Artificial intelligence has touched practically every industry in the world, but that doesn’t mean companies are confident about how to best utilize it. 

Apollo Global Management found that 69% of S&P 500 companies could point to a live AI deployment in the second quarter, but only 29% could offer a number to qualify the outcome of AI usage, and just 2% are tracking it over time. Commercial real estate is no different. JLL's Global Real Estate Technology Survey found that the shares of corporate real estate firms running AI pilots went from 5% to 92% in three years. But only 5% of the people it surveyed say they have hit most of the program's goals.

So what does the future of AI adoption look like for CRE? To answer this question, Bisnow Editor-in-Chief Mark F. Bonner sat down with JLL President of Technology Solutions Reeves Davis on First Draft Live. 

Bonner cited a recent incident where CRE finance firm Walker & Dunlop tasked an analyst and the AI platform Claude to complete the same assignment. While Claude was able to achieve in 10 minutes what it took the analyst a week to complete, the AI missed several key results. This suggests that while AI tools are getting cheaper, they are not infallible, so who will be held accountable for their findings and mistakes? 

Davis said firms hire JLL to create certain real estate outcomes, and the technology JLL uses is just a means to that end. It helps it make predictions and generate data, but the technology in and of itself does not generate those results. 

“Ultimately, for many of these things, we still have a significant amount of human in the loop that is taking that insight, taking that workflow and making a strategic decision that allows an organization to achieve the business outcome they want to achieve,” Davis said. 

To view the full conversation, watch the video below.