10 CMMS Trends Facility Managers Need to Watch in 2026
Most CMMS trend lists lean on downtime-reduction statistics. Depending on whose marketing page you read, those figures range from 30% to 90%. That makes them hard to plan around.
This list takes a different approach. Each shift covers what’s changing and why it matters to a maintenance team. We cite survey data where it exists. Where it doesn’t, we describe the trend as a direction, not a statistic.
10 Shifts Worth Planning Around Now
1. AI-Assisted Predictive Maintenance Grows, but Most Facilities Aren’t There Yet
What’s Changing: AI use in facility operations is now common, but predictive maintenance is a smaller slice of it. Johnson Controls, which sells AI building software, surveyed U.S. organizations with more than 200 employees for a 2026 report. In that survey, 67% of facility managers said their organization already uses AI for operations or maintenance. Of those, 47% use it for predictive maintenance, or roughly three in ten facility managers overall.[1]
Why It Matters: In the same survey, predictive maintenance was the top planned technology investment for the coming year. That held for both facility managers and business leaders.[1] Expect more vendor pitches in this area. Teams that know their baseline downtime and repair costs will be better able to judge them.
2. Mobile Access Becomes a Basic Expectation for Field Maintenance
What’s Changing: Mobile access is now a common CMMS feature. That reflects reality: maintenance work happens at the equipment, not behind a desk. The question is no longer whether a system offers mobile access. It’s how well technicians can use it in the field.
Why It Matters: Returning to a computer to record work, check asset history, or update a work order adds steps to every job.
3. Labor Shortages Push Automation From “Nice to Have” to Necessary
What’s Changing: In the Johnson Controls survey, 72% of facility managers said labor shortages moderately or severely affect their operations.[1] Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute see similar pressure in manufacturing. They project that up to 1.9 million U.S. manufacturing jobs could go unfilled by 2033. An aging workforce and too few qualified applicants drive that gap.[2]
Why It Matters: On a stretched team, manual reporting, duplicate data entry, and other admin work take time away from actual maintenance. Automating routine tasks like preventive maintenance scheduling gives some of that time back.
4. Sustainability and Energy Data Become More Connected to Maintenance
What’s Changing: Other departments increasingly ask facility teams for equipment, energy, and operational data for sustainability reporting. How much of it comes from the maintenance system varies. Many teams still rely on separate systems or manual reporting.
Why It Matters: Maintenance teams often hold the equipment-level information other departments need. If that information is hard to extract or inconsistent, reporting becomes another manual process.
5. Facilities Reconsider Disconnected Maintenance Tools
What’s Changing: Some organizations want fewer disconnected systems for work orders, inventory, asset records, and reporting. That doesn’t mean every facility needs one system for everything. Specialized tools still make sense when they serve a specific need.
Why It Matters: When information lives in several systems and spreadsheets, teams spend time reconciling records instead of making decisions. A connected CMMS can close many of those gaps.
6. IoT and Sensor Data Get Tied More Directly to Work Orders
What’s Changing: Some facilities now feed sensor data on vibration, temperature, and other conditions straight into their maintenance systems. Standalone monitoring dashboards are still common, but the direction is toward connecting the two.
Why It Matters: Sensor data helps most when your team can tie it to the right equipment, work order, and history. Data that sits outside the maintenance workflow is harder to act on.
7. Conversational AI Interfaces Start Appearing in CMMS Platforms
What’s Changing: Some CMMS platforms now offer natural-language interfaces. Users ask a question instead of clicking through several screens for an answer. The feature is still early, and quality varies widely between products.
Why It Matters: A technician checking a part or an asset’s history needs answers fast. A simple question box can matter more than a dozen features nobody uses.
8. Maintenance Reporting Moves Toward More Useful Failure Data
What’s Changing: Some maintenance teams now pay closer attention to what technicians record when equipment fails. A work order marked “completed” only tells a manager the job is done. Structured details on the failure, cause, and corrective action tell a much more useful story.
Why It Matters: Repeated failures are hard to analyze when every technician records repairs differently. Consistent failure data in asset and work order records makes it easier to spot recurring problems and see where maintenance effort goes.
9. Compliance Requirements Put More Pressure on CMMS Configuration
What’s Changing: Regulated industries like healthcare, food and beverage, and pharmaceuticals have strict inspection and documentation rules. Maintenance records often need to support them. That makes configuration and recordkeeping important when you evaluate maintenance software.
Why It Matters: A system that doesn’t match your documentation requirements leads to spreadsheets, manual workarounds, and duplicate records.
10. Data Quality Emerges as a Key Barrier to AI and Automation
What’s Changing: As facilities expand AI, predictive maintenance, and automated reporting, the quality of their maintenance data matters more. In the Johnson Controls survey, facility managers named data quality and integration among the leading barriers to scaling AI.[1]
Why It Matters: AI can’t make up for incomplete asset records, inconsistent work order histories, missing failure data, or disconnected systems. Better technology tends to make poor data more obvious, not less.
Where a CMMS Fits Into These Trends
Nearly every trend on this list rests on one foundation. You need reliable maintenance data in one place that reaches the people doing the work. A CMMS like eWorkOrders provides that through:
- Work orders and asset records built for failure analysis, not just task completion
- Mobile access that puts maintenance information in technicians’ hands in the field
- Reporting and KPIs that measure performance using your own operational data
- Equipment and usage data that supports sustainability and compliance reporting
- One connected maintenance record that cuts reconciliation between spreadsheets and separate systems
When you evaluate any system, the key question isn’t whether it has every new feature. It’s whether it provides reliable data, fits how technicians work, and connects with your other systems.
Evaluating a CMMS, or checking whether your current one can keep up? See how eWorkOrders works in a real maintenance environment.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do CMMS vendor statistics about AI and downtime reduction vary so much?
Different studies measure different things, including asset types, operating environments, baselines, and technology maturity. Vendor pages may also highlight the results most favorable to their product. Treat a specific percentage as a data point to investigate, not a guaranteed result.
Does a facility need to adopt every trend on this list?
No. Which trends matter depends on facility type, industry, staffing, existing technology, and maintenance priorities. Many facilities get more from better mobile access or cleaner data than from newer tools like predictive maintenance.
What’s the most practical trend to start with?
Start with the problem that costs your team the most time or creates the biggest information gap. For some teams, that’s manual data entry or limited mobile access. For others, it’s incomplete asset history, disconnected systems, or inconsistent failure data.
Sources
1. Johnson Controls, 2026 AI & Digitalization in Facilities Management Report, March 2026. Survey of U.S. business leaders and facility managers at organizations with more than 200 employees.
2. Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute, Supporting U.S. Manufacturing Growth Amid Workforce Challenges, 2024.
