Ferguson Partners, the Chicago-based talent management and strategic advisory firm for the real estate sector, announced the results of its first Artificial Intelligence (AI) Pulse Survey, a national study on the adoption, application, and evolution of AI practices within the real estate industry.
The survey, the first in an expected ongoing series, polled 33 real estate investment firms representing both private and public organizations. The survey found 84% of the respondents are actively experimenting with or implementing AI, with nearly one-third have already begun to implement AI in select business practices. Roughly a quarter of participants (24%) reported experimenting with AI for personal productivity, with Microsoft Copilot listed as the most common AI tool of choice.
The survey also found 87% of the respondents allow their employees to use AI tools, though the majority enforce restrictions around usage. All the respondents indicated increased efficiency and productivity are the top motivation for incorporating AI into their organizations, while secondary motivations included cost reduction (67%), improved decision-making (61%), enhanced risk management (48%) and better customer service (39%).
The respondents cited document abstraction as the business area with the greatest potential for AI impact (64%), with research, analytics and forecasting (52%) and communications and marketing (45%) representing the other likely uses for AI in the real estate industry.
When asked to list the primary challenges in AI adoption, the lack of understanding of AI applications was the greatest concern (67%), along with difficulty in demonstrating clear use cases or ROI (58%), data quality and availability issues (58%), concerns over information security (52%), and lack of skilled talent (48%).
“The major takeaway from this survey is real estate professionals need to consider embracing AI to stay ahead of the curve,” said Justin Pellino, director of Ferguson Partners. “We expect AI use cases and ROI to continue to bubble up organically as commercial real estate firms test various tools. While data integrity and privacy are rightfully a concern, the most successful organizations are going to be those that draw boundaries early and encourage their teams to experiment with this technology.”
