Lazy thinkers, not evil geniuses, could ultimately be the most menacing force that artificial intelligence (AI) enables. Enthusiasts and more cautious adopters alike underscore the continuing role for informed human override as AI delivers up computations, conclusions and corollaries.
“I do see a use for it in many mundane tasks that we don’t want people to have to do, but, if you depend on AI without understanding the basics of what is being interpreted, do you have the ability to do critical thinking?” Judy Wall, president of East Port Properties, mused during a panel discussion at the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) of Canada’s recent annual national conference. “I worry about using less and less of our brains and then, when it’s needed, it’s like you’ll have to go fire up the coal furnace to see if you still remember how to think.”
As is customary for the BOMEX event’s signature executive roundtable, Wall and two other prominent peers were tasked with weighing in on issues that gripped and galvanized the commercial real estate industry over the past year and are expected to hold sway into the future. AI led that list.
Michael Bansil, senior vice president, business excellence and innovation, with GWL Realty Advisors, and Ben Young, president and chief executive officer of Southwest Properties, sketched out their companies’ experience and AI adoption approach thus far, and — similar to Wall — voiced some reservations along with an acknowledgement that the technology is steadily and rapidly becoming entrenched in the day-to-day functioning of society.
Understanding eases implementation
Early implementation efforts have largely focused on optimizing building systems, augmenting employees’ work procedures, alleviating labour-intensive tasks where appropriate, and collecting, managing and analyzing data. Bansil identifies “AI literacy” as a building block for all those objectives, and the starting point for corporate adoption. In GWLRA’s case, initial exploratory consulting helped it recognize what it could not, or did not need to do, and gave direction to its strategy.
The company sidestepped the costs, logistical complications and threat of obsolescence inherent in developing its own in-house AI tool and, instead, opted for plug-in devices and existing apps for building and energy systems. All employees are actively encouraged to use Microsoft Copilot’s summary, comparison, analytical and content creation tools in their work.
“That’s the one thing that we are really trying to drive,” Bansil reiterated. “Understanding how to use AI is going to be so important for adoption once an organization gets to the point of full blown implementation. You have to keep pace with it. You can’t start from nothing and all of a sudden expect that you can deploy AI into a solution.”
“I think the biggest risk is not embracing it,” Young concurred. “The adoption of new technology is happening so fast now that you have to get out in front of it.”
For Southwest Properties, a developer/owner/manager of a Halifax-based multifamily portfolio, emergent AI capabilities have been well matched with the city’s post-COVID population growth and residential building boom. AI now performs much of the traditionally time-consuming task of floorplate configuration, quickly producing a first draft from inputted instructions for the size and number of units and required common area components like elevators and staircases. However, human designers and decision-makers then refine it from there.
“You can start to manipulate the data in real time — for example, tell it that you want to shorten the hallways or add more one-bedrooms — and really use the tool,” Young explained. “But it is just a tool and should be used as a tool. It gives you something that is close, but you still need to dissect and look at every inch of that layout if you want to maximize it.”
Similarly, he suggests managers and operators could gain new and more fulsome insights as they become more familiar with AI’s data resources.
“I think it allows people to be curious,” Young hypothesized. “You can gather data; you can look at data; there’s so much more information available. Curiosity leads to innovation; it leads to improvements; and it leads to better deliverables.”
Resistance and vulnerabilities
On the flipside, some degree of resistance and skepticism is almost preordained within organizations. Bansil noted that the effectiveness of the technology is just one element of fostering uptake. Expert technological support, from either the AI provider or a third party consultant, and a competent in-house implementation team are also part of the formula.
“Our (management and operations) teams don’t necessarily believe the capability itself in some of the AI technologies out there,” he conceded. “But that’s okay because I think that gap will be bridged at some point. If you have tried AI, you know it’s not perfect, but the capability is there. At some point, it’s going to get to where the solutioning for us is going to be pretty rock solid.”
For now, there’s little evidence that AI is yet replacing human workers on a mass scale. Most commercial real estate firms are still in the early stages of adoption where, if anything, extra human resources and effort may be required to navigate the learning curve. However, the panellists do have a sense of what roles may be vulnerable.
“You have to ask yourself: Do I have a job where I do the exact same thing every day? If you do, that could be a potential for replacement,” Bansil speculated. “If you have a job where you might do something different every day, it is much more difficult to replace roles like that.”
Young warns that human intervention will still be needed — and should remain accessible — behind any chain of AI service provision.
“We really try to focus on that customer-facing experience, and there’s a point where they want to talk to somebody,” he said. “That is where you shut the technology and put the person in play who is going to be the one to figure it out. The companies that stray too far from that will lose the customer service touch.”
There’s also the risk of what Bansil calls “cut-and-paste syndrome” with users too often unquestioningly relying on AI conclusions or even duplicitously passing off AI-engendered content and analysis as their own. Wall stressed the importance of critical thinking and suggested that schools, post-secondary institutions and industry-focused continuing education may all need to pay heightened attention to it.
“As we use it, we need to be curious and inquisitive,” she asserted. “If that happens, I am all for AI.”
Meanwhile, the cut-and-pasters may just be fooling themselves. “In the end, if you rely totally on AI to be your decision-maker, you still own that decision,” Bansil observed.
