Scaling Multifamily AI for Enterprise-Class Value

The feverish momentum fueling AI evolution is now a bona fide business driver in the multifamily marketplace. According to a recent McKinsey study*, AI is growing faster than any technology that preceded it, including the Internet and PCs:

• Business investment in AI shot up from a largely speculative level of $10B just 10 years ago to more than half a trillion dollars today.
• AI’s economic impact on the real estate market is expected to reach as much as $180B.

New iterations and applications of AI are evolving so quickly that recently adopted technologies like Generative AI (GenAI) are already being leapfrogged by expansive AI technologies like Agentic AI.

The realization that AI adoption, impact and opportunity are accelerating — and available to all multifamily businesses — is fundamentally changing the way operators do business, serve residents and set performance standards.

THE PIVOT:  ELEVATING AI TO LEAD THE MARKET

Multifamily leaders who are harnessing the potential of evolving AI tech and applications understand clearly that investing in strategic AI innovation is mission-critical and time-sensitive to remain competitive.

In fact, the power, potential and pace of AI has created an inflection point for seeking real business value from these innovations, specifically for multifamily.

This pivotal transition, where AI value expands from experimentation to stabilization toward expansion and leadership, is the “steep part” of the value curve, where you must create and maintain significant competitive advantages — instead of watching competitive gaps widen.

Moving forward faster and in a new way with evolving AI requires a fresh and flexible perspective on enabling property technology.

THE OPPORTUNITY:  COMPOUNDING VALUE WITH AI

Strategic multifamily companies must be simultaneously bold and wary about AI, adapting now while educating teams quickly on what AI can and should do for their own organization and those they serve and support.

Fortunately, complexity is not new for multifamily and its technology stack(s), and AI's strengths in streamlining diverse tasks have already proven effective in daily productivity. A 2024 survey from McKinsey found that real estate companies gained 10 percent or more in net operating income (NOI) through more efficient operating models, stronger customer experience, tenant retention, new revenue streams and smarter asset selection.

Given its growing uses, scope and capabilities, it's clear that AI innovation is gearing up to deliver compounding value to multifamily teams by delivering broadly and deeply with speed, simplicity and accuracy:

What AI is doing

Rental housing operators are already deploying AI along three main paths for better analysis, execution and adaptability:

• Decision Support (analysis) – Machine learning models help make better decisions faster based on the instant analysis of terabytes of data. With AI decision support, real estate leaders can execute with speed, agility and confidence to identify and act on opportunities, threats and predicted future outcomes.
• Automation (workflow & processes) – AI automates tasks with an understanding of context, freeing human workers to work on more strategic priorities or focus on tenant relationships.
• Interactive Agents (copilots & assistants) – AI agents help employees and tenants accomplish their objectives more quickly and easily. New capabilities can empower those virtual assistants with growing agency to interact, adapt and continuously improve — such as acting autonomously, handling complex tasks and streamlining workflows.

How AI is delivering

Wherever AI applications reduce the time, effort and error associated with both simple tasks and complex workflows, they add and amplify value across the entire multifamily lifecycle. We are putting AI in the hands of your property teams in a variety of ways — from simple embedded features that make products smarter and more intuitive to virtual “co-workers” that fundamentally change how people work and where they apply their focus.

Multifamily operators are gaining AI-enabled efficiencies and insights for savings + smarter decisions + next best actions that improve outcomes and experiences from end to end. Core benefits for rental housing include improved return on capital, operational cost efficiencies, increased revenue, and higher tenant/resident engagement and satisfaction.

Where AI is optimizing

Multifamily AI is evolving further with horizontal application across functions, connecting the agent to both front-end and back-end processes and offering the ability to complete forward-looking actions vs. only reactive ones, especially with the guided autonomy of emergent Agentic AI.

Transformation of the end-to-end multifamily experience has already begun across property operations to increase site and financial efficiency and help sign quality residents through automation and decision support:

Leasing

• Decision support for revenue optimization, considering supply, demand and predicted vacancy
• Smarter advertising, intelligent lead prioritization and accurate screening for higher prospect-to-tenant conversion
• Speeding and refining prospect scoring so agents can focus on renter and resident engagement

Resident Engagement

• AI-enabled “agents” responding to resident questions 24 hours a day, personalizing communications to the resident’s identity, demographics, rental history and previous conversations

Spend & Vendor Management

• AI-enabled automation driving predictive maintenance actions
• AI-based vendor search capabilities streamlining procurement and purchasing

Accounting & Collections

• AI-based invoice handling streamlining processing of incoming invoices, routing them to approvers and posting them to the proper ledgers
• Sending AI-automated rent reminders efficiently by considering both due dates and payment history to help mitigate payment delinquency

When using these various AI technologies together, we see a compounding effect in terms of AI power and value: Combining AI-enabled analysis, automation and decision-making is really changing the game to give the whole multifamily experience greater power and value than the sum of its parts.

THE FOUNDATION:  SETTING UP TO SCALE AI

But how can you prepare yourself for the steep part of the AI value curve? Let's start by breaking down the specific challenges multifamily businesses face in scaling AI to expand value.

First, we can probably agree that the multifamily elephant in the room is maintaining integrity, privacy and compliance amid the inevitable complexity of activity and information in a constantly changing community. A 2024 survey by Darktrace revealed that 74% of respondents agree that AI-powered cyber threats significantly impact their organizations. Embracing AI boldly but responsibly requires guardrails to protect people, properties and profitability.

Next, it’s time to align priorities. Laying a foundation that protects AI innovation calls for enterprise-class implementation that supports your growth. Balancing experimentation with governance is the key to managing risk and driving progress. For organizations aiming for enterprise-level AI integrity and value, the foundations of implementing AI at scale are data quality, governance and security.

These are the AI core competencies for managing risk against reward that you must consider:

• Data quality & depth - High-quality historical data has excellent volume, breadth, accuracy, freshness and relevance to produce reliably good AI results — avoiding poor-quality data outcomes like bias, AI hallucinations and incorrect results.
• Security vigor & vigilance - When dealing with your own and your customer’s data, security is non-negotiable. The stakes are high, and potentially sensitive data must be protected from unauthorized access, corruption and distribution.
• Governance structure & sustainability - Finally, you need structured governance of data and AI to ensure sustainable data accuracy, consistency, reliability and security. Especially as we give AI more independence to find, discern and share relevant information — and even take action. Prioritizing well-designed data systems and AI controls now promotes long-term quality and reliability.

In multifamily, AI is now part of day-to-day business, and it continues to evolve. Succeeding with both long-term value and the agility to adapt (and compete) means seeking AI-enabled opportunities and advantages for better serving your residents and your business.

3 GUIDELINES: LEVELING UP WITH ENTERPRISE-LEVEL AI INNOVATION

Rapid innovation through experimentation and agility is vital for gaining a competitive edge with new advantages — and value that compounds as you add new AI capabilities. To scale AI across geographies, businesses, properties and teams, multifamily operations need a lot of high-quality data teaching and guiding AI to deliver accurate, relevant results that come from broad, deep and historically timely source information. Alongside that data, mature capabilities in security and governance are crucial to safeguard data integrity and AI results.

With that in mind, follow these three guidelines to prepare your multifamily operations for that steep part of the AI value curve with enterprise-level AI innovation that sets up long-term value and advantage:

Guideline 1:       Invest in the right resources to achieve AI Stabilization

Establish the use of AI across your business operations with an enterprise-ready team and expert support offering robust data based on investments in processes, people and technology.

Guideline 2:       Plan the right strategy to fuel AI Expansion

Prepare and partner to develop the maturity, data-rich depth and agility to execute a roadmap that builds innovation into your organization.

Guideline 3:       Identify the right use cases to maintain AI Leadership

Find the mix of human and digital interaction that fits your cultural strengths, operational priorities and growth goals. 

As AI evolution far outpaces government policy, we see a need for proptech (and partners) that can help businesses confidently level up to enterprise-level priorities for AI innovation. Confidence comes with building the maturity, resources and necessary investments to keep AI safe and secure while maintaining the experience, agility and experimental culture to innovate quickly.

About the Author:

Lance French is the Chief Information Officer for RealPage, an AI pioneer in the real estate industry whose multifamily software solutions cover the entire rental journey and property operations lifecycle. Lance shared his expert perspective most recently in the RETCON 2025 keynote presentation, “The AI Playbook for Real Estate Leaders: Scaling Innovation with Security and Governance.” RealPage now uses dozens of AI-based tools and technologies built on an enterprise-class AI infrastructure trusted by thousands of companies for millions of units throughout the rental real estate sector.