Global real estate investors are running into an AI ROI mismatch, with the technology’s biggest payoffs misaligned with their top priorities despite rapid adoption across the industry, said JLL’s 2026 Global Real Estate Investor AI Survey. Investors want AI to drive outperformance and strengthen capital deployment capabilities (49%), yet asset and property management deliver the strongest gains in efficiency (66%) and decision quality (57%), the report said.
As enterprise LLMs have made deployment easier, the challenge for real estate leaders has shifted from accessing AI to integrating it into the business where it can create lasting value. In 2025, 88% of respondents were only testing or planning AI programs while today, 83% have pushed beyond test stages in at least one area, and 40% report scaling or embedding AI across all activity areas. Despite this increased adoption, only 15% of investors have built custom agentic workflows across all deployment areas.
“We are reaching a stage where investors need to revisit their AI strategy area through a value retention lens,” said Alexandra Bryant, global CEO, value and risk advisory at JLL. “In certain areas where using AI will become table stakes, such as faster underwriting, it is unlikely that will provide lasting value or competitive advantage. However, when considering AI to drive effectiveness, for example in asset management, the same efficiency flows into net operating income and asset value, and the investor retains the value add against past performance.”
The pressure that comes with increased AI adoption is also driving significant organizational change. Currently, 69% of investors report feeling direct pressure from AI’s impact on competition, talent, costs and operational change, 88% have hired dedicated AI talent or an AI lead, and 81% have engaged external advisors to help develop in-house capabilities.
“Competitive advantage will increasingly depend on how well investors design and own their agentic workflows,” said Emilio Portes, chief product and innovation officer, JLL Capital Markets Services and LaSalle. “Building a custom agentic workflow is not the same as simply using models. It is as much an organizational decision as a technical one. Someone has to own the process, decide how the work should be done, and make sure the agent can reach clean, connected data, responsibly. It’s a new set of capabilities for investors.”
