New insights from Propoly reveals that despite the hype around AI replacing human workers, the technology is more likely to replace individual tasks than letting agents themselves. While AI may not replace the agent, it will raise the bar for them, enabling faster service, smarter decision-making and higher expectations from landlords and tenants.
Fears that AI will make letting agents obsolete are largely fiction, but its ability to automate repetitive work and improve operational efficiency could fundamentally change the role of the property professional, as well as what landlords and tenants expect from their agents.
Propoly has identified several areas where the impact of AI on the property industry is already becoming clear.
One of the opportunities is tenancy progression – referencing, fraud checks, document reviews, compliance, rent protection and professional support have traditionally been handled across multiple systems and teams. AI can unify that information together, identify potential risks and recommend the next action, potentially turning work into a process completed in minutes.
Tenants can now use AI to produce lengthy complaints and legal arguments almost instantly. While this can give consumers greater access to information, it can also create additional work for agents when those arguments contain inaccurate, outdated or irrelevant legal references.
In a highly regulated sector like lettings, the accuracy of complaints and any response to those depends on a myriad of factors comprising jurisdiction, tenancy type, commencement dates and changes in legislation. AI-generated information would need to be checked carefully first, particularly where the consequences of getting it wrong can be significant for an agent, landlord or tenant.
“AI isn’t going to make letting agents disappear. It is going to make waiting disappear. The technology is exceptionally good at handling the repetitive work that slows people down, whether that’s reviewing documents, checking information, summarising communications or identifying the next action in a tenancy.
“Take referencing. What has traditionally involved information being spread across different systems and processes can increasingly be connected and assessed in minutes rather than hours or days.
“That’s where AI can make a real difference to property professionals. But there is an important distinction between using AI to help decide and allowing AI to make the decision for you.
“In property, a confident answer isn’t necessarily a correct one, and the consequences of getting something wrong can be significant. The winners won’t be the agents who hand everything over to AI.
“They’ll be the ones who use it to become faster, more informed and more responsive, while keeping people firmly in the loop.”
Sim Sekhon, Group CEO, Propoly
AI can help assess incoming maintenance reports, identify missing information, triage cases, categorise issues and direct them to the appropriate contractor. It can also summarise lengthy email chains, giving property managers the key facts without requiring them to work through every message. For tenants, that could mean faster responses and for agents, it could mean less time spent on administration.
Another common assumption is that AI will make property decisions more objective. Propoly says this is also fiction. Where AI is used for tenant selection, referencing or risk assessment, there is a possibility that existing biases within data or decision-making processes could be reproduced or amplified. Human oversight therefore becomes important when AI is used in decisions that could affect whether someone gets a home.
There is a key difference between using AI to write a property description and using it to help decide who should rent a property. AI can support income verification, fraud detection, affordability assessments and risk analysis, but property professionals still need to understand the information behind a decision rather than treating an automated output as gospel.
Generative AI can give smaller businesses access to capabilities that have traditionally required dedicated teams, helping individual negotiators and property managers handle communications, administration and information more efficiently. For the industry, Propoly believes the most effective model will be AI-assisted rather than AI-controlled property management.
An agent might use AI to summarise a 30-email maintenance conversation, but they should still make the judgement on liability. Equally, AI might flag an anomaly in a tenant application without automatically deciding that the applicant should be rejected.
As AI can produce emails, answer a question or summarise information almost instantly, tenants and landlords may become less willing to accept long waits for responses from their agents. What was once considered an acceptable response time could increasingly feel slow in a world where information and communication can be generated in seconds.
The competitive advantage may not belong to the businesses using the most AI, but to those that integrate it effectively into their workflows while maintaining accuracy, accountability and good service.
