The role AI should (and shouldn't) play in our organizations

The role AI should (and shouldn't) play in our organizations

Whether you are an artificial intelligence (AI) evangelist or skeptic, artificial intelligence (AI) is a playing an increasing role and our everyday and work lives. 

This roundtable session at this Multifamily Innovation Conference – Atlanta (MICA) session

welcomed attendees to discuss the promises and pitfalls of applying AI to property management operations. The session was led by Stacy Holden, Senior Director and Industry Principal, AppFolio.

Holden said the McKinsey global institute states that AI has the potential to deliver additional global economic activity of approximately $13 trillion by 2030. An AppFolio survey showed that 100 percent of respondents said they used at least one AI based consumer technology; but only 32 percent recognized it as being a part of AI.

“Since Covid-19, AI, in a sense, is growing more than before and in places where we wouldn’t expect,” Holden said. 

As AI enters the workplace, Holden said that Millennials and Gen-Z employees are expecting this technology to help them with their jobs. “They don’t want to spend their entire day in front of a computer when AI can help take care of some of the work,” Holden said.

One session participant said that chatbots and automation can help to streamline menial tasks. “You can automate the collection of rent and use it to post listings on sites such as Craigslist,” he said. “The assistance that comes with a Google device – such as it giving reminders to drink water, stand up, hit a certain heart rate – comes via an alert.”

But generationally, there are those who don’t want this technology, Holden said. 

“It’s an opt-in mentality,” the participant said. “Day to day, there are things I can forget to do. And AI is there for you, and it helps to achieve peak performance. If you don’t want these things, don’t add them [to your smart device.]”

AI Saves Time, Ensures Accuracy

AI’s practicalities are endless, Holden said. “It’s not just used for our residents,” she said. “We can use it in the back office, such as with automated accounts payable; it can read all the invoices, and the more AI reads, the more they learn and know. [Additionally], we don’t have to worry about the amount of time the task will take or its accuracy – AI is taking care of it for us.

The impact of AI on back-office operations is significant – AppFolio’s customers have seen a 75 percent decrease in time spent on processing with Automated AP.

“Do we want to spend the time coding the invoices, or spend that time analyzing that data that comes from the invoices and how it can improve revenue or efficiency?”

Furthermore, it can be applied to budgeting and forecasting. Additionally, “Be asking yourself: How can AI help your staff improve its resident engagement?” she said.

Who are the naysayers and what are they nay-saying? One thing is the expense. For those wanting to add it to their tech stack, sometimes just getting the budget dollars allocated to support it can be challenging. 

One participant said, “There’s ROI from the cost savings or staffing models that AI can create. You have to do an extensive ROI analysis. You have to measure it up front, and the numbers need to live up to what you say it will do.”

Holden said that 77 percent of property managers in AppFolio’s survey see AI as an opportunity for their business, though 53 percent believe AI may introduce some risk.

An Enabler, Not a Replacer

One leading fear is that AI will be used to replace staff.

“We’re people and we’re human and we don’t like to have to take jobs away because of technology,” Holden said. “The fear of using it also is losing personal touch, hurting customer service, staying compliant.”

Since AppFolio introduced its AI-programmed leasing assistant Lisa, its customers have had successes and failures when implementing it. “The buy-in must come from the very top,” Holden said. “Don’t just look at it from a savings perspective, but from what you’ve gained from it.”

One client gave Lisa its company “Fitbit of the Week” award.

For one of our first clients, there was a lot of heartburn from employees because Lisa’s benefits and purpose were not explained well to them.

“The ‘job replacement’ aspect of it was top of mind,” Holden said. “AI is the enabler and not the replacer. You have to explain about gaining efficiencies rather than the cost savings.”

For one customer, Lisa took away so much of the manual inputting work that job satisfaction at that company was significantly higher soon after it was implemented.

“People can be worn down from having to respond to things 24-7,” Holden said. “And this took a lot of that burden off of them. With Lisa, I can have someone respond to me whenever I want in a way that is conversational.”

Can you over rely on automation? With Lisa, the number of leads for its users skyrocketed, but the conversion rates plummeted, because AI was capturing so much traffic info out there. AppFolio data indicates a 1– 1.5-minute response converts leads to showings by 80 percent better than a 30-minute response.

One AppFolio customer experienced a nearly 2 percent boost in occupancy within the first few months of using it, achieving 98 percent occupancy.

AI creates a data set that its users never had access to in the past, so leasing agents can retool their marketing strategy and retool their pricing.

AI also can provide guard rails with standardized processes across the portfolio. “This has really helped with training,” Holden said.

To install Lisa, it takes about two weeks total to do “the total lift” into a portfolio, Holden said. AppFolio will ask for the data necessary from the customer and use it so that Lisa has something to learn from. It also needs the company’s preferences, policies and revenue decision framework.

Here is the replay: