Digital Disruption To Transform Indian Real Estate Ecosystem

Eminent leaders from the industry express their views on leveraging AI in the real estate landscape. Artificial intelligence has emerged as one of the biggest disruptors and game changers in the real estate landscape today, enabling a strategic, and empowered buying and selling experience. With the potential to carry out massive technological reforms across the sector AI is driving change with a technology-led immersive experience made possible just at the click of a button. Rushi Bhatt, Sr. Director and Head of AI at Compass IDC, the overseas development centre of Urban Compass Inc., a US-headquartered technology platform leading change with new age technologies such as AI & ML in the real estate industry said “As far as leveraging AI is concerned in India's scenario, there are two kinds of applications that we need to start building, one is consumer-facing that involves digital marketing, virtual walkthroughs, lead generation etc and the other is gaining insights such as which houses are most likely to sell by the end of the year etc. AI adoption across the Indian Real Estate landscape has still got a long way to go but the growth is definitely possible with appropriate investments.” AI has made significant inroads within the Indian real estate landscape & is expected to further stretch its reach in the coming years. As per recent reports 93.8% believe such technologies like cloud & AI will be used for analytics-based recommendations & 67.1% of respondents have suggested that AI & ML will be frequently used in Indian real estate in the coming 12-36 months. Prashant Solomon, MD, Chintels India & Hon. Treasurer CREDAI NCR added “Covid was a great opportunity for the real estate industry because it forced us to change how we work & think. One of the immediate effects that we observed was a large move towards online transactions & searches, increased use of VR & AR to conduct virtual tours of properties and using technologies like drones & AI. Thanks to AI & the algorithms that are being introduced, people are able to find houses based on their liking & their requirements. Real Estate is not limited to just providing a house but providing a complete ecosystem & the only way you can achieve that is by adopting technologies like AI” Prasanto Kumar Roy, Technology Analyst and Commentator expressed, “Real estate Industry is poised for disruption with parallels in the tax sector, legal sector & documentation. In the last two years, we have seen increase in new-age technologies like AI, ML, Video walkthroughs. One big area of disruption will come in discovery & matchmaking. As far as the industry is considered, India's real estate market has a couple of leading-edge firms that are leveraging AI & we will soon be witnessing the rise of many other firms like these. This will surely push the ecosystem to increased adoption of AI across Real Estate Landscape” Pranav Kaushik, Partner, Digital Transformation, Grand Thornton dGTI, India stated, “The sector is embarking on continuous digital initiatives but there’s still a lag in some of the areas where tech has not permeated. A change in the management aspect & reskilling of the workforce in organizations will ensure a sustained digital transformation in the real estate sector. Technologies like AI, ML & Blockchain will help connect the whole ecosystem including the regulators, agents, and the companies to freely and securely exchange information.” Faisal Kawoosa, Founder & Chief Analyst, Techarc, a technology analytics, research and consultancy firm concluded, “Immersive technologies accompanied by AI & ML are augmenting the personal touch that is required across the real estate sector. But owing to the industry's nature of being a highly competitive & capital-intensive market, the start-ups across the real estate industry might require support from the existing leaders to take forward this technological disruption”