management and the enhancements we’ll be seeing more of in the commercial leasing space.

M.R.: What direction is real estate technology headed?

Kul Wadhwa: In an industry that is often considered immovable or at least slow to accepting change, technology will increasingly have an impact on real estate. More specifically, the future of real estate technology will involve digital twins. According to a recent report, the digital twin market is expected to reach $72.65 billion by the year 2032, a growth of over 22%. 

Utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, real estate companies can digitize a space at a fraction of current costs, creating a live asset. The result is a building-specific database that is highly customizable, presenting easily accessible data that also allows for properties to be reimagined in no time at all. From my perspective as a technology-minded entrepreneur, this change is not only exciting but extremely necessary.

M.R.: How does digital twin technology assist with resource planning and property management? 

Kul: Data that is expected to guide the corporate decision-making process is often presented in a manner that is difficult to understand and additional digital and software solutions make the process even more bloated and complicated. By leveraging digital twin technology, decision makers can readily retrieve all relevant information about a building and its assets that is both intuitive and contextualized. This database presents a visualization of data that is easily accessible in real-time from a desktop or even a phone and is available for quick redeployment. Additionally, the information presented facilitates a streamlined decision-making process and eliminates any physical hurdles or constraints. 

M.R.: How does real estate technology change the leasing process now and into the future?

Kul: While real estate renderings and virtual walkthroughs of old have been disappointing and unrealistic, new technologies offer immersive, photorealistic, and gaming-like experiences that are proven to accelerate a space’s leasing cycle. 

It may sound futuristic that there are technologies that allow stakeholders to join virtual tours of digitally reimagined spaces that look and feel like you are physically present at a remote location. But these technologies exist today. Over time, platforms that offer imbedded communication tools that allow brokers, prospective tenants, and property managers to collaborate in real-time and demonstrate a space’s unmet potential will accelerate the leasing and even buildout process. Especially in downturn markets, technologies like these will prove to be essential. 

BeyondView, a data-driven technology offering providing accurate, interactive, and digital commercial real estate solutions, today announced an enterprise agreement with WeWork Japan. BeyondView’s partnership will digitize WeWork Japan’s portfolio of properties and transform the flexible office network’s ability to market and manage their locations virtually.  

“We searched the world and discovered BeyondView’s unparalleled digital twin technology,” said Johnny Yoo, CEO of WeWork Japan. “Since they have a suite of solutions and an easy-to-use property management portal, BeyondView is the perfect partner for WeWork Japan to digitize its real estate portfolio. We look forward to utilizing BeyondView’s new “Live Walkthrough” feature to market our newest flexible office space in Shinagawa before construction wraps. BeyondView is transforming the commercial real estate industry while making a real-world difference to our business right now.”  

Leveraging BeyondView’s digital twin technology, prospective tenants can virtually tour the reimagined flexible office space of WeWork Japan’s newest offering in Shinagawa before construction is complete. Additionally, through BeyondView’s new “Live Walkthrough” feature, platform users will immerse into a digital twin to navigate a space akin to a stunning first-person point of view gaming experience. 

Kul Wadhwa, Founder and CEO of BeyondView said, “BeyondView’s digital twin offering has proven to be a disruptive force in the commercial leasing and property management process. Our platform’s capacity for collaboration knows no limitations, including teams separated by thousands of miles and several time zones. This partnership with WeWork Japan is a milestone achievement for the BeyondView team, and we are confident that this enterprise agreement will provide WeWork Japan with the digital support it needs to successfully advance property management and leasing activity across their robust portfolio of properties.”  

Since deploying with WeWork Japan in April of this year, BeyondView’s platform has proven to accelerate the flexible office space’s leasing cycle while simultaneously increasing overall property engagement. The platform provides customers with the ability to virtually tour their future workspaces while quickly reimagining the spaces to suit their specific needs. Working from already prepared materials such as blueprints, CAD drawings, or even photographs, BeyondView not only prepares digitally white boxed visualizations but also completely redesigns properties including virtual walls and furniture. Combined, these visualizations demonstrate a commercial space’s unmet potential.  

BeyondView’s digital twins integrate real-time data, stunning visuals, and a user-friendly communication platform to present a consolidated customer experience. The firm’s innovative and unique digital offerings are a visualization of real-time data that simplify portfolio scenario and resource planning as well supply chain management. The 3D data is reusable and is available for redeployment providing customers with a uniquely customizable experience at a fraction of current costs.  

About 90% of space planning professionals are struggling with managing work and learning spaces in more fluid, hybrid-use environments coming out of the pandemic, according to a survey of 255 professionals by Armored Things, a provider of AI software for space planning.

Richard Scannell, CEO, Armored Things, said in a prepared statement that getting a handle on the best use of physical space is more difficult in the current hybrid environment because a lot of the spatial intelligence available is point-in-time data that doesn’t provide space planners with the analytics and insights they need to make the best decisions about facilities.

A large majority of space planners have had to help manage day-to-day seating challenges; resolve disputes over space issues; and find that people are asking for more space than they need as they are “scrambling” to address their constituents’ changing needs, the company said in a release.

The survey featured 175 respondents from companies with at least 500 employees and 80 were from higher education institutions with at least 500 students.

AI-based space planning has helped close the data gap by providing, capturing and analyzing the occupancy data, Scannell said.

Qualitative Info Should Complement Tech Data

Rick Ybarra, principal, Avison Young Consulting Services, tells GlobeSt.com that companies he has engaged or spoken with agree that collecting quantitative information through technology sources of information has been a challenge based on lack of information or technology tools.

“As a result, there has been a significant push to implement workplace technology systems and tools to begin to capture occupancy information to enable the planning around the new workplace environment,” Ybarra said.

“There is a critical need to capture qualitative information to compliment the technology data. This additional information has been centered on understanding the work styles of employees and what places, spaces and technology they need to perform their individual work and when working with others.

“This combination of quantitative and qualitative information helps to fill gaps that may be lacking in one area to enable Avison Young’s clients to provide or enhance the right places and spaces for their employees.”

Hybrid Schedules Complicate Matters

Chris Congdon, director of global research communications at Steelcase, tells GlobeSt.com that her firm uses research and data to inform workplace design strategies for clients.

In its most recent global report, findings reveal 87% of people will spend at least some of their time working from the office, but 45% prefer working from home. This indicates organizations must create spaces that work better and offer more than remote work set ups, Congdon said.

“There is no one-size-fits-all answer,” she said. “The first step to designing a workplace that optimizes hybrid collaboration is listening to employees’ new needs. Organizations that understand what factors add value to employees’ day will create an office that earns their commute.

“Our report showed a shift from assigned to unassigned desks — pre-COVID, 88% of workers had a desk assigned to them, compared to the current 40%. However, workers are more likely to work from the office if they have an assigned desk.”

Steelcase found that the percentage of floor space dedicated to collaboration has also increased by 7% – up from a pre-pandemic number of 46%.

Additionally, when asked what office features are more important to people now than before the pandemic, spaces for hybrid collaboration, single-person enclaves for hybrid meetings, general privacy and workspaces with full or partial enclosure were the top four results globally.

Study How Space is Used, Not Number of Occupants

Albert DePlazaola, Global Director, Strategy at Unispace, a global strategy, design and construction firm, tells GlobeSt.com that before COVID, utilization and occupancy metrics were extremely helpful for strategic planning and evaluating space requirements. However, in a post-pandemic environment, not so much.

“CRE leaders should be paying very careful attention to metrics that provide insight as to how space is being used, and not necessarily by how many,” DePlazaola said. “The frequency by which employees return to the office should be determined by a thoughtful RTO (return to work) strategy that is set by leadership and HR/People teams to best support the business and the employee experience.

“CRE leadership then needs to understand, and strategize, around how the work environment can support the RTO strategy, whether it’s a virtual-first strategy or a mix of hybrid.”

Data Must be Visualized

Kul Wadhwa, CEO and Founder of BeyondView, tells GlobeSt.com that data is top of mind, “however,

when data is visualized it is easier to interpret and see its potential impact. In order to understand space

and its potential uses, contextualizing data is essential.”

Lisa Stanley, CEO of OSCRE International, tells GlobeSt.com that corporate occupiers, as well as owners and investors in real estate, need reliable, timely and accessible data to guide decisions related to space in a hybrid work environment.

“While emerging technology platforms can collect large amounts of data, these platforms don’t often have the ability to communicate with each other,” Stanley said. “Standardizing data across platforms contributes to effective data governance and is key to fully utilizing the power of these new technologies.”