By RALPH BENZAKEIN //
The commercial real estate industry has always been shaped by information. For decades, brokers and developers have built their advantage on what they know – market conditions, lease terms, relationships, timing.
What’s changing now is not the importance of information, but the volume, speed and complexity of information.
Artificial intelligence is forcing our industry to reckon with how we collect, structure and use data – and the organizations that adapt fastest will lead the next era of real estate.
A recent article in Propmodo captured this perfectly: Too often, firms use the term “AI” as a catch-all buzzword for technology upgrades, automation or dashboards, but true AI isn’t a shiny widget you plug in – it’s a strategic capability.
It thrives on clean, connected data and thoughtful implementation. For commercial real estate, that means moving beyond fragmented spreadsheets, siloed CRMs and disconnected property systems, and building real intelligence that can enhance decision-making in real time.
We are already seeing the early impact. Across the country, commercial real estate firms are experimenting with AI to automate lease abstraction, predict maintenance needs, optimize energy use, analyze site selection and provide more personalized tenant services.
Ralph Benzakein: Keeping it real.
According to Morgan Stanley, nearly 37 percent of CRE tasks can be automated with AI, representing a potential efficiency gain of $34 billion. Meanwhile, Ernst & Young reports that generative AI is beginning to reshape marketing, leasing and portfolio analysis.
For Long Island’s CRE community, this shift is both an opportunity and a challenge.
Many local firms are lean, entrepreneurial and relationship-driven – strengths that have defined the market for decades. But those same strengths can become vulnerabilities if we ignore the data transformation happening around us. The firms that learn how to combine human insight with intelligent systems will have a significant competitive edge.
That doesn’t mean AI is here to replace professionals – far from it.
Real estate remains fundamentally about relationships, strategy and local knowledge, and AI can augment that expertise. Imagine being able to instantly identify properties most likely to trade in the next 12 months, or assess a tenant’s real-time credit risk, or model the impact of zoning changes in real time.
These capabilities don’t eliminate the role of the broker, developer or property manager. They elevate it.
At the Commercial Industrial Brokers Society of Long Island, we see this conversation as essential to Long Island’s future. Our region is facing real economic and demographic pressures: evolving office demand, rising interest rates, changing work patterns, new expectations from tenants. Artificial intelligence won’t solve these issues on its own, but it will separate those who can see around corners from those who can’t.
Multi-use: Rather than replace commercial brokers, properly deployed AI technologies can lift them up.
For example, predictive analytics could help us better understand shifts in industrial space demand, while AI-driven valuation models could bring new precision to deal-making in uncertain markets.
The adoption curve won’t be easy. Many firms still struggle with data hygiene, legacy systems and cultural resistance to change. But just as CRE professionals once adapted to cell phones, email, CoStar and digital marketing, they’ll adapt to this.
The difference is speed: What once took decades is now happening in a few short years.
The question for Long Island’s CRE community is not whether AI will shape our industry; it already is. The question is, who will lead and who will be left catching up.
That’s why CIBS is committed to fostering dialogue, education and collaboration around this issue. Our role as a professional organization is not just to connect people but to help prepare them for the future.
Artificial intelligence won’t replace real estate professionals. But those who learn to use it strategically will redefine what it means to be one.
Ralph Benzakein is president of the Commercial Industrial Brokers Society of Long Island and senior vice president for Cresa Long Island.
