Artificial Intelligence in real estate is no longer a future concept or a conference buzzword. It’s already reshaping how properties are leased, managed, valued, and invested in — often quietly, behind the scenes, inside operational workflows.
Over the past months, ORIL has been hosting conversations with founders, CEOs, operators, and technology leaders on the Innovation Blueprint podcast, discussing how AI is actually being used in PropTech today. Not hypotheticals. Not hype. Real tools, real problems, real outcomes.
What emerged across dozens of episodes is a clear, grounded view of AI’s role in real estate — and it’s more nuanced than “AI will replace everything.”
Below are the key themes and insights, shared directly by industry leaders.
AI Is Becoming the Operating Layer of Real Estate
One of the strongest signals across the podcast conversations is that AI is moving from “nice-to-have analytics” into a core operating layer for real estate businesses.
Julie Blanc, CEO of Rentana, describes this shift clearly:
“AI is going to accelerate decision-making across real estate from everything from pricing to leasing to maintenance and investment… Operators are going to rely on tools that not just provide them insights, but also take action on their behalf… I think AI’s going to be a complete workflow partner and co-pilot.”
Rather than dashboards that require manual interpretation, leaders are looking for AI systems that recommend actions, prioritize tasks, and automate execution — especially in high-volume environments like multifamily operations.
This marks a major evolution: AI as an assistant that doesn’t just analyze, but actively reduces cognitive and operational load.
Automation Is Where AI Delivers Immediate Value
When it comes to day-to-day property operations, automation is where AI’s impact is most tangible.
David Bitton, Co-founder of DoorLoop, put it bluntly:
“What I would love to see happen is for AI to help property managers and owners automate everything… automatically assign a work order… post the unit on Zillow… and help automate the entire lease process from start to finish.”
This aligns with what many operators are experiencing today: leasing workflows, maintenance requests, listings, and accounting tasks are still heavily manual — and expensive.
Zach Schofel, Principal at Eastman Residential, echoed this from an owner-operator perspective:
“Immediate advancements utilizing AI… on the leasing front… converting as many leads as possible… and also in the back office on the accounting sector… one of the biggest costs is just the accounting teams.”
AI is increasingly seen as a way to remove repetitive work, not eliminate people — freeing teams to focus on higher-value decisions.
Customer Experience Is Quietly Being Rewritten by AI
Leasing is one of the clearest examples of AI improving outcomes without changing the user’s mental model.
Zach Haptonstall, CEO of Rise48 Equity, shared how AI now handles high-volume inbound demand:
“If somebody calls after 5 p.m. and the office is closed… the AI will actually schedule a tour with an actual person so they can show up the next day.”
And Zach Schofel highlighted the business impact of AI leasing assistants:
“We used Elise AI… one specific property in Nashville… we had over 150 calls before 9 a.m. and after 5 p.m. that otherwise would have been missed.”
AI doesn’t replace leasing agents — it extends their reach, ensures no lead is lost, and creates a smoother renter experience without increasing headcount.
AI in Construction, Pre-Development & Built-World Workflows
While much of the AI conversation in real estate focuses on leasing and operations, construction and pre-development remain some of the most complex — and most constrained — parts of the built world.
On the Innovation Blueprint podcast, leaders repeatedly stressed that success depends less on innovation speed and more on respecting existing workflows.
Jon Sibley, TrueBuilt CEO, shared a key lesson:
“The biggest mistake… we actually innovated too much… because it can’t be this giant leap… someone coming off an on-prem tool… has a large learning curve just to get into the cloud… let alone any of the AI and computer vision stuff we’re doing.”
This highlights an important reality: AI must be introduced incrementally, especially for teams with decades of hands-on experience.
Where AI does deliver immediate value is in removing repetitive work. As Jon explained:
“Time savings and accuracy… automation for laborious parts… means the estimator has more time to use his 20 years of experience.”
Benjamin Allen, the Co-Founder of GreenLite, added another critical challenge:
“There’s not a single platform of record on the municipality side… it’s fragmented… and there’s change management… folks have done it one way for a long time.”
Together, these insights point to a clear takeaway: in construction and pre-development, AI succeeds when paired with custom workflows, strong integrations, and thoughtful change management — not when it tries to replace human expertise.
Data Quality Still Matters More Than AI Models
Despite the excitement around large language models and generative AI, several leaders emphasized a critical reality: AI is only as good as the data behind it.
Michael Broder, CEO of RCKRBX, put it simply:
“One thing that people often forget about AI… it’s only as good as the information that feeds it. If you have garbage data… you’re still going to get garbage out.”
Tyler Christensen, Head of Industry Solutions at Cherre, expanded on this challenge in real estate specifically:
“It’s not that difficult to automate the movement of data… Where automation gets tricky is… the quality of the data… when a validation rule has tripped… You can’t automate the remediation process necessarily because oftentimes it requires judgment.”
Alberto Quiroz, President of Intellimeter Canada Inc., illustrates what this looks like at real-world scale:
“You got about 200 million data points and you want to put them into Excel… But if you had an engine, an artificial intelligence engine… [to] take all that data, shake it, clean it, and really look at the outliers… you can instruct… ‘get me the average… and the outliers’… instead of… manually… because it’s massive…”
This highlights a major opportunity — and risk — for PropTech companies: AI cannot fix broken data infrastructure on its own. Clean pipelines, unified systems, and thoughtful architecture are still foundational.
AI Will Augment Humans — Not Replace Them
Across nearly every episode, there was strong alignment on one point: real estate remains a relationship-driven, high-trust industry.
Frank Rohde, CEO of Ownify, described the future clearly:
“I don’t think people will trust a bot to do 100% of that. But could you have a trusted advisor supported by AI and therefore 10 times more efficient than today? In my mind, that’s the future.”
Sharon Yavo Ayalon, CEO of UrbanMix, reinforced the same idea:
“AI is doing wonderful things… It’s giving us tools to be much more efficient. I don’t think it should replace humans.”
The winning pattern isn’t replacement — it’s augmentation. AI handles volume, speed, and pattern recognition. Humans handle judgment, relationships, and accountability.
What This Means for PropTech Companies Today
The real estate and PropTech industry leaders aren’t chasing AI for novelty. They’re adopting it where it:
- Reduces operational friction
- Improves response times
- Increases conversion and revenue
- Enables better decisions at scale
At ORIL, we see the same pattern across the PropTech products we design and build. AI delivers the most value when it’s deeply integrated into workflows, aligned with real user behavior, and built on a solid data foundation — not bolted on as a feature.
Want to Join the Conversation?
If you’re building, operating, or scaling a PropTech or real estate business — and have a real perspective on technology, AI, or digital transformation — we’d love to talk.
Apply to join the Innovation Blueprint podcast as a guest. Share your experience, challenges, and lessons with an audience of real estate and PropTech leaders.
Contact ORIL to explore:
- Guest participation on the podcast
- Custom PropTech software development
- AI-driven solutions for real estate operations and products
