This is part of a three-blog series from Daniel Russo, CEO Building Engines & JLL Property Management Technology.
Think about all the work and data that you have caught in manual systems. You spend days trying to identify patterns, prioritize repairs, and do accurate work – and by the time you compile this, new issues have emerged.
Property managers continue to struggle with the same fundamental challenge: buried in their daily operations data are critical insights that could prevent problems, reduce spending and improve tenant satisfaction—but accessing those insights has been nearly impossible without enormous manual effort.
This is where artificial intelligence is fundamentally changing the game for property management—not just as a future possibility, but right now.
The AI reality gap in property management
What fascinates me is the disconnect in our industry between AI interest and actual use. When we recently surveyed commercial real estate organizations, 90% planned to increase their AI budget over the next five years, yet only 20% of property managers are actively using AI tools in their daily work.
Why this gap? I believe it’s because most property managers haven’t seen AI applications that solve their actual problems.
Most of what’s been marketed as “AI for real estate” falls into two categories: simplistic chatbots that answer basic questions or flashy demos of technology that’s not ready for real-world use. Neither addresses the core challenges property managers face every day.
Real problems that need real solutions
Through hundreds of conversations with property teams across the country, I’ve identified the questions that keep them up at night:
- “How do I know which maintenance issues today will become major problems tomorrow?”
- “Where should I allocate my limited capital improvement budget for maximum impact?”
- “Which vendors are consistently underperforming across my portfolio?”
- “What patterns in tenant complaints am I missing that could improve satisfaction?”
- “How can I identify energy waste before it shows up on utility bills?”
These aren’t questions that can be answered with a simple chatbot. They require intelligent analysis of the vast operational data generated across a property portfolio.
Moving beyond text generation to true intelligence
There’s a big distinction between basic generative AI (like ChatGPT) and the more sophisticated AI applications that analyze operational data to deliver actionable insights. You don’t need another tool that creates text. You need technology that finds the problems you’re missing. And that’s what’s coming with Prism AI.
Instead of manually reviewing documents, you can upload utility bills and invoices directly to Prism to populate data, and ger smart recommendations on improvements to make to your buildings. Instead of a stack of disorganized COIs, you can extract information to keep tenant and vendor coverage up to date. Instead of vendor contracts that are hard to parse, you can cross-reference leases and maintenance records to get ahead of compliance concerns. And all of this comes with data-backed recommendations for future actions that are easy to understand.
The days of simply producing text are over. AI in commercial real estate is going beyond that to solve complex problems in efficient ways.
The practical reality of AI in property management
What excites me most about today’s AI capabilities is the practical problems we’re solving right now. Analyzing trends to determine where to cut maintenance spending effectively. Poring over documents and vendor information to activate information previously buried in contracts. Creating automated alerts to identify failing equipment, avoiding emergency repairs that cost time and money.
When your work orders, equipment records, tenant communications, vendor management, and building systems all feed into a unified data environment, AI can identify connections and patterns that would be impossible to see otherwise.
Trying to use AI with fragmented property management systems is like trying to diagnose a patient’s health by looking at separate images of their heart, lungs and brain without seeing how they work together. You might get some insights, but you’ll miss the critical connections.
The human element remains central
The most important point I stress in every conversation about AI is that these technologies aren’t replacing property managers – they’re elevating their capabilities.
The property managers who will thrive in the coming years aren’t those who resist technology but those who use it to focus on the uniquely human aspects of their role: relationship building, strategic decision making and creative problem-solving.
That transformation is what drives our work at Building Engines and it’s available to forward-thinking property teams today. Consider the operational challenges in your portfolio that AI can solve – and where you may be able to start your AI journey.
Join us at Building Engines connect to learn about what’s to come with Prism AI.
