Greener, Smarter Buildings with Jean-Simon Venne, CTO and Co-founder at BrainBox AI

Nate Smoyer (00:02.087)
Jean -Simon, welcome to the show.

Jean-Simon Venne (00:04.784)
Thank you, Nate. It's a pleasure to be here.

Nate Smoyer (00:06.855)
I'm excited to have you here and we're going to cover some ground we don't typically get into. You're calling in from Canada, pretty far north, eh?

Jean-Simon Venne (00:18.672)
Yeah Montreal but it's summertime now so we're past this cold and snowy weather.

Nate Smoyer (00:26.055)
So your summer comes early, I see, because we just had snow, like a few days ago. And I know when this episode drops, it might be like June. So for everyone listening, this is May 10th, we're recording. and we had snow a few days ago. And in fact, we still have some fresh snow on some of our taller hills here in the Black Hills.

Jean-Simon Venne (00:30.128)
Really?

Jean-Simon Venne (00:36.204)
So, so Nate, you have to understand that we did open the pool last weekend here in Montreal. Yeah, yeah, we're summer here. It's done. And I love skiing. So like, trust me, like when I go from the winter to the spring, I'm kind of depressed, right? But now the pool is open. So we're.

Nate Smoyer (00:53.155)
my goodness.

Jean-Simon Venne (01:05.744)
The swing is done.

Nate Smoyer (01:07.559)
Yeah, well, I will welcome back to cooler weather. But anyway, for everyone listening here, I've got Jean -Simon Venn. He's the CTO and co -founder of a very interesting startup called BrainBox AI. Founded in 2017, BrainBox AI leverages technology such as artificial intelligence to improve building operational efficiencies aiming to reduce energy consumption and costs.

Jean-Simon Venne (01:11.536)
Anyway, for anyone listening here, I've got John Simone Venn. He's the CTO and co -founder of a very interesting startup called Brain Box AI, founded in 2017, Brain Box AI. He leverages technology, such as artificial intelligence, to improve building operational efficiencies, aiming to reduce energy consumption costs. And I think what I'd like to do on this topic, because we could go on a lot of different...

Nate Smoyer (01:35.783)
And I think what I'd like to do on this topic, because we could go a lot of different directions. There's policy there at the local and federal level. There's obviously social good angle. There's surely debate on efficacy and where that may lie and depending on your opinion and stance on topics. But I think the common ground for people listening and for us here is I want to talk, tackle the AI piece of this.

Jean-Simon Venne (01:41.936)
policy.

Jean-Simon Venne (01:46.8)
angle, there is surely debate on that because you're aware of that may lie, depending on your own opinion and stance on topics. I think the common ground for people listening and for us here is I want to talk about technically the AI piece of this. We hear talked about a lot in automation and usually it's in like chat, data analysis. What's the state of the lie when you start talking about the idea of

Nate Smoyer (02:04.775)
We hear it talked about a lot in automations and usually it's in like chat, data analysis. What's the state of AI when we start talking about the idea of asset management and efficiencies in the built world?

Jean-Simon Venne (02:16.272)
of management and efficiencies in the global world? So yeah, I mean, it's a fascinating topic, which is, I think, we don't talk about it too often. And it's really, think about, we're using AI in this prediction capability, which is we basically train these deep learning tools.

And we are getting a prediction and we're using that prediction to optimize the assets that we have under management. So in our case at BrainBox AI, we are managing building. So the AI is autonomously managing the eating, cooling and ventilation of the building. So you know, the autonomous car, we're doing the same thing for the eating, cooling and ventilation. So it's the AI algorithm, which is managing.

how to operate the heating, cooling, and ventilation of the building. So we maintain the desired temperature so you are happy as a user of the building at a lower cost. So we reduce how much energy it is using to maintain that temperature to make you happy.

Nate Smoyer (03:28.487)
And, you know, AI is a topic not necessarily new. AI within PropTech, relatively new, but many companies have been working on AI solutions for several years. Meaning there's been products on the market, people have been working with datasets to train their AI, they're creating new datasets to train AI. What's the real state of AI in the marketplace today? Like how ubiquitous am I going to find?

Jean-Simon Venne (03:29.168)
And AI is a topic not necessarily new. AI is a concept relatively new, but many companies have been working on AI solutions for several years. There's been products on the market, people have been working with data sets to train their AI, they're creating new data sets to train AI. What's the real state of AI in the marketplace today? Like how?

how do you think we're gonna find AI solutions across the field as well, both in the application of asset management automation, kind of like you described to me, as well as other applications? Yeah, you're not gonna find a whole lot because we were the first to come up with this autonomous AI for building. And we introduced the technology in 2019. And still today, very few...

Nate Smoyer (03:58.439)
AI solutions across the built world, both in the application of asset management and automation, kind of like you described, as well as other applications.

Jean-Simon Venne (04:24.56)
are coming with similar solution or bringing AI to optimize maybe other aspect of the building. And it's fascinating because like it seemed that we have that situation here in the building industry, but you can have the same situation in all of the other industry. I give you an example. Of course, everybody talked about the airline industry and the automobile industry where we have a lot of AI example, but you go like in the mining industry,

They're not using AI to optimize how the mine is operated in terms of different assets to lower their cost. So in the mini, mini industry, optimization of asset in terms of gaining productivity with AI tool is still as an intensity. So we're just starting to turn that wheel. When we look at the space that we're really working on at BrainBox AI, we're using this autonomous AI technology.

Nate Smoyer (05:00.283)
interesting.

Jean-Simon Venne (05:23.6)
to deploy mostly in commercial building. So think of the airport, think of hospital, think of retail, a lot of retail space, right, are being used, shopping mall, but small retail also. And as we deploy that technology, suddenly the building reduces energy spend by between 20 to 25%, the emission by 40%, and the lifespan of the equipment is prolonged by years and years.

Nate Smoyer (05:51.687)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Simon Venne (05:52.944)
And it's just this capacity that the AI in real time is calculating what is the best strategy to operate these equipment. So you have these multiple objectives. And we took this from the video game. To win a video game, you have a multiple objective that you're chasing at the same time, right? You want to basically optimize all your bonus, reduce the penalty you're going to get. And if you do both at the same time...

Nate Smoyer (06:18.087)
Which game are we talking here? Are we going to go Mario Brothers or Sonic? Let's go Sonic. I kind of like Sonic. You got to collect all the rings. Right?

Jean-Simon Venne (06:21.168)
Yeah, it could be any game. Okay, Sonic. So, exactly. At the same time, you need to prevent any penalty, right? And as fast as possible. So what we told our algorithm is exactly the same thing. We said like, well, you need to win the game. And the AI went, okay, how do I win the game in a building? Well,

Nate Smoyer (06:31.591)
Yeah, you gotta get to the end to beat Dr. Robotnik.

Yeah, yeah, there's usually bonuses for that, yeah.

Jean-Simon Venne (06:48.144)
You need to reduce the number of kilowatt hour you're going to be spending to maintain that temperature. You need to reduce the emission at the same time. You need to reduce the cycling of equipment, which is degrading the lifespan of these equipment and increase the comfort if possible. So if it's a bit too hot or a bit too cold, eliminate these bad episodes of it's too cold, too hot. So the human is very happy at the temperature setting. You need to do all this at the same time. And if you do that,

Altogether, you win the game. So of course the algo goes and okay, I'm going to win this game. And it does it like a lot of calculation per millisecond, but it's doing this a lot faster and better than we would do it. You and I, if we were using an Excel sheet, trying to figure out what is the perfect combination. So much cheaper and much faster. And it's suddenly you get that value delivered in real time for all of the people which are using the technology.

Nate Smoyer (07:47.591)
Very interesting. And so, yeah, let's dig in a little bit more of the specifics as to what you guys have been working on and building it. And I wanna, I'll preface here, I'm gonna brag on you guys for a little bit, because you guys have been recognized for your work. You're recognized by Time as one of the top 100 best inventions. CBS Insights gave you a top 100 ranking, as well as winner of the Tech for Our Planet Challenge from the...

Jean-Simon Venne (07:48.08)
interesting and so, you know, let's take a little bit more of the specifics as to what you guys have been working on and building it and I want to preface here, I'm gonna brag on you guys for a little bit because you guys have been recognized for your work. You know, the, you're recognized by time as one of the top of our best inventions. CBS Insights gave you a top on our ranking as well as winner of the Tech from the Cloud Plane It Challenge.

to the United Nations Climate Change Conference just not even two years ago. So I see you guys have built something pretty neat that is catching the attention. Let's talk to some specifics here. If you show up and you're talking to the building owner or the building manager and say, hey, how can you help us with the UFC regulations that we have in front of us to reduce our carbon footprint? Yeah, so the...

Nate Smoyer (08:16.967)
United Nations Climate Change Conference, just not even two years ago. So obviously you guys have been building something pretty unique that is catching the attention. Let's talk through some of the specifics here. You show up and you're talking to the building owner or the building manager and they're saying, hey, how can you help us meet the New York City regulations that we have in front of us to reduce our carbon footprint?

Jean-Simon Venne (08:42.864)
The typical journey, and I guess that's what you're trying to lay out here. So building as your own home already have a system which is managing the eating and the cooling and the ventilation. And it's either a thermostat for the very simplest version, or it's a more like building management system if you're in hospital. So that system already have all the data.

Nate Smoyer (09:02.727)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Simon Venne (09:09.008)
that you need. So what we do is we say, well, we're going to connect ourselves to that system, which is already operating your building. And we're going to use that data to train the AI. So that take usually a few weeks and the AI then become like fully knowledgeable of how is your house operate very specifically under all kinds of circumstance, either outside weather or inside behavior of the user. And then we get that prediction.

And with that prediction, we then use different algorithm, which use a prediction, which is telling us exactly what will be happening. So we know that in your living room, it's going to be too hot in 62 minutes. Right now it's fine, but we know that in 62 minutes it's going to become too hot and the system will react. The air will react. The system doing the AC will react and basically cool it down.

to bring it back to what you like as a temperature. So we know what's gonna be happening thanks to that prediction. And AI is very good at doing that prediction. And then the algo are taking that prediction and they're saying, okay, we wanna make sure that that event that will happen in 62 minutes will not happen. So you stay happy. What is the best way to, in term of energy wise, to operate the equipment so that event is canceled out and I spend as little energy as possible to maintain that temperature.

And it does that in real time, 24 hour a day, seven days a week. So it's a bit like the movie Back in the Future. We see, we go in the future, we see, my God, this is not too good, right? So we come back in the present time, we do a couple of tweak, then we go back in the future, see if the tweaked we've done are giving us a better future. So we do that all the time during 24 hour a day, seven days a week on all of your room in your house. And of course, the...

How do you win? Well, we're telling the AI to win this, build a better future using less energy.

Nate Smoyer (11:11.943)
I remember doing this manually.

Jean-Simon Venne (11:12.996)
Yeah, actually we've done the exercise where we could do it like we could put a bunch of engineer with a lot of the Excel sheet and we're gonna do all the permutation and we usually come up with the same solution that AI got but we do that like we take about two or three hours so two or three hours down the timeline we go like this is what we should have done two hours ago so this is great but it's too late right.

the time elapsed, advance, and you're getting the right answer, but too late. AI is doing it in a few milliseconds. So it's, you need it when you do autonomous control, you need it in real time.

Nate Smoyer (11:52.007)
Well, I mean, I was a, when I worked for a home builder at a, during a very interesting time, 2008 to 2010. And I was brought on as a building services coordinator, basically kind of janitor kind of repair person, across our campus. And we had one building where it was constant. People are too cold or too hot at the same time. And so then I had to figure out which vents were open and.

Jean-Simon Venne (11:55.536)
for the 33 years at a time, 2008 to 2010. And I spot on as a service coordinator. Basically, kind of janitor, kind of repair person.

And we had fun rolling where it was constant, when you put two gold and two white at the same time. And so then I had to figure out which vents are open. And I was just back and forth. And I actually put strips of paper on the vents. To see my gauge. And it was like, blow more air into the others. And I had to try and figure this stuff out and try to manipulate the airflow. I mean, it was a hassle. And I have to thank you.

Nate Smoyer (12:21.767)
I was just back and forth and I actually put strips of paper on the vents as my gauge of which one's blowing more air than the others to try and figure this stuff out and try to manipulate the airflow. I mean, it was a hassle and a half and thankfully that was only one story that I had to worry about. But our other buildings, there's no way in the world I could have done that. And so I wouldn't have been remotely as a f***.

Jean-Simon Venne (12:39.792)
I was only one story that I had for years. But I was going, since you know those are really...

So I wouldn't have been remotely as effective. I'd like to know here, so okay, so you have this idea, like, that BrainBox can help optimize your efficiency here on your HVAC robot. Is this something that's in the hardware and software, I think? If what's the communication, is it only certain HVAC units or only certain energy units that can talk back to BrainBox, how does all of this connect?

Nate Smoyer (12:50.535)
as effective. I'd like to know here. So, okay, so we have this idea like, right? Brain box can help optimize the efficiency here of your HVAC and all that. So is there hardware and software here? Like, what's the communication? Is it only certain HVAC units or only certain energy units that can talk back to brain box? How does all that connect to each other? Because I think this is a piece that gets lost too. It's like,

Jean-Simon Venne (13:17.904)
to each other because I think this is the piece that gets lost too. How do we get the digital and the physical taught to each other? Yeah, we try to be as agnostic as possible because you're right, it's a bit of a jungle out there. You've got so many control systems, so many different type of thermostats, so many type of different equipment. They all use data, but they don't use the same language, they don't have the same standard in terms of data. So how do you connect to all that?

Nate Smoyer (13:20.423)
How do we get the digital and the physical talking to each other?

Nate Smoyer (13:31.943)
Yes.

Jean-Simon Venne (13:47.6)
a variety of equipment. And that's what we've done is we basically said, okay, we're going to try to have like multiple way. Are we covering a hundred percent? Absolutely not. Are we covering 80 %? Yes. And this is what we did is we focus on, on the big brand, the big protocol, and we're making sure that we could interface with it. So, so sometime we need to drop a small gateway to connect that existing control system to the cloud. Some of the time,

there's already a connectivity to the cloud. We just need to put a driver on the existing hardware, which is already there. And sometimes the system is already connected to a cloud and we just need to do a cloud to cloud integration. So there's different way to connect and we try to be super flexible so we could accommodate as many building as possible.

Nate Smoyer (14:37.927)
Yeah, is there any system that you absolutely can't help with? Like if you were to encounter and be like, this is the one or two, maybe they're too archaic or need a total retrofit.

Jean-Simon Venne (14:46.768)
Yeah, it's usually like people that have a system, but it's a 1990 version and they never upgraded. And then we're hitting like all kinds of problems. But honestly, at that point, you're very often not even supported by your provider anymore. So it's a question of, it's a bit like when you're trying to interface with the XP computer, if you remember the days.

Nate Smoyer (15:16.135)
Sadly, very much.

Jean-Simon Venne (15:16.592)
Yeah, so most drivers don't support it anymore, right? So, yeah, you're stuck at upgrading because you're not going to benefit from most of the new feature at this point. So these are situations where we're stuck. We still, I mean, there's still a lot of pneumatic building, right? Where there's no digital. It's a pneumatic pressure going into a tube, which is feeding the thermostat. So we still encounter, especially in schools, very old pneumatic system,

Nate Smoyer (15:21.095)
You're right.

Nate Smoyer (15:27.527)
Right.

Nate Smoyer (15:44.871)
Mmm.

Jean-Simon Venne (15:45.936)
It's not digital. It's going to be hard to have AI, right? We need to upgrade here. So these are the situation which are more and more now edge cases. In smaller building, how did, most of the time smaller building, they don't have a building management system. There's a very old thermostat which is connected to the unit on the roof and that's it, right?

So what we, the work around that we did is say, well, we're just going to replace the thermostat, that old thermostat, you know, the wind with the wheels. So the button and the wheel like, well, sorry, exactly. So, so we say, well, you know what, we'll, we'll do it. We'll replace that old thermostat by a digital one, which is wifi capable. And we're then using the wifi to connect that thermostat to the cloud and voila, right? You now have your own synthetic BMS system into the.

Nate Smoyer (16:17.415)
huh. I still have one in one of my rentals.

Jean-Simon Venne (16:38.32)
the small building which has been now digitalized and connected to AI. Yeah, there's an interesting setup for you. There's a school under Washington that is basically right next to a dairy plant where they do the pasturization with a lot of information on milk and they generate a lot of heat. So they actually will send the heat.

Nate Smoyer (16:43.911)
Yeah, there's a, here's an interesting setup for you. There's a school up in Washington that is basically right next to a dairy, plant where they do the pasteurization and homogenation of milk and they generate a lot of heat. So they actually will send the heat to the school from that plant. Now, my understanding is it's an efficient use of that heat.

Jean-Simon Venne (17:07.28)
To the school, yeah. So close the window, right? Okay. Yes. Yes. But it's an interesting thing because we're connecting to the weather feed.

Nate Smoyer (17:13.063)
It's not letting it go to waste. It does send a little bit of a scent of milk and cheese into the school. I'm thankful I didn't go there.

Jean-Simon Venne (17:33.584)
telling us the weather surrounding the building where we were deployed. And we're not just getting in temperature and humidity. We're getting a lot more than that because we're taking with the same weather feed that the pilot are using. And they're giving us all kind of additional information, including quality of air. So quantity of dust in the air right now. Think of the forest fire when the smoke goes into the wrong direction. And then it's funny because we see the AI reacting to it saying,

Nate Smoyer (17:45.927)
Okay.

Nate Smoyer (17:56.807)
yeah.

Jean-Simon Venne (18:03.504)
I'm going to take as little as I can from outside air, fresh air, because it's so contaminated outside that I'm going to contaminate my inside of the building. So I better like, you know, close that outside damper and just try to recirculate as much as possible to have a better quality of air inside the building, which has got nothing to do with money, right? So the AI kind of say like in my multi -objective,

Nate Smoyer (18:19.847)
interesting.

Nate Smoyer (18:28.903)
No, it's more like a health position here.

Jean-Simon Venne (18:31.568)
Exactly. So I think I understand that outside not good and don't take that air. Try to protect the inside air quality.

Nate Smoyer (18:34.487)
interesting.

Nate Smoyer (18:41.575)
I'm so, now, okay, now you've really intrigued me because, you know, last summer was a very unusual summer for the East Coast. I grew up outside of Philly my entire life. I have never once ever experienced wildfire smoke. I never experienced until I went West. And so seeing the East Coast, you know, Philly and New York City just totally covered, you know, blanketed with smoke and ensure you have clients.

Jean-Simon Venne (18:45.36)
summer was a very unusual summer for the East Coast. I grew up outside of Philly my entire life. I have never once, ever experienced wildfires in Philly. I never experienced until I went west. And so seeing the East Coast, Philly and Inwood City, just totally encumbered me.

and stream the clients in these areas. What's your feedback from them? Well, there was a message. The kind of message we're receiving is like, wow, that was good. Because think of a sports team. We want to train today. Usually we train outside. no, no, we're going to train inside. But make sure you don't get that outside air inside the gym. Because then, I mean, there's no way we're going to be able to train the team, right? So that kind of feedback that you're getting, saying, OK, it goes down to the strategy.

Nate Smoyer (19:10.535)
in those areas. What did you hear back from them?

Nate Smoyer (19:22.983)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Simon Venne (19:39.152)
of how do you operate your day to day based on what's going on in real time outside. Yeah, that good.

Nate Smoyer (19:45.497)
Yeah, I can tell you firsthand what happens when you try and train in smoke. We were, we were doing a 30 mile, trail run last year, on a day when it was in the 90 degrees and there was smoke all throughout the area. And I think only one of us actually, I think one did finish. We were doing laps. Only one of us finished and got the full, it was 32 miles technically. the rest of us stopped with like.

Jean-Simon Venne (19:55.536)
Yeah.

Nate Smoyer (20:14.151)
before because we just couldn't. I mean, it was just too much to take all that in. It really puts a wear on you. I wanna, let's get into something else here as well. So you guys had a, you know, you've been building onto your products here, but you had a recent specific product launch. World's first, as you call it, virtual building assistant. ARIA is how you say it.

Jean-Simon Venne (20:24.24)
So you guys had a big building run to your products here, but you had a recent specific product launch. What's it called? Virtual Building Assistant ARIA? Yeah, exactly. What's the revolutionary here that provides us so much support? So last year we were looking at Gen .AI and these LLM and large language model and you know GPT and

Nate Smoyer (20:40.519)
Talk to me about ARIA. What's so revolutionary here? Why is this so important?

Jean-Simon Venne (20:52.24)
And it was saying, that's interesting, right? What can we do with it? Because we're already in a predictive AI and the optimization of asset and it's working fine, right? And then we looked at Gen .ai and said, I think what's going to be interesting? Like, what about if we try to build Jarvis? You know, Ironman, Jarvis? Because one of the problems that we have in our industry is you have a, if you're maintaining these assets, you have a lot of data.

And you're spending a lot of time going through all that data to figure out what do I need to know really? So we said like, when you look at the movie Iron Man, which is interesting is that Jarvis is really used as an assistant, right? That virtual assistant. So, so of course, you know, you, you do whatever you want. And then you ask Jarvis, everything's fine with my home. Should I worry about something? And it was said like, okay, let's do the same thing. And we called it area and we basically mix gen AI with the predictive AI. So we.

plug the GNI on top of our existing platform. And we said, I don't want to know about cheesecake recipe or at what year Napoleon lost the battle of Waterloo, but you're only allowed, Ariya, to talk about the building. But I want you, Ariya, to basically monitor, check my building, and let me know what should I worry about. And if there is something I should worry about, what's the root cause?

and please propose me solution. So I know what are my options. And then I will tell you, I will tell that virtual assistant, okay, thank you for the root cause analysis of the problem that you did discover. Out of the three solution you're proposing, please execute solution two. And then I'd become like, you're capable suddenly to do a lot more work per day.

Because most of the time the people managing the building, either at the technician and the engineering level or the management level, they are sworn with tons of information and they're spending a lot of time trying to find what is important and what is not important. And when they finally find it, you know, it's a two, three hours down the road. So, so most of these people, they finish their day of work with a frustration of, I, I done only half of my to -do list.

Jean-Simon Venne (23:15.824)
So this virtual assistant kind of gives you now the power to leave home at the end of the day, you're going home and you finish your list because it kind of multiply your capability to do things in a given day. And that combined with the fact that most of the trade in the building management sector, you know what, there's a short of staff everywhere. It's hard to find these people. It's hard to have the people with experience.

So you're short staff on our level and we keep building more building. So it's just becoming worse from one year to the next. So it kind of suddenly gives you that boost of productivity that you desperately need to do a good job.

Nate Smoyer (23:47.143)
Mm -hmm.

Nate Smoyer (24:02.215)
Got it. Now you guys have been having some, I would say some pretty good success as far as getting this into the hands of building owners from my notes. You guys are now in over 12 ,000 buildings. Is that correct?

Jean-Simon Venne (24:06.576)
This is a pretty good success as far as getting those things to hands by building on those right notes you got.

Jean-Simon Venne (24:16.208)
Yeah, spread it in about 20 countries. So quite interesting to see the footprint. It's one actually one of the thing we have to do with area is right off the bat area need to speak at least eight languages, right? Because because we are in 20 countries and it's not everybody that speak English.

Nate Smoyer (24:31.751)
wow.

Nate Smoyer (24:39.047)
So what's been driving this growth is, you know, that to go to market on this, I imagine can't be as simple as like, Hey, let's, let's run some ads or let's send a few emails because there's education, there's convincing, and then there's course, then technical components to, you know, making the sale here and getting this implemented into a building.

Jean-Simon Venne (24:39.792)
What's been driving this process? Because the security market on this, I imagine, can't be as simple as, like, hey, let's run some ads or send a few emails because the education is convincing and of course, then technical components to making the sale here and getting this implemented into a building. Well, there's several partnerships, right? So we have our own capacity to go sell direct.

There is then the fact that we have a partnership. So we have a partnership with Trains, which is a great partner of us. We also have a partner with ABB, which is also both, they're both reselling our solution. So that helps. And then it's the world of the retail, or the world of the real estate. It's rare you have one owner on one building. So they usually own portfolio of building.

Nate Smoyer (25:34.823)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Simon Venne (25:36.336)
So when you start like we've done the sleep countries in Canada, which are stores which sells mattress. So we've done, I think, 10 to start with work. Now we're deploying 200 across Canada. So this is how it works, right? And then, of course, what happened is these sleep countries talking to other retailers, like you should do the same, and then it cross -contaminates. So this is how it kind of expand.

Yes, we had like we win a lot of awards. The mention you had like on the Time magazine is one. These things help because people take notes, right? And I have to say we have a great marketing and PR team.

Nate Smoyer (26:22.055)
very cool. And then, like, is there, you know, for those listening, I don't know if anyone in this on listening on this is like, Hey, I've got happen to have a few warehouses to be solid for. But what's a building that's not a fit? Like, what's the base criteria of like, hey, this is, this is what you would need in order to achieve the benefits of what brain box has to offer.

Jean-Simon Venne (26:23.504)
Like, is there, you know, for those listening, I don't know if anyone is listening, this is like, hey, I've got, I've got empty warehouse, this is pretty solid for, but what's a building that's not fit? Like, what's the base criteria of like, hey, this is what you would need in order to achieve the benefits of what Framebox has to offer? In the vertical of commercial building, I would say they're all a good fit. So we...

We're going to go from a very small retail location, 5 ,000 feet, a square feet, all the way to an airport. So there's really like the commercial space, the type of building, I would say no problem. I would say we're probably not a good fit at this time. It's like industrial building because they're so oriented on the process, right? They're doing a process and.

And the eating and ventilation is usually either part of the process or like, or a very small driver. Residential. So we could, we could install it in your home and actually it would be quite fascinating to do that. But for us to do it for a residential, like it's so small and usually it's decentralized. You probably don't have, like you probably have thermostat in all of your room and they're not connecting together.

So it make it a bit hard to deploy AI. You would need to deploy AI on each of your thermostat individually. It become a bit too hard to do. Feasible, but I think on business -wise, not a good idea to do that. Yeah.

Nate Smoyer (27:56.679)
Mm -hmm.

Nate Smoyer (28:00.071)
Yeah, I imagine residential would be pretty challenging unless it was a invitation homes type thing, but even still, even individual units, it doesn't seem like it would give the return that would warrant the upfront costs on that. But it does lead me to a different thought here is because one of the things I have in my house is I've got a device that stays plugged in and it's connected to my wifi and it monitors electricity usage.

Jean-Simon Venne (28:02.992)
I would say, invitation homes type thing, but you can still, you can do digital units, you know, and it doesn't seem like it would give the term that we want for upfront costs or that. But it does lead me to a different thought here, is because one of the things I have in my house is I've got a device that says plugged in, and it's connected to my wifi, and it monitors electricity usage.

Nate Smoyer (28:29.287)
Now, genuinely, to be totally honest, I don't get any value out of this other than when there's storms, we have a lot of them here. Like the other day, we had a very brief power outage and I could see that happen. You gotta get on a little alert and says you've lost power. And then I get a little alert, you've got power again. That's pretty much the only benefit I get out of this thing. But insurance companies have been demonstrating and showing a lot more interest in...

Jean-Simon Venne (28:30.16)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, visibility.

Nate Smoyer (28:56.263)
building monitoring, energy monitoring, water monitoring, all different types of monitoring data. And they're, to my knowledge, using that to underwrite their policies. Have you spoken with insurance companies? Are they responding to this technology? Do you think that there's an interest from the insurance side or even future application that they may not be considering?

Jean-Simon Venne (29:00.336)
of monitoring data and they're to my knowledge using that to underwrite their policies. Have you spoken to insurance companies? Are they responding to these technologies? You think that there's an interest in insurance side or even future applications that they may not be considering? Yeah, I'm sure there's probably a lot of different application but no we have not explored that space yet. I think that the space that we're now exploring is more about

Give you an idea. Let's say we have 600 building in the New York City, right? And let's say that Con Edison is having some constraint of power in the middle of the afternoon in July because it's going to be a very hot and humid afternoon and they're going to have a hard time going through the peak for Manhattan and the surrounding borough. So they might, you know,

they might connect to us and say, well, we have 600 building owned by different people. And we could create that cluster and modulate that cluster to give you a break, Conadison. So you're going to have enough kilowatt to go through the peak. And it's gliding basically. So we're going to pre -cool some of our building and then we're going to glide on that period of the peak. So that's the area we're exploring about.

How can we create these virtual cluster to help the different grid operator to go through tough period of the day where there is a lot of constraint that they're facing?

Nate Smoyer (30:41.671)
Got it. Well, Jean -Simon, it's time we move to my favorite segment of the show that I like to call For the Future. This is when I get to ask each guest who comes on the show to give their best predictions based on the following four questions. Are you ready to play?

Jean-Simon Venne (30:48.496)
segment of the show that I like to call for the future. This is when I get to ask each guest of the show to give me their best predictions based on the following four questions that you're willing to apply. I'm ready. All right, here we go.

Nate Smoyer (31:01.319)
Alright, here we go. Number one, what does Brain Box AI look like one year from now?

Jean-Simon Venne (31:04.848)
What does BrainBox AI look like one year from now? Definitely much bigger. Probably reaching the 20 to the 30 ,000 building, if it's not more. And really starting to have a big impact into giving a break to our planet regarding energy spending.

Nate Smoyer (31:29.529)
Number two, and this one you'll have to dig into the crystal ball a little bit deeper. Describe the built world's impact on carbon emissions in the year 2030 as you think it'll likely be.

Jean-Simon Venne (31:38.508)
as you think it will likely be.

So the carbon emission, I have great faith in technology. I think we're gonna start to see a lot of technology like ours, which is optimizing the energy spending, but with the twist of reducing emission as much as dollar in energy, but really like think about, we're reducing about 25 % of the energy, but we're really seeing 40 % of the emission. So the AI knows that I could basically,

reduce energy, but I'm going to reduce even more emission if I'm wise and what sourcing of energy I'm using. So we're going to start to see a lot of these technologies. And then we're going to start to see these ecosystem of, okay, we have electrification of transportation. So when should I cool down the living room versus when should I charge a car? And that's kind of the ecosystem happening. And then we're going to start to see a lot of local generation. So, you know, even in Canada, we're going to have our solar panel on the roof.

And we'll be producing and you know what? I'm going to be using the electrical car to store that energy on my battery and then I'm going to reuse it to the home if I need to at certain time of the day. We're already seeing in California that fascinating. I don't know if you saw the article of the New York time this week where they show like 2021, 2024. The impact of these battery put on the grid and then suddenly they're shifting.

They're charging the battery during the day with a solar. Yeah. Yeah. And the dark curve, which is having this kickback of fossil fuel at the end of the day, because it's all the sun going down is now being reduced thanks to the battery that were charged during the day by the sun. and Texas is following exactly the same model. So we're going to start to really see the impact of these mix of, generation storage and when do you release and it's going to start to optimize.

Nate Smoyer (33:12.219)
yeah, I did see this, now that you're talking about it.

Nate Smoyer (33:32.615)
Hmm.

Jean-Simon Venne (33:39.216)
the entire continent. And I know Europe is doing the same type of thing, right? So it's great faith that technology, the different technology put together will give us the mix we need to move forward.

Nate Smoyer (33:55.335)
We could use some of that out here. We get a ton of sun in South Dakota. We also get a lot of very large hail, which apparently is not good for solar panels. So there's a minor conflict here. All right, number three here on For the Future. What's one industry trend you think will continue, but you wish would go away?

Jean-Simon Venne (33:59.536)
See you soon.

So they need to be resistant.

Jean-Simon Venne (34:20.016)
Wow, that's a tough one. I think it's the military. I think the military spending and the military industry will unfortunately continue. But it would be very nice that we put all that money to other things.

Nate Smoyer (34:41.255)
All right. And the last one here, what's one thing you believe would dramatically change or fade away in real estate as a result of tech advances?

Jean-Simon Venne (34:43.376)
Can you repeat that question again and then get a beginning? Energy spending.

Nate Smoyer (34:53.223)
Yeah, sure. What's one thing you believe will dramatically change or fade away in real estate as a result of tech advances?

Jean-Simon Venne (35:08.528)
So technology will open the door to have the real estate will become an energy router, which is basically transition the energy from one source to another instead of being just an energy odd.

Nate Smoyer (35:27.783)
All right. Jean -Simon, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I really enjoyed this conversation. I feel like I learned a little bit. I'm going to take away with I think a little bit better of a perspective on the automation potentials, as well as the direct applications of AI when it comes to managing buildings. Before we close out, for those who want to get in touch with you and they want to learn more about Rainbox AI, where do they go and how do they do that?

Jean-Simon Venne (35:30.36)
Thank you so much for coming on the show today. I really enjoyed this conversation. I feel like I learned a little bit. I'm going to take away with a little bit better perspective on the automation potential as well as the direct applications of AI when it comes to managing builders. Before we close out, if there are any two things you want to do in terms of the AI, and if there are one or two more things you want to learn more about Brain Box AI, where do we go whenever they do that? Well, it's pretty easy. Like brainboxai .com.

We have the knowledge base, we have all the contact, and it will be a great pleasure to engage any discussion.

Nate Smoyer (36:08.263)
We very much appreciate your time and until later on, we'll see you later. Have a great day.

Jean-Simon Venne (36:09.36)
you time. So, now, later on. See you later. Have a great day.

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