How Can You Capture Individual Thermal Comfort in Offices?

Individual thermal comfort can be captured better when people express their preferences through short, low-effort dialogue rather than being forced into one shared temperature assumption.

That matters in many offices where the temperature debate is still handled as if there were one correct setting for everyone. In practice, preferences vary significantly between people, tasks, and times of day.

A new Building and Environment study presents an AI-driven method for capturing thermal preference through short interactions with low cognitive load. Instead of repeated surveys or constant manual adjustment, the method tries to understand what each person actually prefers in a way that is more realistic to scale.

That does not mean every office should immediately implement a new AI solution. It does mean office climate should no longer be treated as a question where an average setting is a sufficient decision base.

Why does one shared temperature setting work so poorly in offices?

Many buildings still follow a single setpoint logic. The problem is that people do not experience the same environment in the same way. Clothing, activity level, metabolism, position in the space, and personal preference all affect how the same temperature feels.

That means a uniform solution often becomes an administrative average rather than a genuinely workable environment. Some people feel cold, others hot, and the discussion gets trapped in complaints or temporary adjustments instead of producing a stronger decision base.

For decision-makers, this means thermal comfort is not only a facilities issue. It is also a work environment and usability issue that shapes how the office performs in everyday practice.

What does the AI-driven method actually add?

The real contribution is not the AI label itself. It is the attempt to solve a practical workplace problem: how to collect useful comfort data without burdening users with long questionnaires or constant feedback requests.

The method uses short, conversation-like exchanges and active learning to identify which questions provide the most useful information about each person’s thermal preference. That makes data capture less heavy and more practical in real settings.

This matters because many offices are stuck in a poor middle position. They know comfort varies, but they do not have a realistic way to capture that variation systematically.

Which mistakes do organisations make when they try to manage thermal comfort?

The first mistake is assuming the temperature issue can be solved with one number for the whole office. That turns recurring differences into exceptions even when they are actually structural.

The second mistake is collecting too little or too coarse user data. Once that happens, control becomes reactive and is driven by isolated complaints rather than by patterns in real use.

The third mistake is treating thermal comfort as a purely technical matter detached from work patterns, setting choice, meeting logic, and user groups. That is how the broader workplace effect gets lost.

What does a stronger decision base for office temperature and comfort look like?

A stronger decision base needs to capture variation rather than only averages. That means the organisation needs to understand which groups experience the biggest mismatch, when the problem occurs, and which settings are most sensitive.

It then needs to assess which kinds of control or local choice are actually possible. In some cases, the answer may be better zoning. In others, it may be personal adjustment or a clearer understanding of which work tasks are most affected by poor temperature conditions.

The point is that comfort needs to be connected to use. When treated as part of workplace analysis, it becomes easier to see how the thermal environment shapes focus, stamina, and the ability to work effectively.

Which questions should you ask before trying to optimise thermal comfort?

Before moving ahead, the team should be able to answer at least the following:

• Where in the office is variation in temperature experience greatest?
• Which groups or work tasks appear most sensitive to thermal imbalance?
• Is current control based on real user data or on assumptions about a reasonable average?
• How easy is it for users to provide relevant feedback?
• Which decisions can be made locally in the environment, and which require broader technical or strategic change?

If those questions remain unanswered, the temperature issue is likely to continue as recurring irritation instead of a manageable work environment problem.

Thermal comfort needs to become part of wider workplace analysis

The most important lesson from the study is that individual variation can be captured more intelligently than in traditional survey or complaint processes. That makes temperature more relevant to workplace decisions than many organisations still assume.

This does not mean technology alone solves the problem. It does mean organisations need better ways to understand real user preference before they lock in control logic, redesign decisions, or capital investment.

If your team needs a clearer basis for connecting thermal comfort to work environment and usability, Workplace analysis tools is the most direct next step. That makes it easier to translate the temperature issue into real decisions about zoning, user data, and office function.

If the issue also needs to be tied to wider workplace change or office strategy, continue with Consultancy Services, What is a workplace analysis?, and About Us.

Source

Source supporting this article: Building and Environment, “Personalized thermal comfort elicitation for human-centric building environments with low-cognitive-load conversational AI”, published 2026-06. URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2026.114586.