What Is AI Doing For Real Estate?

We use AI to optimize our calendars, sort through email, and track workout stats. It can help us run our lives more efficiently… and it’s also starting to transform the real estate industry.

AI is can help buildings operate more efficiently, too.

• Software and hardware developed for buildings is set up to learn from patterns and daily habits. It can then manage lights, heating, and cooling to cut energy usage by 20 percent or more per year, according to the Wall Street Journal.
• But, there are hurdles. Collecting data from a wide range of sources that aren’t already connected can be problematic and require retrofits for older buildings.

And, AI can identify what building upgrades make economic sense.

• It analyzes cost/benefit, energy efficiency, maintenance, life cycle cost extremely quickly… and can model out options based on business decisions.
• However, it’s still just information: “The main message overall is we’re not going to save the planet with software, and AI is software,” Greg Smithies, partner and co-lead of the Climate Technology Investment team at Fifth Wall, told the Wall Street Journal.

AI can also speed up the construction of new buildings.

• Drones, cameras, apps, and robots are able to map progress on huge job sites in real time. This lets contractors track and improve a project through data sets.
• But it still can’t build a tower: “Forget about robots building a skyscraper,” says one construction software executive to the New York Times. “It’s a more fundamental thing, getting the data you need and then using it better.”

AI is even being used to buy and sell real estate—JLL recently introduced a chatbot that provides insights to its clients. But the bottom line is that AI isn’t going to solve every problem, but it’s an interesting piece of the puzzle.

For more:

• Artificial intelligence steps in to lower carbon footprint of buildings
• A.I. can’t build a high-rise, but it can speed up the job