James Gardner, principal, capital markets technology leader at KPMG LLP, sat down for a video interview at Nareit’s REITwise: 2026 Educational Conference in Hollywood, Florida.
Gardner explained that AI is already delivering tangible, operational benefits for REIT finance teams, particularly in forecasting, valuation, and financial reporting. Rather than being theoretical, AI is helping teams run faster and more comprehensive scenario analyses—evaluating rent growth, occupancy changes, and interest rate sensitivity.
In valuations, it improves consistency by testing assumptions and sensitivities, while in financial reporting it accelerates reconciliations, variance analysis, and drafting. Gardner highlighted document intelligence as a major breakthrough, enabling REITs to extract insights from leases and other unstructured data sources that were previously difficult to analyze.
On governance, Gardner emphasized that leading REITs are embedding AI oversight directly into existing financial controls, treating AI like any other model with clear ownership, documented assumptions, and review processes. Human oversight remains essential, he stressed, particularly for accountability and decision-making.
He cautioned that teams often underestimate the importance of system design, data governance, and repeatability when scaling AI. Without these, outputs become difficult to defend over time. As Gardner put it, “It’s not just about getting the right answer the first time—it’s about getting the right answer over and over and over again.”