The last decade brought us dashboards in abundance. Gauges to watch, multi coloured mind blowing graphics and so many ways to report data, the process and overheads needed are cumbersome, hard to find and expensive. We’re here to save partners and their clients the stress. 

People who run buildings aren’t accountants 

The skills gap in managing and running buildings is real. The old hands are retiring and there’s no succession - and that’s not news. The skills which used to be technical are now about numbers and reporting. Which means hiring isn’t as easy as it used to be.  

True efficiency comes from tech which runs itself 

Most building systems demand attention with dashboards to check, reports to run, alerts to chase, logins to remember. Building owners hire partners to make their assets perform better – which you can now do without needing to log in. 

Bitpool is the only data platform you never have to log into, because it’s doing the work for you. 

Instead of asking overhead resources to pull information from systems, our platform delivers outcomes where they’re needed and fast. Reports are written and sent automatically, systems are monitored continuously, anomalies are detected and flagged in real time and decisions are taken with informed data with more insight than any human could offer, in a fraction of the time. 

Automation that replaces effort 

It’s so easy with Bitpool. Simply schedule your AI Agent to run regular activities as you would any other human and let it go. By continuously ingesting live data at a local, global or portfolio level, your Agent can generate performance reports, trigger alerts, or identify opportunities to optimise energy usage in seconds.  The era of swivel chair engineering is over because technology knows more and can do more, faster than any human has ever been able to. 

Fewer touchpoints = better outcomes. 

The unwritten rules behind traditional building management still assume humans are needed as the interface between data and decisions.  We’re disproving that theory. By flipping the script on platform usage, we measure our success on how little time people login to our system instead of how often. 

We’re building the future today – is it time to see what you’re missing?  

No log ins, just results – welcome to Bitpool. 

Interested in partnering? Get in touch >> 

Brisbane, Australia & London, UK – 20 January 2026 

Bitpool, a global leader in AI-powered building and energy intelligence, has strengthened its partnership with Direct Engineering Solutions, part of Direct Global to support the launch of its new global brand and power their next chapter of intelligent energy management. 

Formerly Direct Business Group, Direct Global’s new identity reflects its growth from a UK based start-up into a trusted international consultancy. For Bitpool, the continuation of this proven and trusted partnership marks a significant expansion of its global footprint, bringing real-time energy intelligence to businesses across the UK and beyond. 

Through the partnership, Bitpool’s AI-driven platform provides the intelligence layer behind Direct Global’s energy and building services offering. This enables organisations to see, understand, and optimise energy performance in real time, across single sites or complex portfolios. 

By combining Bitpool’s real-time data, automation, and AI insights with Direct Global’s deep industry expertise, businesses can break down data silos, automate reporting, improve compliance, and make faster, more informed decisions that deliver measurable cost and carbon reductions. 

“Our mission at Bitpool is to turn energy and building data into action,” said David Blanch, CEO of Bitpool. “Expanding our partnership with Direct Global allows us to scale that mission by pairing intelligent technology with trusted expertise to help businesses move from insight to optimisation with confidence.” 

“Our evolution to Direct Global reflects the journey we’ve been on with our clients and partners,” said Chris Toze, Executive Director at Direct Global. “The challenges facing businesses today demand smarter insight, faster action, and trusted expertise. Partnering with Bitpool allows us to deliver intelligent energy solutions that scale with our clients’ ambitions.” 

In the UK, Bitpool is being delivered in partnership with Direct Global and Oakes Energy Services Ltd, combining advanced technology with local knowledge to support organisations across commercial, industrial, and multi-site environments. 

As Direct Global expands internationally — including new operations in Dubai — Bitpool’s platform will underpin a smarter, more connected approach to energy management, giving businesses real-time visibility and control wherever they operate. 

The partnership reflects Bitpool’s commitment to building an open, scalable ecosystem where intelligent technology and expert delivery work together to drive performance, sustainability, and long-term value. 

It sounds futuristic, but buildings that make their own decisions, negotiate energy contracts, and optimise their performance autonomously are here. The missing piece of AI today isn’t capability, it’s commerce. Agentic infrastructure connects intelligence to economy. 

“Buildings already generate enough data to make intelligent decisions,” says Ethan Jones. “The next step is giving them the agents to act on it.” 

Bringing buildings to life 

Right now, buildings rely on operators to interpret data and implement changes. Even with advanced analytics, the process is human-dependent. 

According to Ethan, agentic systems will change that. By combining AI, digital twins, and secure ledgers, buildings will evolve from passive assets into active participants in the economy, capable of self-management and real-time optimisation. 

“Imagine a hospital that knows its cooling demand hour by hour,” Ethan says, “and automatically trades energy in the market when prices drop, that’s good engineering, and it’s on our doorstep.” 

An ecosystem of autonomous performance 

Our architecture is already moving in this direction, using an open, modular framework which allows buildings to act as intelligent nodes within larger networks to share data, collaborate, and balance demand. 

Through secure APIs and transparent event streams, each building can interact with others in the same ecosystem, optimising grid loads, carbon use, and maintenance schedules in a coordinated way. 

“The building becomes part of a community,” Ethan explains. “It’s no longer an isolated box, rather it’s a participant.” 

Trust and traceability as a given 

As buildings start to transact, trust becomes non-negotiable. Each AI-driven decision must be recorded, validated, and auditable. That’s where distributed ledgers and data provenance frameworks come in. 

“Every action, from a temperature change to a carbon credit trade, needs a verifiable trail,” Ethan says. “That’s how you build confidence in a self-managing system.” 

Intelligent infrastructure 

Our platform has already been built for interoperability with microservices, event streams and distributed messaging as standard. Those foundations are now the launchpad for a future where intelligent agents collaborate autonomously, each operating as a node in a distributed ecosystem. 

Imagine AI agents managing HVAC systems across a city portfolio. Each agent understands performance targets, energy pricing, and carbon thresholds. It adjusts set points, requests data from peer systems, and even compensates others using smart contracts, all logged transparently on a distributed ledger. 

The human factor 

Importantly, human skills are used for their best attributes rather than wasted on manual tasks, so that roles and people will become elevated and purposeful. 

Engineers will move from operating systems to governing ecosystems. Facility managers will become orchestrators of AI behaviour, focusing on ethics, efficiency, and optimisation strategy. 

“The goal isn’t to replace people,” Ethan says. “It’s to free them from repetition so they can design, innovate, and lead. Let humans do what they do best!” 

The future we’ve already built 

Our role in that future is already living and breathing as we have created the data assurance framework underpinned by quality, connectivity, and transparency which make intelligent decision-making possible. 

“In the next decade, buildings won’t just think. They’ll collaborate, transact, and evolve. And when that happens, we’ll stop talking about ‘smart buildings’ because intelligence is the default.” 

Ethan doesn’t talk about this as theory. He talks about it as trajectory. 

The shift toward agentic infrastructure is already underway in finance, logistics, and energy markets. Buildings are next. 

“The moment we stop asking AI to wait for instructions,” he says, “we’ll see exponential efficiency gains. But we need to design for responsibility from day one.” 

In that future, AI has skin in the game as a participant in the value chain. And we’re already the technology force and backbone that will make it possible. 

If Bitpool had a backstage pass, Natasha would be at the centre of it. 

She works deep in the platform where most people never see. But everything she touches impacts partners, clients, and the entire product team. Her work smooths workflows, tightens logic, and translates feedback into improvements. 

She understands the system’s architecture from end to end, guiding partners and customers in the best ways to optimise the platform.  And while she doesn’t claim the spotlight, her fingerprints are everywhere. 

Natasha represents the best of Bitpool - quietly excellent, relentlessly curious, and deeply committed to building something that works for everyone. 

We talked to Natasha about her role – here’s what she had to say.. 

Q What does a typical day look like for you at Bitpool? 
A: Honestly, most of my day is spent inside the Bitpool platform. Probably 90% of my time. I’m across both the great parts and the things we need to improve, which is actually what I love. I get to help shape how the system is built, how it works, and how it should feel for our partners and clients. 

Q: What do you love most about the platform itself? 
A: That it’s so open. There’s so much potential to make it even more robust from the ground up. I love being able to gather feedback from users, briefing that into the technology team and seeing it come to life, knowing it will make a real impact. 

Q: Are you coding much yet? 
A: Not really, I did a bit at Uni (HTML and CSS). At Bitpool it’s easy to approach people like Cam who are super knowledgeable and they’re always happy to help us learn. They’re very “give it a go” which is great for building confidence. 

Q: What are the common challenges you see partners and customers face? 
A: Honestly, they’re usually minor things, like not understanding how charts should be read or how the data is implemented. Because we see it every day, we forget that others might be seeing the platform for the first time. So I’m learning how to teach people how dashboards work, how reports work, and how to guide them without overwhelm. 

Q: What do you enjoy about working here? 

With the partner channel growing, we’ve got a really clear goal. It’s great to see everyone aligned, and working together to continue to make the Bitpool platform lead the market. I love getting deep into how the system works and looks – we’ve all spent so much time looking and living in the system, we intuitively know what customers and partners need to do if they’re having issues understanding the data or dashboards.  

Q: And you work closely with Ash - Bitpool’s team-proclaimed King of Dashboards? 

A: He is! We call him the “Bitpool Bible” because he just knows everything. At the end of the day, we all help each other because every one of us knows a different part of the platform, so teaching each other new workflows is part of the fun. 

Q: You’ve been here six years, how has the culture evolved? 
A: The culture hasn’t changed that much which is great. The vibe has always been the same - supportive, collaborative, kind, curious. Everyone who’s come through has had that same energy. That’s why it still feels like home. 

Q: Tell me career wise what’s coming next? 

A: I want to push myself outside my comfort zone. The more I learn and the longer I’m here, the more I want to help push the company forward. Everyone here is so supportive which makes it easier to say yes to new challenges. 

At Bitpool, we’ve always been about the wider community. It’s a critical part of who we are and why we do what we do. We hold ourselves to account to do better, to do right, and to share our collective wins, because then we become better and stronger together. The whole really is greater than the sum of its parts when it comes to software engineering. 

Eating your own dog food is a well known and simple premise. If you’re going to use something, understand it completely. Fix it when it breaks, improve it if you can and grow as you learn - that’s how credibility is earned. 

At Bitpool, open source is a way of life. Every connector, API, and model that powers the platform is something we’ve tested, extended, and improved from the ground up. 

Where the dog food really gets eaten 

Our Service Delivery team use feedback from our platform every day as part of our managed service.  They’re always on the front line, listening, monitoring, tuning and optimising our solution to really amplify performance, so every insight and improvement gets fed into the development pipeline.  

In my mind, this embodies the true spirit of ‘eating your own dog food.’ Using our own platform in production means your feedback and platform updates are live and constant. This keeps us connected to the live issues and opportunities our customers are facing - and relentlessly focused on what works best in the real world. 

Practice what you preach 

In our team, every engineer is expected to understand the inner workings of the open frameworks our platform is built on. That means getting hands-on with libraries, digging into documentation, and participating in community forums.  

Too many companies treat open source like a shortcut to accelerate development. Of course, the byproduct of open source is that we move faster, however at our core, we’re invested in contributing to the wider network so that the industry benefits and we move forward together. 

The credibility loop 

This contribution-first mindset changes other’s perceptions of you as a developer and impacts the visibility and credibility of your brand.  When you engage with open-source communities, you become trusted collaborators. And people who both consume solutions and create them are highly valued and trusted. 

My first-hand experience proves that these community relationships pay back in unexpected ways. A bug fix shared on a GitHub thread can lead to an introduction with a global developer. A shared repo can turn into a new integration partner. At the end of the day, open source is the world’s biggest peer review process. If you can stand up to community scrutiny, your code will stand up anywhere. 

Coding with humility 

It’s important never to think you’re infallible and open source is a critical part of that journey. There’s a certain humility that comes with open-source participation and becoming part of the conversation. When you contribute code to a global community, you know you’re not the smartest person in the room. 

You might start by thinking you’ve solved a problem better than anyone else, until you see how someone on the other side of the world managed to achieve the same thing in three lines of code – it’s the ultimate in perspective giving!  

Learning through contribution 

For me personally, and for Bitpool, open-source engagement is a way of life and learning.  By giving back to the community, we stay plugged into the latest technologies, standards, and innovations while sharpening the curiosity and expertise of our people. 

And if you ever needed to learn about coding well, open source teaches you how to write modular, well-documented code that others can understand, while still exploring new ideas and solving problems at speed. 

The moment you stop contributing, you stop learning. 

Long-term value over short-term wins 

Our focus will continue to be about long-term value, over short-term wins.  We want to be remembered for helping build the foundation of a smarter industry so that, if someone in five years uses our code to make their building more efficient, everyone has won. We’re not about owning intelligence, but enabling it, one contribution, one collaboration, and one line of code at a time. 

In an ecosystem built on trust, expertise, and repeatable results, I’ve learned that transactional relationships don’t last or scale. They’re a temporary fix for a temporary problem, usually dressed up as collaboration with puddle deep commitment which is gone as quickly as it arrives. 

At Bitpool, we’ve made a choice to do things differently. It’s less about being the biggest and shiniest, it’s about building the strongest version we can together.  

And it’s about finding an alignment in our mission that matters - make buildings more accountable, fill the skills gap through technology, enable the next generation of industry experts to do what they do best and ultimately make buildings better for the people who own, operate and reside in them. 

Here’s what we do differently: 

1. We prioritise relationships over box flipping 

   When a partner joins Bitpool, they join our crew. We work with you, not around you. This isn’t a part time gig, it’s our operating model. 

   That means: 

• Shared decision-making 

• Shared problem-solving 

• Shared strategy 

• Shared wins 

  
  

2. We invest early and often to multiply output  

   We’re in your world from the get-go, helping to build capability, multiply output and amplify performance. 

   We help partners: 

• Define their market position 

• Build repeatable service offerings 

• Develop operational workflows 

• Train their teams 

• Engage prospects 

• Deliver projects with confidence 

• Scale to multi-site and global deployments 

  
  

3. We actively integrate your feedback  

   We don’t pretend we’ve got it all worked out. There are always things we could do better and we’re here for it.  When we say, we’ll take your feedback to the team, that’s what happens. If you’re in our ecosystem, your voice is always heard. 

   Partners get: 

• Direct access to product leaders 

• Real conversations about roadmaps 

• The ability to influence features 

• A say in UI/UX improvements 

• Co-design opportunities that uplift the whole network 
   

4. Capability matters 

In our experience, more logos doesn’t always equal more value.  We’d rather have five high performing partners who advocate for our solution than 50 focused on selling shiny things. 

Our premise is simple, when partners succeed, clients succeed, and the ecosystem becomes stronger with every win and all of our collective learnings. 

5. We're here for the long game 

We know that change is a given and today’s technology will be obsolete before we know it.  What will never change is the market rewarding trust, partnership and reliability. We’re building relationships for the long-term to build capability that lasts. 

The bottom line - Bitpool is built different 

We don’t call everyone a partner nor sell a solution and walk away. We can’t deal with complexity, jargon and hype.  We don’t take ourselves too seriously, we’re invested in your success, so we show up, build together and win together. 

If you’re looking for the kind of partner who cuts the BS, knows your industry and backs your capability, let’s talk.