Comfort is not a temperature
Air temperature is one of six variables, and often not the one doing the work.
Thermal comfort is conventionally described by six variables: air temperature, mean radiant temperature, air speed, humidity, clothing and metabolic rate. Design practice tends to control the first and ignore the rest, which is why buildings meet their setpoint and still feel wrong.
A cool surface and moving air will do more for an occupant than two degrees off the thermostat.
Radiant conditions dominate in high-mass buildings and next to large glazed areas. A person standing beside a west-facing window at five in the afternoon is exchanging heat with a surface far hotter than the room, and no amount of cooled air makes that comfortable — it only makes it expensive.
Air movement is the other neglected variable, and in warm humid climates it is the decisive one. Moving air raises the temperature at which people remain comfortable by a meaningful margin, which is why buildings designed around cross-ventilation can be comfortable at conditions where a sealed building would be running plant hard.
Designing for comfort rather than for temperature usually reduces energy demand as a side effect. Designing for temperature alone reliably does not.