Artificial intelligence is unlikely to replace letting agents but could make landlords and tenants increasingly unwilling to tolerate slow service, according to Propoly.
The property technology firm says AI is more likely to take over individual administrative tasks than replace property professionals themselves.
Its growing use could nevertheless raise expectations around how quickly agents respond to enquiries, progress tenancies and deal with maintenance issues.
Propoly believes the competitive advantage will increasingly lie with agencies that use AI to improve speed while retaining human oversight of decisions that affect landlords and tenants.
FASTER SERVICE
Tenancy progression is identified as one of the areas with the greatest potential for change, with AI capable of bringing together information from referencing, fraud checks, compliance and document reviews.
It could also help property managers triage maintenance reports, identify missing information, direct jobs to appropriate contractors and summarise lengthy email exchanges.
Sim Sekhon (main picture, inset), Group CEO at Propoly, says: “AI isn’t going to make letting agents disappear. It is going to make waiting disappear.
“The technology is exceptionally good at handling the repetitive work that slows people down, whether that’s reviewing documents, checking information, summarising communications or identifying the next action in a tenancy.
“Take referencing. What has traditionally involved information being spread across different systems and processes can increasingly be connected and assessed in minutes rather than hours or days. That’s where AI can make a real difference to property professionals.”
AI COMPLAINTS
The technology is also creating new challenges for agents, with Propoly warning that tenants can use generative AI to produce lengthy complaints and legal arguments almost instantly.
Those responses can include inaccurate, outdated or irrelevant legal references, potentially creating additional work for agents and requiring information to be checked carefully.
Propoly also warns against allowing AI to make consequential decisions around areas such as tenant selection and referencing, where automated systems could reproduce or amplify existing biases.
Sekhon adds: “There is an important distinction between using AI to help make a decision and allowing AI to make the decision for you. In property, a confident answer isn’t necessarily a correct one, and the consequences of getting something wrong can be significant.
“The winners won’t be the agents who hand everything over to AI. They’ll be the ones who use it to become faster, more informed and more responsive, while keeping people firmly in the loop.”
