AI Tools for Commercial Real Estate (Fall 2024 Edition)
If you haven’t noticed, we’ve been exploring use cases, training, and tools related to AI in commercial real estate a lot lately! The reason is that Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to revolutionize the commercial real estate industry by transforming the way acquisitions, development, management, advisory, and marketing teams in the industry operate. AI tools are enabling CRE teams to process vast amounts of financial data, automate repetitive tasks, repackage existing content in more palatable formats, and gain valuable insights that can inform strategic decision-making.
In this blog post, we explore some of the AI tools that are most relevant to commercial real estate. This space is moving very fast. And so, as the industry adopts these tools, and as entrepreneurs create new tools, we will regularly release updated editions to this post.
In 2023, we began adding updates to the key AI tools that we view as applicable to CRE. Those updates are included as bullet points to the tools below. We’ve also begun to add and remove tools based on their adoption, continued development, and/or emergence.
Note from Spencer and Michael: While we provide this post as a service, we do not endorse any of the tools listed here nor are we paid to share any of the tools on this list. It is simply a repository of AI tools that may benefit CRE professionals. If you have an AI tool you’d like added to this post, shoot us a note and we’ll consider whether it’s relevant.
AI Tools for Real Estate Acquisitions, Development, Management, Advisory, and Brokerage
If you’re reading this post, you’ve likely already played around with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. You’ve also likely read our various posts on using ChatGPT in commercial real estate. But what about other AI tools that CRE professionals are using in the industry? Below I’ll describe the tasks that real estate professionals perform, and then share various tools that can help with those tasks.
Real estate acquisitions professionals are responsible for identifying, analyzing, and acquiring real estate assets that align with their company’s investment strategy. They’re also tasked with communicating with brokers and sellers to source and negotiate potential transactions.
Real estate development professionals focus on acquiring, planning, and constructing new properties or redeveloping existing ones. Their day-to-day activities may include evaluating potential development sites, conducting feasibility studies, securing permits, managing project budgets, overseeing construction, and ensuring a successful lease-up and/or sale.
Real estate management professionals (property, asset, and/or portfolio) are responsible for overseeing the daily operations of residential, commercial, and industrial properties. Their tasks include managing tenant relations, collecting rent, coordinating maintenance and repairs, budgeting, and financial forecasting, and investment decision making.
Real estate advisory and brokerage professionals provide specialized guidance and expertise to clients such as property owners, investors, and developers. They conduct market research, financial analysis, and due diligence to support decision-making in areas like investment strategy, property valuation, and portfolio management. Additionally, they may offer insights into market trends and regulations to help clients navigate complex transactions and optimize their assets.
With this broad range of tasks that real estate professionals perform each day, we have created the following directory of AI tools that will help streamline the performance of those tasks:
Natural Language Models and Interfaces
OpenAI ChatGPT, ChatGPT Enterprise, and ChatGPT for Teams.
Powered by OpenAI’s latest language models, ChatGPT engages in natural, human-like conversations, capable of understanding and generating responses across a broad range of topics. It can also analyze, create, and edit images, browse the web, and assist with various tasks through its versatile multimodal capabilities. (Link; Enterprise and Teams)
- ChatGPT Web Updates. Sidebar Redesign: Floating mode with pinned GPTs, infinite scroll for conversations, and streamlined settings access. Improved Layouts: Updated transitions, composer bar, and layouts for tools like DALL-E and GPT Creator. (Link)
- Mobile Enhancements: Better keyboard integration, floating sidebars, and resolved scrolling issues. Advanced Voice Mode on Web. Advanced Voice Mode is now available for web users, enabling real-time, natural voice interactions for tasks like planning and brainstorming. This feature is rolling out to all paid users. (Link)
Anthropic Claude AI, Claude Enterprise, and Claude for Teams.
Created by Anthropic AI, a startup made up of former OpenAI members, Claude is a series of AI chatbots, excelling in natural text conversations and various tasks like summarization and code-writing. (Link)
- Computer Use Model (October 22, 2024): Claude 3.5 Sonnet can now navigate a computer screen, input data, and execute commands, mimicking human interaction.
- Custom Response Styles (November 26, 2024): Users can personalize Claude’s responses to reflect their unique communication style.
- Model Context Protocol (MCP) (November 25, 2024): Anthropic open-sourced MCP to integrate AI with tools like content repositories and development environments for more relevant responses.
- Prompt Optimization in Developer Console (November 14, 2024): New tools enable users to refine prompts and manage examples directly within the Anthropic Console, supporting better prompt engineering.
- Claude 3.5 Sonnet on GitHub Copilot (October 29, 2024): Integration with GitHub Copilot allows developers to leverage Claude for coding within Visual Studio Code and GitHub.com.
- Analysis Tool (October 24, 2024): Claude.ai now includes an analysis tool to run JavaScript, process data, and generate real-time insights, available in feature preview. (Link)
Google Gemini.
A conversational AI chatbot developed by Google, initially based on LaMDA and later PaLM LLM models. Previously known as Bard. (Link)
- Expanding Workspace Extensions (December 2, 2024): Added support for Keep and Tasks in 9 languages, enabling users to connect and act across apps like YouTube Music.
- Priority Access with Gemini Advanced (November 19, 2024): Users can now save and manage preferences to personalize Gemini’s interactions, improving relevance and efficiency.
- Enterprise-Grade Expansion (November 18, 2024): Gemini app now supports more Workspace editions with robust data protection for business and education users.
- Dedicated iPhone App (November 14, 2024): Launched a standalone app offering features like Gemini Live and enhanced image generation.
- File Integration for Gems (November 12, 2024): Gemini Advanced now supports file uploads to enhance contextual and tailored responses.
- Gemini 1.5 Pro Enhancements (October 31, 2024): Improved model performance and data quality in Gemini Advanced.
- Introducing Imagen 3 (October 9, 2024): New text-to-image model supports generating detailed visuals, including those with people, for Gemini Advanced users.
- Gemini Live (September 4, 2024): Launched real-time spoken conversations, adapting dynamically to users’ conversational styles. (Link)
Meta Llama.
Meta’s foray into the large language model space and the only true “open source” LLM (Link). Llama is either accessed through third-party frontend interfaces such as Perplexity’s Llama Chat (link) or by installing on your machine locally (click for tutorial on how to install and run an LLM on your computer).
- In September 2024, Meta LLaMa 3.2 was released, featuring lightweight text-only models optimized for edge devices, advanced vision models for superior image understanding, and the new Llama Stack for seamless deployment across environments, reinforcing its leadership in open, customizable AI. (Link)
Perplexity AI.
A search engine bot challenging AI search engine features, offering features, a mobile app, and free access, providing detailed answers and additional resources for users. Perplexity is powered by GPT-4 Turbo and Claude 3 Sonnet and Opus (Link).
- In December 2024, Perplexity began experimenting with advertising, introducing clearly marked sponsored content to support its mission while maintaining unbiased and high-quality answers.
Purpose-Built AI Tools for CRE
- LeaseLens. AI lease abstraction service that costs effectively $25 per commercial real estate lease abstract export. (Link)
- Prophia. AI-powered asset/portfolio management platform specializing in lease abstraction for commercial real estate, offering data-driven insights to optimize investment strategies and operational efficiencies. (Link)
- Prophia released the Dynamic Stacking Plan in July 2024, offering a visual tool for tracking leasing data to help asset managers optimize property occupancy and tenant management. (Link)
- Proda AI. Rent roll processing and data roll up. (Link)
- DocSumo. Process and digitize data necessary for real estate underwriting. (Link)
- Elise AI. AI property management platform to manage prospects and residents, automate tasks such as leasing, resident conversations, service requests, and payments, and integrate with various communication channels including emails, texts, chat, and phone calls. (Link)
- CRE Agents. Building the first AI Agents for Commercial Real Estate (i.e. Digital Coworkers for real estate), CRE Agents is currently in its invite-only stage.
- Custom GPTs for CRE. Since custom GPTs were released by OpenAI in late 2023, we’ve been experimenting with and creating custom GPTs for commercial real estate. Here are the custom GPTs we’ve built thus far (Custom GPTs are now available to both paid and free users of ChatGPT – Click here to learn more).
- A.CRE AI Assistant. Access and retrieve specific content from A.CRE Content Library using keywords. This GPT is connected to a database of A.CRE content, allowing the user to ask questions and be suggested content on A.CRE to help them answer those questions.
- Advanced Mortgage Amortization Schedule. A tool that simplifies the process of building a mortgage amortization table by taking a series of inputs and automatically filling them into our Advanced Mortgage Amortization Schedule Excel model.
- Basic Real Estate DCF Model. A GPT that creates a basic DCF for the user, ultimately returning an Excel file to download with the results of the DCF including inputs, calculations, and return outputs.
- Code Helper for Financial Models. A GPT to help quickly audit, assess, and improve VBA code in Excel Financial Models such as those found on A.CRE. This custom GPT helped build our Excel 4 CRE custom add-in.
- Cover Letter Composer by A.CRE. A well-trained custom GPT that helps you draft a professional cover letter using a proven cover letter framework used by top universities and career coaches.
- CRE Technical Interview Coach. Friendly guide for real estate interview prep, focusing on case studies and modeling. This GPT helps users learn knowledge they need to tackle real estate technical interviews.
- Financial Statement Analyzer. Developed by a team at the University of Chicago, this custom GPT uses advanced language processing and chain-of-thought reasoning to predict future earnings from financial statements.
- Real Estate Case Studies Creator. A creative writer for real estate case studies. This GPT is tailor-built for young professionals looking to practice real estate financial modeling, professors looking to create cases for their lectures, and hiring managers wanting to build proficiency testing tools.
- STNL Sales Comp Analysis Tool. A GPT that helps users analyze single-tenant net lease (STNL) sales comps by generating key metrics and insights from input data, streamlining the process for evaluating comparable property sales.
- STNL Valuation Model Custom GPT. This GPT helps users perform valuations for Single-Tenant Net Lease (STNL) properties by guiding them through key inputs, including rent, cap rates, and tenant credit, to generate a comprehensive valuation model for investment analysis.
Tools for Excel and Google Sheets
- ExcelFormulaBot. With the assistance of AI, you can instantly convert your text instructions to Microsoft Excel formulas. (Link)
- Ajelix Google Sheets Formula Creator. The AI-Powered Google Sheets Formula Generator translates text into formulas, saving you time and increasing productivity. (Link)
- In its most recent release, Ajelix introduced advanced analytics, allowing users to clean and prepare data, create pivot tables, and use multiple data sources for dashboards. This update also added more customization options for charts and dashboards, AI-powered analytics, and improved report generation. Users are encouraged to switch to Version 2 by December 31, 2024, for enhanced features.
- SheetGod. Create intricate Excel formulas, macros, and automate manual tasks, using plain English and Google Appscript code snippets with the help of AI technology. (Link)
- MS Copilot in Excel. Unlock insights, identify trends or create professional-looking data visualizations in a fraction of the time. (Link)
- Formula Dog. This tool automatically converts text to Excel formulas, VBA code, and Regex, providing explanations along the way. Also compatible with Google Sheets, Airtable, and Notion. (Link)
- GPTExcel. A tool that generates complex Excel formulas from plain text. (Link)
Tools for Writing, Document Creation, and Editing
- LLMs. Use language prediction models to draft new and/or edit existing text.
- See ‘Natural Language Models and Interfaces’ section above for latest updates.
- MS CoPilot in Word. Write, edit, summarize and create in Word. (Link)
- CheckboxAI. Streamline document drafting, approvals, and e-signature process. The tool uses OpenAI’s GPT to help teams manage tasks and questions faster and easier. (Link)
- Type. AI-first document creation and editing tool. (Link)
- WordviceAI. Improve English writing with automatic error detection and correction capabilities. (Link)
- DocuWriter.ai. This tool auto-generates documentation from source code for all programming languages. (Link)
- BeautifulAI. Effortlessly create stunning presentations in minutes with AI-assisted design and smart slides. (Link)
- Handl. Handl is an AI document platform that transforms documents into data for multiple industries. (Link)
- Content at Scale. AI SEO writer that leverages deep real-time research, machine learning, and multiple LLMs to generate high-quality, humanlike SEO content without the need for extensive prompts. (Link)
- QuillBot. AI writing assistant for faster and improved content creation. Includes tools for paraphrasing, summarizing, grammar checking, and generating SEO-optimized text across various writing tasks. (Link)
Tools for Organizing, Structuring, and Analyzing Real Estate Data
- OpenAI Advanced Data Analysis (formerly Code Interpreter). ChatGPT functionality that enables users to upload various files and execute operations like data analysis, image transformation, and code modification via ChatGPT. Now a built-in feature of ChatGPT, the feature can manage file uploads and downloads in diverse formats such as CSV/Excel. (See use cases and instructions for using Advanced Data Analysis)
- Trellis. AI-powered data platform that converts unstructured data from financial documents, voice calls, and emails into structured SQL format, enabling data teams to run queries and extract insights efficiently across 200+ data sources. (Link)
- LlamaIndex. Data framework for building LLM applications, enabling enterprises to connect, index, and query data from 160+ sources, and integrate with 40+ vector stores and document stores for diverse use cases. (Link)
- A.CRE AI Assistant. A custom GPT built by the team at A.CRE, connects ChatGPT with A.CRE’s vast library of resources to answer your real estate financial modeling, careers, education, and AI questions. (Learn more about the A.CRE AI Assistant)
Tools for Improved Communication
- Flowrite. Have your daily emails and messages written for you across your browser with an AI email writer tool. (Link)
- Clockwise. A conversational AI calendar assistant that simplifies scheduling by finding optimal meeting times, rearranging events, and managing calendar changes based on user preferences. (Link)
- MS CoPilot in Outlook. Synthesize and manage the inbox in Outlook. (Link)
- Relationship Coach AI. AI help and recommendations when responding to communications. (Link)
- Poised 2.0. An AI communication coach for confident and clear speaking. (Link)
- Yoodli. Yoodli is an AI-powered speech coach that provides free personalized communication feedback. (Link)
- Usetwain. Twain is an AI assistant that helps sales/marketing teams with effective outreach. (Link)
- Bluemail GEM AI. Summarize emails and draft responses quickly with AI. (Link)
Tools for Social Media
- Lately. Convert long-form content into dozens of social media posts. (Link)
- Heyday. AI bot that engages with social media audience in comments. (Link)
- Omneky. Generates personalized social media ads using AI. (Link)
- UpHex. Automate Facebook (and other online) advertising campaigns. (Link)
- AI Social Bio. AI Social Bio generates social media bios using keywords and influencer inspiration. (Link)
Tools for Marketing
- Jasper. Generative AI platform that tailors brand-specific content for your business. (Link)
- Phrasee. AI generated email, push, SMS, web, app, and social ad content. (Link)
- Smartwrite. Writes personalized marketing emails. (Link)
- Voicebooking. Converts written text to AI-generated voice files. (Link)
- Resemble AI. Create voiceover from text with human-like voices, including your own. (Link)
Tools for Image and Video Generation and Design
- Midjourney. The leader in AI generated images from text. Images created via a prompt on Discord. (Link)
- Image Editor: A new tool introduced in August 2024 allowing users to edit and refine AI-generated images within the platform for more customized results.
- Version 6.1: Released in July 2024, it includes enhancements in image quality, faster processing, and expanded support for more detailed prompts.
- Personalization: Users can now customize their AI-generated image preferences, adjusting settings for style, tone, and subject matter.
- Create with Friends in Private Rooms: This feature allows collaborative creation in private rooms, enabling users to generate images together.
- DALL·E 3. AI generated images from text created by OpenAI, the same team that created ChatGPT. (Link)
- Rolled out ability for ChatGPT free users to create up to two images per day.
- Stability.AI. Provides a suite of generative design tools that allows users to create images with AI. (Link)
- Designs AI. Create logo designs quickly with AI. (Link)
- Adobe Sensei. Uses AI to improve and simplify design. (Link)
- Adobe Photoshop. Uses Generative Expand, using AI to expand an image beyond its actual scope. (Link)
- 2Short AI. Extract from long videos, relevant short videos for TikTok, Instagram, YouTube shorts, and others. (Link)
- Deep Art Effects. Utilize artificial intelligence to conveniently and innovatively edit images. (Link)
- Designs AI. This is an AI-assisted graphic design tool for creating logos, videos, and more quickly. (Link)
- MarketingBlocks AI. Ethan is an AI assistant that generates landing pages and other marketing assets. (Link)
- Sora. An AI model created by OpenAI to create hyper-realistic scenes from a text prompt. (Link)
- Not yet publicly available.
- Veo. A generative video AI model. Google’s competitor to OpenAI’s Sora. (Link)
- Not yet publicly available.
Tools for Voice, Song and Audio Generation and Design
- Suno AI. Generative song creation tool creates songs with a simple prompt. (Link).
- Suno AI introduced Covers, a new feature which allows users to generate AI-powered song covers, where the tool recreates songs based on user prompts.
- Suno AI V3 includes improvements in vocal clarity, enhanced instrumentals, and greater control over the composition process, enabling users to generate more sophisticated and high-quality music tracks.
- OpenAI Sora. Generative AI model by OpenAI that creates highly realistic video from a text prompt. (Link)
- ElevenLabs. AI-powered voice generator that converts text to natural-sounding speech in 29 languages, ideal for creating lifelike audio for videos, audiobooks, games, and chatbots. (Link)
Conclusion – AI for Commercial Real Estate
In conclusion, it’s clear that Artificial intelligence (AI) is already transforming the commercial real estate industry and will continue to do so in the future. As we’ve seen in this post, AI tools are providing tremendous value to acquisitions, development, management, advisory, and marketing teams in the industry.
At A.CRE, we’re excited to see the industry embrace these tools and leverage their power to make more informed and strategic decisions. We’ll continue to keep an eye on this fast-moving space and update this post with new tools and developments as they arise. It’s an exciting time to be in commercial real estate!
