10/04/2026
Eugene Yakovlev, Vice President at Sigma Software, recently wrote about how AI is shifting connected products from devices to outcomes. One industry where that shift is becoming particularly concrete is HVAC — and it starts with a question about a device most of us never think about.
For decades, the thermostat has been the main interface between people and HVAC systems — a simple dial or panel that lets us tell the system what we want. That model is starting to look outdated, and not because someone designed a better thermostat.
AI-driven building platforms are beginning to remove the human from that loop entirely. Instead of someone setting a temperature, systems are starting to figure this out on their own — when to start cooling, how to balance airflow between zones, how to respond to who is actually in the building rather than who was expected. We are already seeing early versions of this in production. Nothing fully autonomous yet, but the direction is clear.
What's easy to underestimate is that the hard part isn't the AI model. It's everything that needs to work underneath it — reliable device telemetry, data infrastructure that can actually scale, edge intelligence that holds up under real-world conditions, and integration with legacy systems that were never designed to share data with anything.
This is exactly where Sigma Software works with connected product companies — helping engineer the infrastructure that makes AI in physical environments actually function: from device telemetry pipelines and edge architecture to integration layers and AI solutions built for real operational constraints, not just demos.
HVAC might be one of the first industries where AI quietly removes an interface that has been around for over a century. But the pattern will repeat across many others.
