The Worldwide Facility Administration Affiliation’s (IFMA) Facility Fusion 2026, April 7-9 on the Hilton San Francisco Union Sq., is a chance for facility and office administration professionals to attach with the friends, business thought leaders, and resolution suppliers shaping the way forward for the constructed setting.
Key takeaways
- The keynote focuses on AI implementation for 400,000+ workers throughout 100+ international locations at PwC. The session covers transferring from AI experimentation to enterprise deployment, together with frameworks for scaling AI securely and cost-effectively in facility operations
- Behind-the-scenes facility excursions provide practitioner views from the groups working these techniques. Excursions cowl main retrofits, constructing automation integration, and operational trade-offs — what labored, what didn’t, and implementation particulars usually not shared in vendor shows
- This system balances technical content material with management growth. Classes vary from interactive workshops on operational challenges to keynotes on innovation approaches
Eptura is worked up to be at this 12 months’s occasion as a Premier Sponsor and to be sponsoring the welcome reception April 7.
What’s IFMA Facility Fusion 2026?
Facility Fusion is an annual high-impact convention and expo particularly for the power administration professionals who energy the constructed setting. The occasion is a targeted discussion board for advancing the business by hands-on schooling, peer studying, and significant networking.
The 2026 program is in San Francisco, and includes a complete mixture of studying classes, technical instruction, and networking alternatives targeted on the evolving wants of facility and office leaders.
Attendees can have the chance to discover methods for enhancing operational efficiency, enhancing occupant expertise, and aligning facility operations with broader organizational targets.
Key options of Facility Fusion 2026 embody:
- Technical instruction for supporting workflow optimization and strategic planning
- Networking alternatives with professionals from throughout industries and disciplines
- A two-day expo corridor with office applied sciences, service suppliers, and built-in platforms
- Innovation Arenas showcasing real-world purposes and rising greatest practices
- Studying Labs with hands-on experiences
The theme this 12 months is “The place facility leaders converge to attach, collaborate, and construct what’s subsequent,” capturing IFMA’s dedication to equipping professionals with the instruments and insights they should lead in a quickly altering setting.
What expertise developments can attendees study at Facility Fusion 2026?
Facility Fusion 2026 delivers alternatives to discover the developments and expertise going through business professionals.
AI and predictive intelligence
AI is remodeling facility administration from reactive problem-solving to strategic efficiency administration. Predictive upkeep leverages AI to research historic upkeep data, IoT sensor information, and tools efficiency patterns to forecast failures earlier than they happen, enabling groups to schedule repairs throughout deliberate downtime, optimize components stock, and lengthen asset lifecycles.
AI-enabled facility administration helps organizations transfer from paying premium costs for reactive fixes to planning upkeep strategically, lowering general prices whereas enhancing tools reliability.
At Facility Fusion 2026, attendees can dive deep into AI’s sensible purposes throughout “From Worry to Future: How AI Will Rework Facility Administration,” a keynote session on Tuesday, April 8 at 9:00 AM that includes Joe Harrington, Accomplice at PwC and Chief of the PwC International Know-how AI Group.
Harrington oversees AI structure and engineering for practically 400,000 workers throughout greater than 100 international locations, bringing real-world enterprise-scale AI deployment expertise on to facility administration professionals.
The session might be moderated by Edward Waggoner, former International CIO at JLL and acknowledged IFMA International Influencer, making certain the dialog addresses the precise challenges and alternatives going through facility leaders right now.
Sustainability and environmental stewardship
Facility Fusion gives alternatives to increase the dialog with actual‑world methods — from round materials practices to dynamic HVAC and lighting optimization — supported by dwell facility excursions showcasing how high performers are integrating sustainability instantly into infrastructure design and constructing operations.
On Monday, April 6, attendees can tour the Hole Inc. headquarters at 2 Folsom, a signature 540,000-square-foot facility that showcases real-world sustainability implementations. The tour, guided by Hole’s Office Expertise and Amenities Engineering groups, highlights the constructing’s ongoing modernization initiatives that stability operational effectivity with environmental accountability.
For a broader techniques perspective, the Hilton San Francisco Union Sq. tour demonstrates how the West Coast’s largest resort built-in three buildings from completely different many years right into a single constructing automation system.
On the Office Innovator podcast episode “Constructing a Higher Future – Sensors, Local weather Know-how and Sustainability within the Office,” Elizabeth Redmond, Director of Gross sales & GM, Sensors at R-Zero, delivers a deeper dive into the subject.
Redmond defined how constantly monitoring air high quality and occupancy density helps groups optimize power utilization whereas sustaining more healthy environments, and her insights mirror the sector‑large transfer towards utilizing sensor intelligence to make sustainability seen, measurable, and actionable on the constructing degree.
Office technique and worker expertise
Hybrid work continues to redefine how workers interact with bodily areas. The problem is now not merely offering desks or assembly rooms. It’s designing experiences compelling sufficient to make the commute worthwhile.
Organizations are responding by shifting their office methods from space-centric to people-centric. As an alternative of asking “What number of desks do we’d like?” facility and office leaders are asking “What experiences will convey folks again?”
Discovering the correct solutions requires understanding not simply attendance patterns, however the underlying causes workers select to return in — or keep house. The best methods emerge from listening to workers, analyzing how they use house, and constantly adapting based mostly on actual habits fairly than assumptions about what ought to work.
The worth of the human‑centered method is explored on “Bringing Their A‑Sport – How FM Leaders Can Prioritize Worker Expertise,” the place Bex Moorhouse, International Head of Technique, Ops Excellence & Efficiency — Procurement & REWS at WPP, emphasised that “empathy and curiosity are the issues that we have to proceed to maintain bringing to what we do,” an necessary reminder that nice office technique relies on understanding worker wants by habits patterns, not assumptions.
Knowledge-driven decision-making
As FM turns into more and more strategic, leaders should justify each funding with clear, actionable information. However information alone isn’t sufficient — it should reveal not solely what occurs within the house, however why.
Facility Fusion builds on this method with classes masking occupancy intelligence, portfolio-level analytics, and information standardization frameworks that rework fragmented info into excessive‑worth perception. Full visibility — from underutilized rooms to cross‑web site efficiency developments — empowers leaders to proper‑measurement intelligently and join operational choices to broader organizational targets.
It’s a perspective that aligns with insights from Joshua Freedman, CEO and cofounder of Six Seconds, that he shared on “Shaping the Felt Setting — The Science and Observe of Emotional Knowledge within the Office.”
Freedman argued that emotional intelligence produces measurable office alerts, explaining that “emotional intelligence is measurable… and we’re making an attempt to place this information on the dashboard.”
His level widens the definition of office analytics to incorporate the concept leaders should consider each the practical and emotional expertise of house to really perceive efficiency.
Operational excellence and asset administration
Operational excellence requires consistency, readability, and the flexibility to do extra with restricted assets. Distributed portfolios, various asset ages, and workforce constraints make this more difficult — and extra important — than ever.
Facility Fusion will convey these rules to life by operational deep dives, from preventive upkeep applications that floor points earlier to mobile-first instruments that give technicians instant entry to asset histories, components data, and compliance documentation.
It’s a theme you will discover repeated and defined within the Asset Champion episode with James Waddel, President and Chief Analysis & Innovation Officer at Cognitive Corp, “A Very Actual Development — The Impression of AI on Asset and Facility Administration.”
Waddel highlighted how AI helps stronger lifecycle planning, smarter prioritization, and extra environment friendly technician workflows. His insights mirror the broader business shift towards proactive reliability practices and built-in asset intelligence.
Eptura at Facility Fusion 2026
Eptura has been a long-standing associate of IFMA, taking part in its Company Sustaining Accomplice (CSP) program since 2008. As a worldwide worktech firm, Eptura often contributes thought management and academic content material to IFMA’s platforms, together with the FMJ journal and Information Library.
After internet hosting one among final 12 months’s most talked-about receptions in Austin, Eptura is honored to sponsor the Welcome Reception on Tuesday, April 7. We’re opening Facility Fusion in type with a Lunar New Yr-themed celebration that includes dim sum, drinks, and raffles.
Be part of us to kick off the convention, join with facility administration friends, and assist the significant connections that solely the IFMA group creates.
Incessantly requested questions
By Mike Petrusky
As Director of Podcasts at Eptura, Mike Petrusky hosts each the Office Innovator Podcast and the Asset Champion Podcast, sharing thought management with CRE, FM, and IT leaders within the digital and hybrid office. Mike has produced greater than 500 podcast episodes listened to in over 111 international locations. As an in-demand public speaker, Mike engages audiences at quite a few business occasions every year, together with Worldwide Facility Administration Affiliation and CoreNet conferences, specializing in the human factor of office and facility administration.
