Autonomous program guides potential tenants through the leasing journey
‘The Future Of AI’ Is Already Being Used By Multifamily Giants To Cut Costs
Agentic AI has become the latest artificial intelligence iteration to enter the multifamily industry, catalyzing significant investment from startups, apartment operators and established proptech players.
While it has yet to be realized at scale and in everyday operations, the vision of agentic AI in property management — in which an autonomous program guides potential tenants through the leasing journey — is of a future with increased efficiency, fewer vacant apartments and lower operational costs.
The technology offers a different experience than chatbots, the current AI interface to which most consumers and multifamily tech providers are accustomed. Chatbots simulate conversation using large-language models and can respond to questions by pulling information from a database.
Agentic AI would take a step forward and not just be able to respond to resident inquiries but perform tasks, acting like an agent, as the name implies. It will evaluate applications or follow up with potential leads when occupancy in a building begins to creep up.
The pitch from AI firms is that the tech can improve a property’s operating income through gains in lead conversion, resident retention, labor efficiency and cost control. Spending on agentic AI could reach $155B in the next five years, Bank of America estimates.
“I think it’s the future of AI,” said Kevin Donnelly, executive director of the Real Estate Technology & Transformation Center. “It’s one of the more practical places where you can see AI impacting the real estate landscape in the long term.”
The technology took center stage during the National Apartment Association’s Apartmentalize show this month — nearly every tech platform noted its plans to release or develop agentic AI. Many leading apartment owners, operators and brokerages are investing heavily in this technology and touting its potentially seismic impacts.
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JLL Senior Vice President and Head of National Operations Mendowa Martin believes there’s a major shift in tech investment priorities across the multifamily industry. The past decade was focused on centralizing data, and now agentic AI could “be the next CRM,” or customer relationship management, she said, calling it a “game changer.”
JLL is currently developing agentic technology as part of its own Falcon AI system, she noted.
“Agentic AI, it’s like they’re your smartest leasing agent,” Martin said. “It works 24/7, doesn’t miss follow-up, doesn’t make mistakes. It’s constantly learning how to close faster, where chatbots really were glorified autoresponders.”
Leaders in the space include New York-based EliseAI, which raised $75M last summer for its automation platform for the housing market, and AppFolio, which boasts 20,000 customers and just announced its Realm-X Performers agentic product at Apartmentalize.
Donnelly said established players like AppFolio and EliseAI have been pushing to add agentic technology to their platforms, along with Yardi and RealPage, which just launched Lumina in partnership with OpenAI.
Many startups are seeking to create their own AI models to sell to operators, investors and managers. Funnel, which just launched its Fenix AI agent tech in April, is used by Greystar.
“This agentic stuff is pretty new to the entire industry,” AppFolio Vice President of Product Cat Allday said. “All the competitors in the space are running full speed at this.”
Source: Bisnow
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