Disrupting Real Estate: How Teams Can Harness AI For Innovation & Growth

AI is reshaping industries at an unprecedented pace, and real estate is no exception. From streamlining operations to improving decision-making and enhancing customer experiences, AI presents opportunities and challenges for technology leaders navigating legacy systems and evolving business expectations.

But the key to unlocking AI’s full potential lies in aligning teams, data, and technology effectively. So how can real estate businesses ensure they have the right foundations in place to drive meaningful innovation while maintaining efficiency and scalability?

We bought together a brilliant group of CTOs and tech leaders from across the real estate sector to talk about AI — where it’s actually being integrated into tech stacks and workflows, and where we’re starting to see it drive real value.

Nick McKittrick, Co-Founder & Former CTO at Rightmove
Alex Bailes, CTO at Brockton Everlast
Robin Turton, IT Director at Empiric Student Property
Kimani Mbugua, VP of Engineering at Revantage
Hilary Reynolds, VP Digital & Technology at CBRE
Tim Wood, CTO at Arch Company
James Snowdon, CTO at Indurent
Chris Boultwood, Head of Technology at Workspace Group
David Krisman, CTO at M7 Real Estate
Simon Davey, Head of Technology at Knight Dragon
Alex Solomon, AI Advisor & Former COO at Rightmove
Michael Litterick, Head of Architecture at NHS Property Services
Jasper McIntosh, CIO at The Office Group
Lionel Hill, CTO at Permira

A few highlights from the discussion:

🔐 Data readiness is key. AI adoption is forcing teams to clean up years of messy permissions and data sprawl. If the foundations aren’t there, it’s hard to do anything meaningful.

💡 Are we too obsessed with ROI? A great comparison made was - how do you measure the ROI of a screwdriver? When a tool is that versatile, its true value isn’t always obvious (or easy to quantify).

🤖 Agentic AI is already making a difference. Teams are seeing big wins using AI to support out-of-hours customer service and security.

☁️ If you’re not in the cloud, you’re already behind. You can’t unlock the potential of AI without accessible, secure, well-structured data - and for that, cloud is non-negotiable.

The overall tone was cautious optimism. Technology teams need the freedom to explore and experiment, but within guardrails that keep data safe and protect the business. The pace this space is moving, and how accessible it’s become compared to even a few years ago is incredible. The opportunity is massive if it’s approached in the right way.

💡 Check out the key takeaways here 💡

If you're keen to learn more or hear how you can be involved in future sessions, reach out to our event coordinator and Senior Director, Tom Dunford.