A typical lettings agent could save some two and a half hours’ time each working day if they adopted more Artificial Intelligence to take over routine tasks.
That’s the view of virtual assistant Roby.ai which says its time saving estimate is conservative if agents allowed technology to do tasks in seconds rather than hours or minutes.
Chasing rent, arranging for contractors to visit properties, organising deposits, referencing and daily administration are just some of the obvious tasks which can benefit from AI, but Roby.ai insists there are many more potential savings.
“It's clear to see the amount of time that property professionals can save by automating key tasks … It also allows them to spend more time working on the ‘bigger picture’ and growing a business” says the virtual assistant co-founder and chief executive Tom Reiss.
“Each individual and the way in which they work is completely different. However, when you factor in the comparison between a human and a machine, a person could take 15 to 20 per cent longer to carry out a task - an estimate that we believe to be fairly conservative” adds Reiss.
Another Roby.ai executive - chief product officer Offer Peylan - says one requirement for the industry is to become open-minded about AI.
“’How much time can this automation and this technology that we hold save people, and in how many different areas can it be used in?’ – these are the questions business leaders need to be asking if they want to stay ahead of the competition in an increasingly technology-driven industry” says Peylan.
“Failing to take note and adopt automated processes now could see businesses struggling to keep up, becoming irrelevant and increasing the risk of them having to cease operations over the next five to seven years” he says.
The service has previously suggested that greater use of technology could allow agents more time to come to terms with the industry’s increasing compliance burden, likely to become tougher still once the recently-revealed recommendations of the Regulation of Property Agents working group are enacted.
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There are two important points to take from this.
The first being that there is a huge difference between AI and automation. We have been providing bespoke automation to the industry for over 10 years and have over 2000 automated processes in operation, but our AI model fulfils an entirely different purpose and the challenge is "data". Machine learning depends on specific rules and working practices, which at the moment are as "fluid", as I have seen in 30 years in the industry. We all saw what happened when Microsoft released Tay ai.
The second thing is the concept of “time saving”. We have monitored the effects of automation since 2009 and although the benefits mentioned in the article are true and time will be freed up for more cognitive tasks there has to be a plan in place of how this will be done, experience has shown that just relieving pressure does not result in increased business.
I wouldn't worry too much about changing systems.
You won't have a business soon.
In case you haven't noticed LL are selling up.
Plus those remaining are dumping LA due to cost pressures.
Hanging onto existing clients is where efforts need to be concentrated.
Investing in technology is a waste of time when business is disappearing.
There seems to be very little understanding amongst LA as to how the PRS is changing.
Unless these LA accept these changes then their businesses are doomed.
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