Property Asset Management Summit 2016: Robots are a big part of the property industry’s future, whether they will replace people or not, according to panel of industry heavyweights at Estates Gazette’s Property Asset Management Summit.
Nikhil Vadgama, founder of data and artificial intelligence-led platform Placemake.io, spoke about a hotel in Japan where many jobs, such as reception, security and cleaning, were filled by robots.
He asked: “How quickly can artificial intelligence learn from the data that is presented to it and train itself to mimic a higher functionality? Do you still need someone who has to deal with a higher level of functionality but how long before a robot can do all that stuff?”
Juliette Morgan, head of the futures group at Cushman & Wakefield, added: “What we will end up with is collaboration. We will use tech to make work more efficient and spend much of our time on complex transactions that need the skill and insight of a person.
“A computer can tell you yes or no, but it can’t read the market and tell you over the last four cycles what it is doing. I know you can get code to write beautiful music, but I don’t see that shift in our industry – the complexity of our transactions isn’t something that can be automated.”
Vadgama disagreed. “Machines could tell the industry what the opportunities should be. That is what we are trying to do and we can already to a little bit of that stuff. The big data is enabling you to look at trends correlations in real time,” he said.
The panel also agreed on the importance of big data.
Vadgama said proptech companies are still unclear how to use it and that unlocking value from data was still a “huge issue”.
Morgan agreed, saying: “CEOs across the world are accessing and harnessing data but cleaning that data and making sure it is useful is important.”
But Jakub Wojciechowski, chief executive at Silvertown, which uses data to help with asset management, cautioned on the need for privacy.
He said: “For me, the more data the better. The more I have, the better insight I have but some are scared of collecting data and the risks with storing it and compliance with ICO regulations. So before we move to the level of using big data we need to address questions of security and find a good platform of data sharing. We need to take privacy into account.”
• To send feedback, e-mail shekha.vyas@estatesgazette.com or tweet @ShekhaV or @estatesgazette
