The real estate industry is rapidly experimenting with and adopting the benefits of AI, with nearly nine in 10 (84%) of respondents to Ferguson Partners’ Artificial Intelligence Pulse Survey saying they are actively experimenting with or implementing AI.
In addition, nearly one-third (30%) said they have already begun to implement AI in select business practices, and 24% said they had experimented with the tool for personal productivity.
“The major takeaway from this survey is real estate professionals need to consider embracing AI to stay ahead of the curve,” said Justin Pellino, director, Ferguson Partners, a talent management and strategic advisory for the global real asset industries. “We expect AI use cases and ROI to continue to bubble up organically as commercial real estate firms test various tools. While data integrity and privacy are rightfully a concern, the most successful organizations are going to be those that draw boundaries early and encourage their teams to experiment with this technology.”
This survey, a national study seeking to understand the adoption, application and evolution of AI practices within the real estate sector, is the first in an expected ongoing series. Thirty-three real estate investment firms representing both private and public organizations and varying in size, investment strategy, and location, participated in the survey.
Outside of personal productivity, participants are exploring AI in CRM database analysis, tenant work orders, financial and accounting processes, leasing analysis, customer service/improved chat bots, rent and asset valuation predictive analytics and lease administration. The survey reported that 87% of the respondents allow their employees to use AI tools. However, the majority enforce restrictions around usage, with 48% of firms allowing AI usage enforce restrictions, particularly concerning data privacy and the use of public AI models like ChatGPT.
While all indicated increased efficiency and productivity are the top motivation for incorporating AI into their organizations. Secondary motivations included cost reduction (67%), improved decision-making (61%), enhanced risk management (48%) and better customer service (39%). Document abstraction is believed to be the business area with the greatest potential for AI impact, cited by 64% of respondents.
When asked to list the primary challenges in AI adoption, the lack of understanding of AI applications (67%) along with difficulty in demonstrating clear use cases or ROI (58%) were the most common responses from survey participants. Other reasons cited include: data quality and availability issues (58%), concerns over information security (52%) and lack of skilled talent (48%).
