Most BTR operators are still debating AI strategy. The reality is that AI may already be influencing resident communications, maintenance decisions, pricing recommendations and operational reporting across their businesses. The governance challenge has arrived earlier than many realise.

For several years, discussions about artificial intelligence in Build to Rent have been framed as a future question:

• Should operators adopt AI?
• Will AI eventually transform housing?
• Is now the right time to start experimenting?

The second edition of the ARL’s AI in Build to Rent Guide suggests that these may be the wrong questions. Increasingly, AI isn’t arriving through a dedicated procurement process or board-approved transformation programme… It’s arriving through the back door of ordinary software updates. Features powered by machine learning, predictive analytics and generative AI are now appearing in resident apps, CRM systems, maintenance platforms, reporting tools and communications software that many operators already use every day.

This matters because responsibility does not begin at the point of purchase. Responsibility begins at the point of use. And, since the start of this month, some of these could have legal implications for operators under the EU’s AI Act.

You may not think of your business as “using AI” while a chatbot is answering resident enquiries, a maintenance system is prioritising repairs, or a pricing platform is generating rent recommendations. Yet AI is already influencing outcomes and experiences in those situations. The technology may feel invisible, but the governance obligations are not.

The Guide argues that one of the biggest risks facing the sector is not uncontrolled deployment of advanced AI. It is unrecognised deployment of ordinary AI.

That creates an uncomfortable question for leadership teams: if a resident asks where AI is influencing decisions within your organisation today, could you answer confidently?

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The operators that move fastest over the next few years may not be those with the largest technology budgets. They may simply be the organisations that first develop visibility over what technology is already present, where it is being used and who is accountable for its effects.

AI governance is no longer a future capability. It is rapidly becoming part of the definition of a well-managed BTR business.

We’ll be talking about this and much more at the AI in Rental Living Summit, taking place in Manchester on 28 September. As someone who has spent the last few years working across the AI and emerging tech spectrum, from safety-critical machine learning to implementing bespoke ‘small language models’, before joining the ARL as Operations Director, I’m very much looking forward to meeting with members at the conference to help them work out what AI means for their businesses in such a fast-moving space. I hope to see you there!

Register now to secure your place at the AI in Rental Living Summit, Manchester, 28 September.

Alex Vail is the Operations Director at the Association for Rental Living and the author of Data Culture, available from all good bookshops.