Generative AI is not just a tool of the future. Practical applications are already at work today in investment, acquisition, financing, asset management, debt management and more. At this week’s NAIOP CRE.Converge conference, Laura Krashakova, CEO at Smart Capital, shared insights into ways companies can use generative AI to cut costs and automate their way to peak efficiency.
While most hadn’t tried the technology a year ago, especially not in a workplace setting or to automate workflow, she said that today adoption of generative AI is growing faster than adoption of many other significant technologies like the adoption of internet or mobile technologies.
“Already 40%of people in the U.S. use generative AI,” Krashakova said. “Of this 40%, 10% already use it every day. And this is just U.S. statistics. That’s a huge number.”
While most are using generative AI for simple tasks like editing emails, Krashakova said there is so much more it can do. AI can extract data from investment memos, property condition reports, leases, rent rolls, legal agreements and insurance reports. And once that data is collected, it can be refined, edited, summarized and pushed out to users who can use it to make decisions. AI can help users generate instant, personalized charts crafted on-the-fly using real-time information.
AI can do more than analyze. It can help automate the generation of investment memos, deal reviews and financing packages.
Krashakova said AI isn’t necessarily replacing people. “But it can make them dramatically faster in completing what they need to do.”
She cited an example where a research director was looking for examples of successful conversion projects in a particular market. She fed the request into Chat GPT, which came up with three examples on the first try and a fourth on further refined queries. She gave that same task to an intern who was able to find five examples. The difference was the intern took two days to complete the task while Generative AI completed it in a matter of minutes.
“Here’s the tradeoff: It will be a little worse than your intern. But it can get through the results much faster,” Krashakova said.
As the technology advances, users can tap virtual agents, autonomous software “staff” that is able to perform complex tasks to get to end goals.
“We’re not there yet but imagine having hundreds of agents working alongside your team: an agent underwriter, an agent project manager, an agent asset manager,” Krashakova said. “Imagine how you can scale your operations and ultimately get to much higher returns and much higher ROI for your investors. We are not fully there yet. But it’s something we’re working on and we’re super excited.”
This post is brought to you by JLL, the social media and conference blog sponsor of NAIOP’s CRE.Converge 2024. Learn more about JLL at www.us.jll.com or www.jll.ca.
