Q&A: Siemens – Dorte Ballermann
Before buildings can be autonomous, they have to be connected
In this Q&A, Dorte Ballermann, Siemens, shares why the next leap in proptech is not just smarter buildings, but connected ecosystems that can turn AI, energy efficiency and climate pressure into a new competitive advantage.
What role does proptech play in the real estate industry in 2026?
We need common spaces to discuss the most intricate, complex challenges we've ever faced as a sector in a rapidly changing world.
The rules are changing, and no one can do it alone anymore.
We see new business models emerging for partnering up to crack down on wicked problems together, uniting several different domains and areas of expertise. This is increasingly becoming the new competitive advantage.
PropTech is one of those spaces to get ahead and connect.
What are emerging areas of commercial proptech that you're excited about in the proptech space?
One of the biggest challenges we face is lack of data transparency, silos and high complexity when digitalizing legacy systems. We now see real examples of the power of AI totally revolutionizing this space and a lot of new business models for partnerships riding this wave on platforms like BuildingX from Siemens Xcelerator.
We believe the future market will favor open ecosystems and plugging into each others' solutions to meet the complexity of the built environment.
Building Lifecycle Twins, Energy Lifecycle Twins, autonomous HVAC and AI managed grid capacity, opens very promising doors to the idea of truly coupling sectors and transforming the energy system to handle the balance of demand and supply hyper-efficiently.
This means transitioning much faster to renewables than we ever thought possible, because we simply cracked the concept of energy efficiency. The green transition for buildings, industry and grids are going to step into a new era of hyper-scaling decarbonization with AI.
I think the future is a lot brighter than we allow ourselves to think.
How do you see the real estate industry evolving over the next 5 to 10 years?
Getting the basics of digitalization right is still the number one task for almost everyone in the building sector.
More than 80% of the EU building stock is still operating radically inefficiently. Building data is scattered across disconnected systems, spreadsheets, and PDFs.
Before any building becomes autonomous and AI-driven, it must first become connected.
The organizations making real progress aren't jumping to AI first. They're doing the unglamorous work: unifying operational data, connecting lifecycle intelligence, creating a single source of truth.
When we've crossed that bridge, I think we can expect to see self-managed hyper-efficient buildings, with very little human touch, achieving dramatic optimizations of a building's total cost of ownership and energy use.
Looking at a severely changing climate coming at us with increasing speed, the need for adaptive buildings to withstand dramatic temperature differences will probably create the urgency well before the industry feels ready.
However, you should never waste a good crisis!
The winners are the building owners who understand how to get in front of this wave and surf it well, while others are still scrambling to achieve the basics when it's too late to adapt.
What would you wish that you knew prior to getting to this point in your career?
Technology advances happens in leaps. It's not a steady upwards curve.
I'm a very impatient person by nature, who dedicated my entire career to ClimateTech to change something now, yesterday, 10 years ago.
The lack of progress I've seen across areas like buildings, transport, industry, land use, nature conservation and energy systems made me apathetic.
I wish I could have told myself that humans are extremely resilient and come up with the best inventions to adapt under pressure.
When we feel the perfect storm of multi-crises most potently in the next few years, AI will probably revolutionize our society to the same extent or more than electricity did for the Industrial Revolution.
Now, is actually one of the most exciting times to be alive to truly change the system and make a lasting impact.
Where do you go for inspiration?
I think now, more than ever, critical independent thinking is the best guardrail for any problem we face.
There are very few safe havens left where you can get truly uncompromised information. Personally, I enjoy Bellingcat, The Guardian, The Diary of a CEO Podcast and The Sustainability Agenda Podcast.
About
MarCom leader at Siemens, Dorte Ballermann works at the intersection of climate technology, digitisation and market transformation, with more than 10 years of experience developing global brand and go-to-market strategies across complex, international organisations.
With a background spanning startups, NGOs, consultancy and large-scale corporate innovation, she brings a broad perspective on how technology, partnerships and new business models can accelerate the green transition. Her experience covers areas including renewable energy, energy efficiency, electrification, ESG, SaaS, HVAC, sector coupling, mobility, buildings, industry, grids and wider energy systems – all connected by a focus on turning climate ambition into scalable action.
