Artificial intelligence is no longer a future concept for commercial real estate: It’s increasingly becoming embedded in day-to-day operations, investment strategies, and enterprise decision-making.
That was the clear message from the “AI Adoption in Real Estate” panel, moderated by John Jones, senior vice president of government relations at Nareit, held June 4 at the U.S. PropTech Council’s AI & Real Estate Summit in New York City.
The discussion brought together leaders from across the real estate and technology ecosystem, including Phoebe Slater of Getty Realty Corp., Laura Craft of Heitman, Henry Z. Lo of TF Cornerstone, Nita Banerjee of Invesco, and Frank Spadafora of Intapp.
Jones opened the conversation by framing AI as a transformative platform technology—one with the potential to reshape business operations—rather than a niche productivity tool.
“AI is not a simple tool to only help with scheduling or organizing emails,” Jones said. “It’s a general-purpose technology. That’s like the internet. That’s like electricity.” He added that the implications extend beyond individual departments to “enterprise-level impact.”
At Getty Realty, a Nareit member REIT, Slater described how the company modernized legacy systems and digitized years of paper-based processes as part of a broader technology transformation initiative.
“What’s the one part of your job that you absolutely hate doing the most?” Slater asked, noting that companies should ask employees this when evaluating AI opportunities. “How can you layer on AI to enhance a workflow or some degree of efficiency that helps alleviate that pain point?”
Throughout the discussion, panelists also emphasized that AI adoption in real estate is accelerating rapidly, driven not just by executives, but increasingly by employees themselves.
“One thing that surprised me is how the least technical people—the people you would least expect to adopt technology—use AI,” said Lo, chief technology officer at TF Cornerstone. “They’re able to get their work done sometimes even more efficiently than people who knew the systems before we had AI.”
Spadafora noted that the technology shift differs from previous waves of real estate software adoption because demand is now coming from both the bottom and the top of organizations.
“For the first time in 20 years, we’re seeing the demand coming from the end users,” he said. “And we’re also seeing CEOs driving adoption.”
Several panelists pointed to document processing and workflow automation as some of the clearest near-term use cases for AI in commercial real estate.
“We’ve seen successful implementation [in areas such as report generation and workflow automation],” Banerjee said, particularly when paired with governance and compliance controls. “You can really implement a lot of automated workflow and then reduce employee work time or increase productivity to a great extent.”
The panel also explored the growing intersection between AI adoption and physical real estate infrastructure, particularly around data centers and energy demand. Craft noted that surging demand for computing power is creating ripple effects across multiple property sectors.
“There’s a real shortage of energy at the moment,” she said, adding that power constraints are increasingly affecting not only data centers but also industrial properties requiring higher levels of automation. She also highlighted emerging opportunities tied to battery storage and micro data centers.
While panelists were optimistic about AI’s long-term impact, many stressed that human relationships, trust, and judgment will remain central to the real estate business.
“Relationships drive real estate,” Spadafora said. “How you deploy capital, how you raise it, is not going to be done by AI.”
Lo agreed, arguing that AI may ultimately increase the value of authentic human interaction.
“I think with AI, that’ll become more important than ever,” he said. “Less time at the computer, more time at the face-to-face communication.”
Jones closed the session by acknowledging both the excitement and uncertainty surrounding the technology, noting that real estate leaders are still working to separate meaningful innovation from hype.
“There is a lot of hype,” Jones said. “But like other general-purpose technologies that changed economies and societies, [such as the steam engine, railroads, and the automobile,] AI is creating tremendous opportunity—and real estate is going to be at the center of it.”