How to Reduce AI Hesitancy in Your Organization

While some multifamily professionals welcome the use of new technology, others still feel unsure about using AI. This leaves leadership at AI-forward operators faced with a question: How can they increase their teams’ comfort, competency, and clarity around AI?

In our recent webinar, How AI Will Accelerate Multifamily Portfolio Performance, our panelists highlighted best practices for reducing AI hesitancy.

Here’s some of what they had to say: 

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Demystify AI

Much of AI hesitancy comes just from hearing the word “AI”. Rebecca Busse, Vice President of Marketing at Seldin, urged operators to focus on the AI’s features and value as a tool rather than the concept of AI in and of itself.

“It’s like if you’re selling washing machines and you say they’re ‘powered by electricity,’” said Rebecca. “That’s not the headline here.”

Renee McIntyre, Vice President of Marketing at Scully, recommended starting small.

Renee explained, “Once people see AI can do something for them and how it helped them… they start to create their own use cases.” 

Karthik Kirupakaran, CEO of Avita, echoed Renee’s advice. He explained that, when you task your team with these small but meaningful projects, they’re able to see the impact AI has on business outcomes.

He told the webinar audience the success story of when he tasked his team with using Gen AI for developing a preferred employer list. His team was able to produce a “very stable source of prospects or leases from a local corporate employer.”

The result, as Karthik put it, was:

“Boom. In the next two months we got three or  four leases… Translating that into daily use cases… is helping me so far.” 

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Find Tools That Work For Everyone 

PropTech tools, including AI tools, don’t always come one-size-fits-all. But they have to fit all nonetheless.

AI adoption is powered by an organization’s superusers. These are the tech-savvy, AI optimists who are excited to dive into a new system. But adoption can easily be derailed by the majority, who may include the still AI-hesitant, tech-fatigued masses who feel they already have too many tabs open. 

To drive AI adoption, multifamily owners and operators should take the Goldilocks approach. This means selecting tools that equip superusers with powerful features and customization while remaining intuitive and easy to use for the rest of the team.

This enables superusers to drive adoption among the rest of the organization. From there, they can join with leadership in being what Karthik called “chief change agents” and promote how AI fits into the business.

That includes reassuring employees that AI isn’t about to replace them.

“The minute I brought on AI, some of my onsite teams and field talent were like, ‘oh, you're gonna reduce staff in the field,’” related Karthik on the webinar. “I'm like, ‘No, I actually want to help you do your job faster and sooner, have higher-quality output, and go home at five.”

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Reinforce AI as a Partner, Not as a Replacement 

Our panelists agreed that AI should be used to augment teams, not replace them.

By taking on the more mundane tasks, AI allows onsite teams to dedicate more time to creating experiences and enhancing resident communication. Rebecca predicted that communication and customer experience will become the “key differentiator of your business and your brand,” and that AI will be the tool that will allow companies to focus on that. 

Renee pointed out that her company uses AI for communication as well as for workflows and repetitive tasks.

“These are things that we can hand off to give us more time to do higher level thinking and implementation,” she said.

It seems the key is balance. 

“We want to take away the admin-heavy, ‘behind-the-screens’ work and push more towards AI,” said Karthik. “But at the same time, if a situation needs to escalate or have an immediate human touch, we’re able to quickly address it and then redirect it.” 

Above all else, when it comes to AI adoption, Karthik emphasized the value of patience.

“Have a little bit of grace for yourself and for your company staff and know that it's a very long journey,” said Karthik. “Just don't rush it.”

Listen to the full conversation here.