Welcome to Season 6: The CRE Era of AI | S6E1
In this opening episode of Season 6, the Adventures in CRE team—Sam Carlson, Spencer Burton, and Michael Belasco—returns with a powerful message: the age of AI in commercial real estate has arrived. Kicking things off with energy and insight, the trio shares why this season is laser-focused on artificial intelligence and how it’s reshaping the CRE landscape.
They explore what it means to be “AI native,” how professionals can position themselves as early movers, and why there’s never been a better time to gain a competitive edge. If you’re wondering where CRE is headed and how to stay ahead of the curve, this conversation sets the tone for the season—and your future.
Watch, listen, or read this episode to get a preview of what’s ahead in Season 6 of the A.CRE Audio Series!
Welcome to Season 6: The CRE Era of AI
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Resources from this Episode
- A.CRE Real Estate Financial Modeling Career Accelerator
- Education in Real Estate
- A.CRE Audio Series
- Want to future-proof your real estate career and to thrive in the era of AI? Join AI.Edge: https://theCREedge.AI
Episode Transcript
Sam Carlson (00:08):
Hello and welcome back to another audio series. This is Season Six and we had an incredible time recording. I’m here with Michael and Spencer. This is the only time that you guys are going to see us doing intros. We jump right into the meat and potatoes of our content this season, but it was an incredible season. I’m going to fish it over to you, first, Spencer.
Spencer Burton (00:28):
First off, it’s nice to see Sam back.
Sam Carlson (00:30):
I’m back.
Spencer Burton (00:30):
Michael and I recorded last season alone. The reason why-
Michael Belasco (00:33):
Much more intimate.
Sam Carlson (00:34):
Did it feel void without me?
Spencer Burton (00:37):
It did a little bit. In fact, we scheduled it and didn’t even tell Sam.
Michael Belasco (00:41):
That’s right.
Sam Carlson (00:43):
They’re trying to cut me out.
Spencer Burton (00:44):
He was having a busy time of year, and Miami is a long way from my Idaho.
Sam Carlson (00:48):
It is a long way from Idaho.
Spencer Burton (00:50):
Thank you for coming out this time. It’s good to have you.
Sam Carlson (00:54):
I’m excited to be here. Thank you. Season six. Let’s get onto it. I’ll just say AI is all over the place this season. We were talking deep, deep, deep about AI. The entire thing is on artificial intelligence and how it’s affecting commercial real estate. And I just want to go to each one of you and just get a quick take on the State of the Union, what you liked about the season, what people can look forward to before they go to the next episode here.
Michael Belasco (01:21):
You want me to take this one first?
Spencer Burton (01:24):
You got it.
Michael Belasco (01:24):
This is always great for me just to get in a room with both of you and to go into a topic that touches on me every day. And Spencer is really diving deep on it. To sit in a room, what’s it been? Three, four hours of just us sitting here. Some of my favorite pieces to this entire season is really, we talked, one of the episodes we got really into the artistry around AI and how you are supposed to re-engineer your time or how you might want to re-engineer your time around that.
(01:57):
That was amazing to hear the practical use cases and strategies on how to ramp up and get into the space. Some of what it’s so nascent and how we’re here really on the forefront of just everything in this space and hearing some of the things you can do. And the words you’re going to keep hearing in this series is tinker, becoming a tinker. And that to me is really what embraces, I think, the whole series. That’s really what I have come away from this episode hearing and just the opportunity that’s in front of us.
Sam Carlson (02:32):
Building off of that, I kept thinking of that concept just in business, overall businesses, the first movers advantage. There’s a lot of doomsday out there. The first movers affect right now if you are doing the right things and there’s a great episode where we jump into a 30-day challenge scenario. And Spencer outlines a great thing you can do to go through and take those steps to be a first mover, because timing is almost more important than anything when it comes to outsized outcomes. The more opportunity there is, depends on when you get into it. And I think, again, this entire season to me, I was like, “This is great.”
Michael Belasco (03:25):
One more thing, when we started this series, there was this conversation we navigated through multiple times of this feeling of uncertainty to where I feel like ended in a cadence of optimism around this whole thing. And I feel like that’s what a lot of listeners are going to get out of this. There’s confusion, there’s uncertainty. We are in, I would call, a paradigm shift.
Sam Carlson (03:49):
It’s optimism for the action takers.
Michael Belasco (03:51):
Yes.
Spencer Burton (03:51):
That’s where I was going with this. I start with… What’s the word I’m looking for? Caution. We shared a memo that Shopify CEO published several months ago where he had sent to everyone at Shopify and said, “Hey, we now have a baseline expectation that everyone in our organization is AI reflexive.” In this season, we refer to it as AI native, but there’s an expectation that everyone, before they do anything first ask themselves, “How can AI help?”
(04:35):
Before they hire ask, “Could AI perform this role? If so, how?” And that sentiment, and I get that Shopify is a tech firm and we’re real estate and we’re old school and things happen slower in our industry and all those sorts of things. But this mentality in the same way that there’s a baseline expectation that everyone knows how to use email and there’s a baseline expectation that everyone uses a personal computer. There will be a baseline expectation that everyone leverages AI to multiply their output.
(05:05):
That will be a baseline expectation in our industry. And either you can wait around for someone to tell you what that means, or you can be an action taker. And the caution is to those who are like, “I’ll just wait around.” The risk of waiting around is that you’re seen as not needed. I don’t know how else to say it. And either as a company, your investors look elsewhere, or as an employee, your employer looks elsewhere. That’s the real risk. And I’m sounding alarmed a little bit. I don’t mean to be quite so alarmist at the start. Most of this season actually is quite optimistic, but that baseline expectation is coming.
Sam Carlson (05:57):
And if you are getting into this season, you likely have questions like, “Is AI going to take my job? Is it a threat to me? What is the threat if so? What do I need to do? What skills do I need to have? Where should I be looking for information? What should I be doing?” There’s all of these unspoken complexities which we will address. I think we did a pretty decent job addressing these questions and these concepts throughout the season. It’s really fun.
Michael Belasco (06:27):
Not to end on, which is real, the concept of fear. It does go into the concept of tremendous opportunity. And even if you feel like you’re at risk, there’s avenues to take through. The very thing that you feel threatened by is the very thing that will present to you some of the biggest opportunities of your life and I think that’s something that’s real.
Spencer Burton (06:50):
That’s the exciting part. The flip side of all of that is there’s never been a better opportunity. For many people in the industry, there’s never been a better opportunity to set themselves apart, to gain an edge over the incumbents who they’re so ingrained. And the incumbents might be people, the incumbents might be companies. They’re so ingrained. Anytime you flip the board up and all the pieces come back down, they reorder. One of the episodes, we talk about Kodak, you laugh, or Kmart or any of these other, but Sears term once was called solid as Sears. Who would’ve thought it’s the same way we think about Amazon? Who could ever topple Amazon? Anytime you have one of these big shake-ups, opportunity arises for those who want to jockey to the front.
Michael Belasco (07:42):
And at the risk of sounding cheesy, there’s this African proverb that says, “Run to the roar,” run to what you’re afraid of, and go to it and face it. And you’ll find out it’s not as, usually it’s the oldest, weakest lion that’s making the most noise. There’s something that you’re afraid of, go head first into it. And we don’t mention that directly in this series, but there’s a lot of running into the roar and realizing, “Wow, it’s not as scary as I thought. There’s some opportunity here.” And there’s no blueprint or exact action plan as we lay it out. But the roadmap, the thinking, the frameworks for how to expand into this space, I think is laid out pretty well by Spencer in particular. It’s just exciting, I can’t wait for everybody to hear this series.
Sam Carlson (08:30):
It’s a good one. Lean into the entire series. We cover a lot of ground, and we’ve got some exciting things coming to everybody, not only in the audio series but beyond. Definitely pay attention to everything that’s going on at Adventures in CRE. Thanks for watching the audio series, and head over to the next episode.
Announcer (08:50):
Thanks for tuning into this episode of the Adventures in CRE audio series. For show notes and additional resources, head over to www.adventuresincre.com/audioseries.
