If you've managed a facilities team for more than a few years, you've probably heard some version of this complaint: "The CMMS is great for tracking work orders, but when I'm standing in front of a piece of equipment I've never serviced before, it tells me nothing useful."
That's not a knock on CMMS software. CMMS tools do exactly what they're designed to do. The problem is that "tracking maintenance" and "supporting maintenance execution" are two different problems, and most CMMS platforms were built to solve the first one.
AI for facilities management is designed to solve the second: giving technicians the knowledge they need, right when they need it, without requiring them to know where it lives.
What CMMS Does Well
CMMS (Computerized Maintenance Management System) software has been a cornerstone of professional facilities management for decades, and for good reason. A well-implemented CMMS delivers genuine operational value:
- Work order management: creation, routing, prioritization, and closure tracking
- Preventive maintenance scheduling: calendar-based and meter-based PM triggers
- Asset register: a single source of truth for equipment inventory and history
- Labor tracking: time recording, productivity reporting
- Vendor and procurement management: contractor dispatch, purchase orders
- Compliance documentation: inspection records, regulatory reporting
For managing the operational cadence of a facilities department, knowing what work is scheduled, who is doing it, and whether it got done, CMMS is the right tool. There's no AI substitute for this workflow layer.
Where CMMS Consistently Falls Short
The friction starts when a technician arrives on-site to do the work their CMMS assigned them. From that point forward, the CMMS is largely a passive tool. It can record what happened, but it can't help the technician figure out what to do.
Document search is notoriously poor
Most CMMS platforms allow documents to be attached to equipment records. In practice, these attachments are rarely navigated successfully in the field. Finding the right PDF requires knowing which asset record the document is attached to, navigating to that record on a mobile interface, locating the attachment, and then loading a full 200-page PDF over a cellular connection to find the two paragraphs you actually need.
CMMS tells you what to do, not how
A work order can say "perform quarterly PM on Cooling Tower CT-1." What it can't tell you is the specific chemical dosing procedure for your unit, the recommended water temperature setpoints, or the belt tension spec, unless someone has manually entered all of that data into the CMMS, which rarely happens comprehensively.
Mobile field experience is clunky
CMMS mobile apps have improved significantly, but they're optimized for data entry, updating status, logging hours, adding photos, not information retrieval. The interaction model (navigate menus → find record → find attachment → load PDF) is the opposite of what a technician needs when they're under a unit with dirty hands and a question.
Institutional knowledge lives outside the system
The most useful knowledge in most facilities departments lives in the heads of senior staff: which boiler has a quirk, where the unmarked shutoff actually is, which procedure the manufacturer's manual gets wrong. CMMS has no mechanism to capture and surface this knowledge.
The Knowledge Gap AI Fills
A simple scenario illustrates the gap clearly.
A work order arrives: PM due on AHU-7, 3rd floor north wing. The technician arrives, opens the CMMS on their phone to confirm the task, then closes it. Now what?
- What filters does this unit take? (Size, MERV rating, quantity)
- What's the belt part number if it needs replacement?
- Is there a specific sequence of operations for this unit's controls?
- Where is the isolation valve if I need to take the coil offline?
The CMMS can tell you the PM is due. It cannot answer any of these questions without significant manual data entry that nobody has done. The technician either knows the answers from experience, calls someone who does, or digs through documents.
An AI assistant with access to the building's O&M manuals, equipment schedules, and as-built drawings answers all four questions in under a minute, from a phone, in the mechanical room.
AI vs. CMMS: What Each Does Best
| Task | CMMS | AI (FRED) |
|---|---|---|
| Work order creation & routing | ✓ Strong | — |
| PM scheduling & triggers | ✓ Strong | — |
| Asset register & history | ✓ Strong | — |
| Answer "how do I service this unit?" | ✗ Weak | ✓ Strong |
| Find shutoff / isolation location | ✗ Weak | ✓ Strong |
| Retrieve equipment specs from O&M | ✗ Weak | ✓ Strong |
| Onboard new technicians quickly | ~ Partial | ✓ Strong |
| Mobile usability under pressure | ~ Partial | ✓ Strong |
| Emergency shutoff lookup | ✗ Weak | ✓ Strong |
The Right Mental Model: AI + CMMS, Not AI vs. CMMS
The most effective facilities teams don't choose between CMMS and AI. They use both, for what each does best.
The workflow looks like this:
- Technician reviews today's work orders in CMMS
- Technician arrives at the equipment location
- Technician asks FRED: "What's the PM procedure for the Trane RTU on the roof of Building 4?"
- FRED returns the procedure with source citation from the O&M manual
- Technician completes the work
- Technician logs completion back in CMMS
The CMMS handles the workflow. FRED handles the knowledge. Neither replaces the other.
Three Scenarios Where AI Wins Clearly
Emergency isolation
A pipe bursts on the 6th floor at 7pm. The on-call technician needs the isolation valve location now. CMMS is not the tool for this. An AI assistant with indexed as-built drawings and emergency response documents is.
New technician on an unfamiliar building
A new hire or a technician covering a building they don't normally service can use FRED to ask questions about the equipment and systems they encounter, effectively turning the building's entire documentation library into a knowledgeable colleague who's always available.
Uncommon equipment that rarely gets serviced
Every building has equipment that only gets touched once a year. When that moment comes, no one remembers exactly how to service it. AI surfaces the procedure from the O&M manual instantly, even if it hasn't been accessed in three years.