Predicting the future of facilities management has been the focus of a wealth of studies since the early 1980s. In this Part I of II of our special issue of Facilities, we begin by looking back at how researchers have approached the future of FM. Today, we see digitization and sustainability as the two forces that generate development trends for FM for the future. These could also be claimed to be driving forces during the last decades, but there are now major steps in technology and process development that are expected to transform many FM activities.