While they are all still in the process of evaluating and deploying solutions, most larger multifamily companies and multifamily suppliers have fully embraced the power of AI because it’s transformative. AI is successfully powering leasing assistants, answering maintenance questions, and optimizing operations. But as adoption grows, so does confusion over how AI should and shouldn’t be used. One key concept that is important to digest before fully diving in is the difference between AI automation vs. AI augmentation in multifamily.
Understanding this difference can provide you with a framework that will help you use AI effectively to raise efficiency and avoid the risk of damaging your brand reputation and operational accuracy.
What is AI Automation?
AI automation refers to systems that run with little or no human oversight. For example:
- Automatically answering questions about availability on a website chatbot
- Using AI leasing assistants to automatically nurture prospects
- Reminding residents that their rent is late
Automation works well if the task is simple and well-defined. If you can provide very clear guidelines about what you need a bot to do, it can accurately and consistently follow your instructions. For example, it’s easy for a bot to look up the current cost of your lowest-priced 1-bedroom apartment. However, in multifamily, many “simple” tasks are more nuanced than they appear at first glance.
Here’s an example of AI automation gone wrong:
A resident posts a one-star review on Google saying, “I’ve called three times about a leak in my kitchen and no one has responded!!!” An AI auto-responder replies: “Thanks for your feedback! We’re sorry you’re not enjoying your experience living with us. Call us at 567-987-0967 and we’ll be happy to help.” Not only is this response completely tone-deaf, but it also misses a potential maintenance request that, left unaddressed, could damage your asset.
This potential risk hasn’t stopped people from developing AI-driven products that fully automate the review response without any checks and balances.
What is AI Augmentation?
AI augmentation, on the other hand, uses AI to support and accelerate human work, but not completely replace it. You might use an AI to create a draft of a review response, but these systems have a workflow that allows a person to view and approve the work product, or rewrite it completely!
Other examples of AI augmentation done right include:
- AI drafts a social media post, and a marketing manager reviews and personalizes it
- An AI leasing assistant schedules a tour, and a leasing agent follows up when the prospect asks to speak with a human about what qualifies as earnings at an income-restricted community
With augmentation, you can improve efficiency but still have the guardrails you need to ensure accuracy and include a nuanced perspective where applicable.
Where AI Still Makes Mistakes in Multifamily
Even the best AI can:
- Misunderstand context (especially emotional tone)
- Fail to answer questions it hasn’t been trained to answer
- Provide incorrect or outdated pricing when integrations break (which happened to us when a major PMS made a change and never told us or any of its other partners)
That’s why human oversight is still critical from onsite teams and your AI suppliers.
Will AI Ever Be Accurate Enough to Go Solo?
We’re getting closer, but not quite there. For general content generation (like blogs), AI is estimated to be 80–90% accurate. I’ve personally seen AI introduce unacceptable errors when creating content around paid ads. For example, AI doesn’t understand the restrictions fair housing laws place on multifamily advertisers.
That said, systems are getting better rapidly and already are impacting the number of customer-facing roles available at companies, most famously UDR. AI systems like ours can already reliably automate 95% of leasing and resident communication, and while I believe there will always be a need to be a human available to handle tough questions and give tours, the potential to fully automate anything that happens on your computer will likely be a reality in less than 5 years.
Some things that need to be in place before that happens include:
- Systems that allow AI to be trained on all your standard operating procedures
- Deeper integrations with your PMS and CRM to allow for access to more of your data
- Advances in large language model (LLM) reliability and accuracy
The reality is we aren’t there yet. AI will mostly augment, not replace, human talent for the foreseeable future. That said, AI is already allowing us to be far more productive, and this will impact more and more jobs. Those of us who want to keep ours need to think of AI tools as our assistants and use them to expand our skills and increase our productivity.
Further, soft skills will be even more important. The ability to build relationships will not go out of style and will be in demand even when AI can fully automate most tasks in leasing and property management operations.
For Now, Choose Augmentation, Not Autopilot. Mostly.
Multifamily operators need to understand when it’s OK to put things on autopilot and where it’s OK to let AI do the heavy lifting, but you’ll need your team or supplier partners to step in where nuance, empathy, and decision-making are needed.
Right now, it’s not about choosing AI augmentation or AI automation. It’s about using both wisely.
At Respage, our products strike the right balance between automation and augmentation to power your marketing and leasing, and resident communication. Contact us for a tour of our lead generation, marketing, and AI leasing and resident communications platform, ResMate.
From the desk of Ellen Thompson, Co-founder and CEO of Respage >> Since its founding, Respage has helped over 10,000 communities attract, engage, and retain residents. Its platform assists properties in generating leads, automating leasing, and managing reputation and social media. Thompson is also the Founder of Results Repeat, a digital marketing agency that has helped hundreds of companies create a digital presence and use SEO and paid marketing to generate more business online.
