In real estate, it’s a little music to which we have become accustomed since the advent of digital in large doses. It has become even more audible since the pandemic hit and most sectors of activity had to digitalize their practices to continue serving their customers, both businesses and individuals. The professional community was careful to say that it had completely switched to digital culture… and that it remained governed by “the human» (sic). Clearly, it was explained to us and is still being explained to us over and over again that the machine cannot under any circumstances replace human relations and the constant attention paid to customers. The result is a reassuring observation: the real estate professionsespecially those of housing, are not not disruptable. The arrival of artificial intelligence has relaunched the debate, but the conclusion is always the same, delivered with the same certainty: no risk.
AI, beyond this diagnosis of non-harmfulness for professionals, is adorned with a superior virtue: it will simplify everything, accelerate everything, eliminate all difficulty and basically relegate the notion of effort to the dustiest shelves of libraries. It will also bring perfection: no more mistakes, no more errors, no more approximations, where our minds stumbled and made mistakes. In short, the best is ahead of us. These speeches are sweet to the ears of the youngest and more generally of those entering the real estate professions: just think, beautiful, complex professions… well, which were.
AI, a nirvana?
Moreover, schools must ensure that students still have the concern to work, because AI can do everything, an assignment in which to answer the teacher’s questions, a legal or economic analysis, a dissertation, a thesis, everything and more. The question still crosses students and teachers: what is the point of learning since AI is theretireless and gracious assistant? We feel like we’re giving in to a habit, and we’re not sure it won’t be broken. Deep down, we believe it a little, or a lot for some. Training establishments use detection software, confiscate mobile phones during tests and increase oral checks, to estimate what the learner who walks without a crutch is really worth.
So, write an ad selling or renting a property? AI. Carry out a legal or tax study in-depth for a co-ownership or an investor? AI. A visit report? AI. A presentation to an engagement committee? AI. A translation? AI of course. A strategy? AI again. It is “the lung» from The Imaginary Sick. The reaction to all the questions, which justify fever as well as fatigue and nausea. “The lung, I tell you» echo the doctors at the patient’s bedside. Because it’s a bit as if before AI we had lived sick, weak in any case, left to do everything ourselves with our very insignificant means. AI challenges real estate intelligenceas if she had been his draft, his pale draft. Many people say to themselves that the real estate professions, like many others no doubt, will resemble nirvana: lucrative and easy.
An era of new demands
To these people, it is time to tell the truth. AI is not a tool, as it is often presented, that we just need to know how to use well to work happily, without straining our talent. AI is outpacing most of us and we haven’t seen a thing. The faults that we still attribute to it will disappear, because AI learns from AI and constantly surpasses itself. For example, legal analyzes scrutinized by the finest real estate lawyers reveal that case law can be neglected, or that terms can be confused: a courtyard for private use can be taken for a private portion. Either. A matter of months for the slag to disappear. Let’s not kid ourselves. And after? Afterwards, it will be necessary that the added value of professionals or above the AI. No more room for mediocrity. The era of discernment is dawning, and this era will not be so easy. It will be an era of demands like real estate people have never experienced. Not to mention that competitive differentiation will also have to occur above the use of AI: it is a safe bet, particularly because using AI will be learned in schools, that all professionals will know how to use AI with the same agility.
The consequence of the generalization of AI in real estate is simple: competence must be both more assured and higher to authorize opinions and advice with high added value. Critical thinking will be the real treasure. The spirit of inquiry and responsibility. The spirit of taking controlled risks. Whether we’re talking about a technical, technological, legal, fiscal or patrimonial approach.
All training and services to be rethought
In this context, the professional body’s relationship with continuing education will have to evolve. It is still seen as an expense more than an investment. As for the contribution of companies to work-study training, it must also appear as a way of guaranteeing the future of the renewal of human resources, with or without a State bonus. It is only necessary to see how much real estate agents and property managers struggle to agree on the content of the decree implementing the ALUR law called upon to specify the training of any transaction or management employee entering the profession… Yes, a balanced mix between face-to-face and distance learning is desirable. Yes, the duration must be sufficient to allow the transmission of an authentic general culture of real estate, based on basic knowledge of the major laws, on co-ownership, rental relations, the regulation of activities, town planning, taxation, the fight against discrimination, ethics and professional conduct. Without this foundation, how could a woman or a man impose himself on AI through his own intelligence and his ability to understand a situation better than the machine, itself of astonishing power, through its ability to adapt a response to a household or a business… which would otherwise be satisfied with AI and save the cost of professional intermediation?
In short, AI is not the luck that many believe: it is not the guarantee of a lazy exercise in the real estate professions, but rather the constraint of excellence. Human professions? Yes, more than ever, and not just to put reassuring relational flesh and warmth into the performance: to impose superior competence. AI will give real estate professions, particularly housing, access to the status to which they claimed without properly measuring the conditions. More work, more reflection, ever more high-level training, or the risk of being overwhelmed and outdated by the algorithm.
