No Sensors Required: Predictive Planning for Faster Space Planning Decisions

Real estate and workplace teams might assume that space planning starts with a hardware project. Sensors to procure, IT to coordinate, a deployment timeline measured in months. By the time the data starts flowing, the planning question that triggered the project has already been answered. Or worse, guessed at.

Here's what most people don't realize: you don't need sensors to start planning smarter. In fact, all you need is a floor plan.

VergeSense's Predictive Planning product uses the Large Spatial Model (LSM,) an AI model trained on more than 200 million square feet of real workplace behavior data, to simulate how your workforce will interact with your space. It's our first software-only solution that doesn't require hardware deployment. Upload a floor plan, provide basic workforce metadata, and you're running scenarios in minutes.

Predictive Planning gives you the same AI engine, the same behavioral predictions, the same scenario modeling capabilities our customers with sensor data can take advantage of today. The difference is in precision: sensors give you measured precision based on your building's actual data, while a floor plan alone gives you modeled precision drawn from the behavioral patterns of thousands of similar spaces. Both give you actionable planning outputs. The floor-plan-only path just lets you start today.

Why a floor plan is enough

The LSM doesn't just count people. It understands how people behave in space: which space types fill up first, how gathering sizes distribute across room types, how attendance on a Tuesday afternoon differs from a Thursday morning, and where experience starts to degrade before anyone files a complaint.

These behavioral patterns (what we call Usage Fingerprints) are consistent across similar office environments. It turns out that behavioral trends in a 50,000-square-foot open-plan floor in Chicago are quite similar to those in London or Singapore, because the underlying dynamics of how people choose desks, book rooms, and cluster in collaboration zones follow predictable patterns. The LSM has learned these patterns from eight years of real occupancy data across every major market and office type.

When you upload a floor plan, the LSM maps your space inventory (how many desks, conference rooms, phone booths, and open collaboration areas you have) and simulates over 1,000 behavioral scenarios for that floor. It predicts where your space types will fill up first, at what attendance level employee experience begins to degrade, and what the gap looks like between your design capacity and your true functional capacity.

That last point is critical. A floor designed for 252 people might actually start breaking down at 128, because enclosed collaboration spaces (conference rooms, huddle rooms) fill up well before desks do. The floor plan tells the model the supply. The LSM tells you how real people will behave.

Three decisions unlocked

With just a floor plan and workforce metadata, Predictive Planning helps your team answer the three hardest space decisions faster and with more confidence.

1. How much space do you actually need? Portfolio right-sizing is typically a three to six month exercise involving consultants, Excel models, and data pulled from four or more systems. With Predictive Planning, you can model lease scenarios (what happens if you give back a floor, consolidate two buildings, or shift from three to five days in office) and see the capacity and experience impact in minutes. No waiting for a consultant's PDF that's already stale.

2. What type of space should it be? This is where most planning processes stall. Workplace designers traditionally draft three to five test fits manually, spending four to eight hours on each layout option. Design reviews become stakeholder debates driven by gut feel, not behavioral data. Predictive Planning scores any proposed layout against predicted real-world usage, identifying which space types will bottleneck first and recommending specific changes (add two huddle rooms, remove twenty open desks) before you commit capital.

3. Which teams go where? Stack planning (deciding which departments sit on which floors) is one of the most manual, consensus-heavy exercises in corporate real estate. Planners build stacking plans in PowerPoint, pull data from three or more systems, and run five-plus stakeholder meetings per restack.

Predictive Planning compresses that process. Simulate team placements, forecast when floors will hit capacity based on hiring projections, and present data-backed options to leadership in a fraction of the time.

What "get started in minutes" actually looks like

Here's the workflow:

1. Provide a floor plan. A simple architectural drawing showing your space layout.
2. Map your space types. VergeSense's team handles this, or you do it yourself in the platform.
3. Input workforce metadata. Headcount, attendance policy, and any known attendance patterns.
4. Run the analysis. The LSM simulates behavioral scenarios across your floor.
5. Review your results. Within minutes, you're looking at risk thresholds, constraining space types, and recommendations for how to improve performance.

From there, it's scenario modeling. Want to see what happens if headcount grows 15%? Change a number and the model recalculates. Considering going from three to four days in office? Adjust the policy input and see the impact on every floor. Thinking about giving back a floor to save on lease costs? Model it before you call the broker.

No waiting for a consultant to schedule a kickoff call. No six-month project plan. No hardware procurement.

Sensors make it better, but they're not the starting line

To be clear: occupancy data from your offices adds significant value. When VergeSense sensors are deployed, Predictive Planning shifts from modeled to measured precision as input, using your building's actual occupancy behavior rather than benchmark data. The predictions get sharper, the recommendations get more granular, and the platform continuously learns from your specific patterns.

But sensors aren't a prerequisite. They're an upgrade path. Many organizations start with Predictive Planning across their entire portfolio using floor plans alone, getting immediate value from scenario modeling and capacity analysis, and then deploy sensors at their highest-priority sites to deepen the precision where it matters most.

This is how you get from "we need a planning tool" to "we're running scenarios" in days instead of months. Start with what you have. A floor plan is enough.

Start planning smarter today

If you've been waiting to start predictive space planning because you assumed it required a hardware deployment, you don't have to wait. Upload a floor plan and see how your space will actually perform.

Request a personalized demo →