The International Facility Management Association’s (IFMA) Facility Fusion 2026, April 7-9 at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square, is an opportunity for facility and workplace management professionals to connect with the peers, industry thought leaders, and solution providers shaping the future of the built environment.
Key takeaways
- The keynote focuses on AI implementation for 400,000+ staff across 100+ countries at PwC. The session covers moving from AI experimentation to enterprise deployment, including frameworks for scaling AI securely and cost-effectively in facility operations
- Behind-the-scenes facility tours offer practitioner perspectives from the teams operating these systems. Tours cover major retrofits, building automation integration, and operational trade-offs — what worked, what didn’t, and implementation details typically not shared in vendor presentations
- The program balances technical content with leadership development. Sessions range from interactive workshops on operational challenges to keynotes on innovation approaches
Eptura is excited to be at this year’s event as a Premier Sponsor and to be sponsoring the welcome reception April 7.
What is IFMA Facility Fusion 2026?
Facility Fusion is an annual high-impact conference and expo specifically for the facility management professionals who power the built environment. The event is a focused forum for advancing the industry through hands-on education, peer learning, and meaningful networking.
The 2026 program is in San Francisco, and features a comprehensive mix of learning sessions, technical instruction, and networking opportunities focused on the evolving needs of facility and workplace leaders.
Attendees will have the opportunity to explore strategies for improving operational performance, enhancing occupant experience, and aligning facility operations with broader organizational goals.
Key features of Facility Fusion 2026 include:
- Technical instruction for supporting workflow optimization and strategic planning
- Networking opportunities with professionals from across industries and disciplines
- A two-day expo hall with workplace technologies, service providers, and integrated platforms
- Innovation Arenas showcasing real-world applications and emerging best practices
- Learning Labs with hands-on experiences
The theme this year is “Where facility leaders converge to connect, collaborate, and build what’s next,” capturing IFMA’s commitment to equipping professionals with the tools and insights they need to lead in a rapidly changing environment.
What technology trends can attendees learn about at Facility Fusion 2026?
Facility Fusion 2026 delivers opportunities to explore the trends and technology facing industry professionals.
AI and predictive intelligence
AI is transforming facility management from reactive problem-solving to strategic performance management. Predictive maintenance leverages AI to analyze historical maintenance records, IoT sensor data, and equipment performance patterns to forecast failures before they occur, enabling teams to schedule repairs during planned downtime, optimize parts inventory, and extend asset lifecycles.
AI-enabled facility management helps organizations move from paying premium prices for reactive fixes to planning maintenance strategically, reducing overall costs while improving equipment reliability.
At Facility Fusion 2026, attendees can dive deep into AI’s practical applications during “From Fear to Future: How AI Will Transform Facility Management,” a keynote session on Tuesday, April 8 at 9:00 AM featuring Joe Harrington, Partner at PwC and Leader of the PwC Global Technology AI Group.
Harrington oversees AI architecture and engineering for nearly 400,000 staff across more than 100 countries, bringing real-world enterprise-scale AI deployment experience directly to facility management professionals.
The session will be moderated by Edward Waggoner, former Global CIO at JLL and recognized IFMA Global Influencer, ensuring the conversation addresses the specific challenges and opportunities facing facility leaders today.
Sustainability and environmental stewardship
Facility Fusion offers opportunities to extend the conversation with real‑world strategies — from circular material practices to dynamic HVAC and lighting optimization — supported by live facility tours showcasing how top performers are integrating sustainability directly into infrastructure design and building operations.
On Monday, April 6, attendees can tour the Gap Inc. headquarters at 2 Folsom, a signature 540,000-square-foot facility that showcases real-world sustainability implementations. The tour, guided by Gap’s Workplace Experience and Facilities Engineering teams, highlights the building’s ongoing modernization initiatives that balance operational efficiency with environmental responsibility.
For a broader systems perspective, the Hilton San Francisco Union Square tour demonstrates how the West Coast’s largest hotel integrated three buildings from different decades into a single building automation system.
On the Workplace Innovator podcast episode “Building a Better Future – Sensors, Climate Technology and Sustainability in the Workplace,” Elizabeth Redmond, Director of Sales & GM, Sensors at R-Zero, delivers a deeper dive into the topic.
Redmond explained how continuously monitoring air quality and occupancy density helps teams optimize energy usage while maintaining healthier environments, and her insights mirror the sector‑wide move toward using sensor intelligence to make sustainability visible, measurable, and actionable at the building level.
Workplace strategy and employee experience
Hybrid work continues to redefine how employees engage with physical spaces. The challenge is no longer simply providing desks or meeting rooms. It’s designing experiences compelling enough to make the commute worthwhile.
Organizations are responding by shifting their workplace strategies from space-centric to people-centric. Instead of asking “How many desks do we need?” facility and workplace leaders are asking “What experiences will bring people back?”
Finding the right answers requires understanding not just attendance patterns, but the underlying reasons employees choose to come in — or stay home. The most effective strategies emerge from listening to employees, analyzing how they use space, and continuously adapting based on real behavior rather than assumptions about what should work.
The value of the human‑centered approach is explored on “Bringing Their A‑Game – How FM Leaders Can Prioritize Employee Experience,” where Bex Moorhouse, Global Head of Strategy, Ops Excellence & Performance — Procurement & REWS at WPP, emphasized that “empathy and curiosity are the things that we need to continue to keep bringing to what we do,” an important reminder that great workplace strategy depends on understanding employee needs through behavior patterns, not assumptions.
Data-driven decision-making
As FM becomes increasingly strategic, leaders must justify every investment with clear, actionable data. But data alone isn’t enough — it must reveal not only what happens in the space, but why.
Facility Fusion builds on this approach with sessions covering occupancy intelligence, portfolio-level analytics, and data standardization frameworks that transform fragmented information into high‑value insight. Complete visibility — from underutilized rooms to cross‑site performance trends — empowers leaders to right‑size intelligently and connect operational decisions to broader organizational goals.
It’s a perspective that aligns with insights from Joshua Freedman, CEO and cofounder of Six Seconds, that he shared on “Shaping the Felt Environment — The Science and Practice of Emotional Wisdom in the Workplace.”
Freedman argued that emotional intelligence produces measurable workplace signals, explaining that “emotional intelligence is measurable… and we’re trying to put this data on the dashboard.”
His point widens the definition of workplace analytics to include the idea that leaders must evaluate both the functional and emotional experience of space to truly understand performance.
Operational excellence and asset management
Operational excellence requires consistency, clarity, and the ability to do more with limited resources. Distributed portfolios, varying asset ages, and workforce constraints make this more challenging — and more essential — than ever.
Facility Fusion will bring these principles to life through operational deep dives, from preventive maintenance programs that surface issues earlier to mobile-first tools that give technicians immediate access to asset histories, parts records, and compliance documentation.
It’s a theme you can find repeated and explained in the Asset Champion episode with James Waddel, President and Chief Research & Innovation Officer at Cognitive Corp, “A Very Real Trend — The Impact of AI on Asset and Facility Management.”
Waddel highlighted how AI supports stronger lifecycle planning, smarter prioritization, and more efficient technician workflows. His insights reflect the broader industry shift toward proactive reliability practices and integrated asset intelligence.
Eptura at Facility Fusion 2026
Eptura has been a long-standing partner of IFMA, participating in its Corporate Sustaining Partner (CSP) program since 2008. As a global worktech company, Eptura regularly contributes thought leadership and educational content to IFMA’s platforms, including the FMJ magazine and Knowledge Library.
After hosting one of last year’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 style with a Lunar New Year-themed celebration featuring dim sum, drinks, and raffles.
Join us to kick off the conference, connect with facility management peers, and support the meaningful connections that only the IFMA community creates.
Frequently asked questions
By Mike Petrusky
As Director of Podcasts at Eptura, Mike Petrusky hosts both the Workplace Innovator Podcast and the Asset Champion Podcast, sharing thought leadership with CRE, FM, and IT leaders in the digital and hybrid workplace. Mike has produced more than 500 podcast episodes listened to in over 111 countries. As an in-demand public speaker, Mike engages audiences at numerous industry events each year, including International Facility Management Association and CoreNet conferences, focusing on the human element of workplace and facility management.
