If you didn't make it to the MENA PropTech Summit 2024 in Dubai, here's what you missed — and what actually matters for the people running buildings.
The conference floor was full of platforms promising to "transform" your building. Most of them won't. But a few conversations, a handful of demos, and one panel discussion stood out as genuinely useful for facilities managers, chief engineers, and sustainability leads who have to make things work on Monday morning.
The AI Hype Was Loud. The Substance Was Quiet.
Walk the exhibition hall at any proptech conference and you'll hear the same words: AI, digital twin, predictive maintenance. The MENA PropTech Summit was no different. But here's what the operators in the room already know — and what the vendors seemed to miss.
AI that can't talk to your BMS is a screensaver. A digital twin that isn't updated with real sensor data is a 3D model. Predictive maintenance that doesn't account for the age of your chiller, the local climate, and the actual failure history of your equipment is a guess dressed up in a dashboard.
One panel discussion got it right. A facilities director from a large Dubai hotel group said: "I don't need AI to tell me my chiller is running. I need it to tell me why my energy bill went up 12% last month when occupancy was flat." That's the bar. If the technology can't answer that question, it's not ready for your building.
What the GCC Market Actually Needs From PropTech
The MENA PropTech Summit made one thing clear: the GCC is not a smaller version of Europe or North America. The building stock is newer, the climate is more extreme, and the regulatory landscape is moving fast.
Dubai's Al Sa'fat rating system, Abu Dhabi's net-zero government building mandate, and Saudi Arabia's Mostadam certification are creating real pressure. But the tools to meet those standards are still catching up.
A sustainability manager from a Riyadh-based developer told me: "We have the regulations. We have the budget. What we don't have is software that understands how a building actually behaves in 50-degree heat with 80% humidity."
That's the gap. Most proptech platforms were built for temperate climates and older building stock. They don't account for the fact that a VRF system in JLT behaves differently than one in Manchester. They don't model the impact of sand on AHU filters. They don't know that DEWA tariffs change seasonally.
The platforms that will survive in this market are the ones that learn the local conditions — not the ones that try to sell a global solution with a Dubai sticker on it.
The One Metric That Matters More Than Any Other
Across every panel and every conversation at the MENA PropTech Summit, one number kept coming up: energy use intensity (EUI) in kWh/m²/year.
Not because it's new. Because it's the one metric that connects every stakeholder in a building. The asset manager cares about it because it affects operating costs and valuation. The facilities manager cares because it tells them if the plant is running efficiently. The sustainability lead cares because it's the basis for carbon reporting. The tenant cares because it shows up in the service charge.
And yet, most buildings in the GCC still don't track it in real time. They get a DEWA bill once a month and try to reverse-engineer what happened.
One hotel engineer I spoke to at the summit described the problem perfectly: "I know my total consumption for last month. I don't know which floor, which system, or which time of day caused the spike. I'm managing blind."
The platforms that solve that — that give you EUI by zone, by system, by hour — are the ones worth your time.
What the UK Market Can Learn From the GCC
The MENA PropTech Summit had a strong UK contingent this year. And the conversations between GCC operators and UK operators were revealing.
UK facilities managers are dealing with older buildings, tighter budgets, and a regulatory environment that changes every quarter (MEES, EPC B by 2030, the new Building Safety Act). They're also dealing with a climate that's less extreme but more unpredictable — heatwaves that buildings weren't designed for, cold snaps that expose poor insulation.
What the UK can learn from the GCC: how to retrofit for efficiency when the building is already standing. The GCC has been building new for two decades. Now it's starting to retrofit. The UK has been retrofitting for two decades. Both markets have something to teach each other.
What the GCC can learn from the UK: how to measure and verify savings. The UK has been through several rounds of energy efficiency schemes, and the ones that worked were the ones that measured before and after. The ones that failed were the ones that assumed savings without checking.
The Best Demo at the Conference Wasn't on the Exhibition Floor
The most impressive thing I saw at the MENA PropTech Summit wasn't a product. It was a conversation between a chief engineer and a platform developer.
The engineer asked: "Can your system tell me when my FCU filters need changing based on pressure drop, not calendar days?"
The developer said: "We can add that."
The engineer said: "No. I need it to already work. I don't have time to be your beta tester."
That exchange sums up the state of proptech in 2024. The technology is getting better. But it's still asking building operators to adapt to the software, rather than the other way around.
The platforms that will win are the ones that start with the operator's problem — not the developer's feature list.
Where to Start
If you came away from the MENA PropTech Summit wondering what to do next, start with your data. Not a new platform. Not a digital twin. Not an AI pilot.
Start with knowing what your building is doing, hour by hour, system by system. If you can't answer the question "what happened at 3am on Tuesday?" about your chiller plant, no amount of proptech will help you.
Once you have that data, you can start asking better questions. And once you're asking better questions, you're ready for a platform that can answer them.
That's what Herman does. It connects to your existing BMS, reads your data, and lets you ask questions in plain English. No dashboards to learn. No consultants to hire. Just your building, talking back to you.
See how it works at hermanwa.com.
— The HermanWa Team
Until next time — keep your buildings smart and your compliance tighter.
Need help with your building management?
HermanWa helps commercial property owners and hospitality operators monitor, optimise, and future-proof their buildings.
Get in Touch