Transforming Real Estate Technology

Deloitte's CTO dropped a number that should make every executive pause. 93% of AI transformation budgets go to technology. 7% goes to people. That ratio is almost perfectly inverted from what the data says actually works. Organizations that invest in structured change management hit an 88% success rate on transformation initiatives. Those that pour money into tech without touching culture, training, or workflow redesign? They land in the 70% failure pile that McKinsey has been tracking for a decade. The math gets worse. Companies that prioritize culture change, see 5.3x higher success rates than technology-only approaches. And firms with a formal change strategy are 7x more likely to meet their transformation goals. So we have a €93 problem being treated with a €7 solution. I keep seeing this in professional services. A firm buys a new platform, rolls it out with a 45-minute training session, then wonders why adoption stalls after three weeks. The partners go back to email. The associates build workarounds in spreadsheets. Six months later, someone suggests buying a different platform. Technology creates capability. People create capacity. You can't have one without the other. The fix isn't complicated. It just requires admitting that the hardest part of any technology project has nothing to do with technology. What's the people-to-tech budget ratio at your organization? #ChangeManagement #AITransformation #ProfessionalServices #DigitalTransformation

Most digital transformation initiatives do not fall short because of the technology. They fall short because the way people work never really changes. Many organizations successfully roll out new CRM platforms, automation tools, and AI solutions. Adoption looks strong, training is complete, and the implementation appears successful. Yet a few weeks later, the same challenges return. Decisions are still made the old way. Handoffs remain inconsistent. Reports are still questioned. The technology changed. The operating model did not. That is where many transformation efforts lose momentum. Technology can improve execution, but it cannot create alignment, accountability, or better decision-making on its own. This week's newsletter explores why behavior change is the missing piece of digital transformation and why organizations see better results when they redesign how teams work, not just the tools they use. If your business is investing in AI, CRM, or automation, this one is worth a read.

Companies pour millions into AI, automation, and cutting-edge tech—expecting a revolution. But then… nothing changes. Productivity stalls. Adoption is slow. Frustration rises. Why? Because technology alone won’t solve your problems. The missing link? People. Their adoption, their engagement, their proficiency. 💡 You can implement the best tech, but if your people don’t understand, trust, or use it, transformation fails. 💡 Digital tools don’t drive change—your culture, leadership, and mindset do. The key to true digital transformation isn’t just upgrading systems; it’s upskilling people, reshaping behaviors, and aligning teams. So before investing in more tech, ask: ✅ Are my leaders driving change or just approving budgets? ✅ Do my people feel empowered or overwhelmed? ✅ Am I solving a business problem or just following a trend? The best transformations are human-led and tech-enabled. What’s your biggest challenge in digital transformation? Let’s discuss⬇️ #DigitalTransformation #Leadership #ChangeManagement #FutureFit #Innovation #Technology #BusinessGrowth

The innovation fallacy: Overestimating your ability to disrupt the system. Here is the famous energy scientist Vaclav Smil to tell you what that means for technology and sustainability: "(...) of course, they just march along with the new tech crowd whose naivete compares every technical change to recent developments in electronics, and above all to mobile phones. Here is how a green energy CEO put it in 2020: 'Do you remember how we transformed telephony from fixed-line phones to mobile phones, television from watching whatever was on TV to whatever we fancied, from buying newspapers to customising our news feeds? The people-led, tech-powered energy revolution is going to be just the same' How could changing a device (landline to mobile) whose reliable use depends on a massive, complex, and highly reliable system of electricity generation (dominated by thousands of large fossil-fueled, hydro, and nuclear power plants), transformation and transmission (encompassing hundreds of thousands of kilometers of national and even continental-scale grids) be the same as changing the entire underlying system?" - Page 199 in Vaclav Smil's book, How The World Really Works. What that means for sustainability practitioners in business: → Appreciate the difference between innovation on the device level and system level. → Understand that disruption requires both innovation (adding new) and exnovation (removing old). → There is no empirical evidence that technology alone can deliver reductions fast enough and sufficiently (See "Decoupling Debunked" by The European Environmental Bureau, 2019). → Betting on technology alone to create sufficient change is hoping for a miracle. And hope is not a strategy. → Explore post growth strategies in parallel with technology-based strategies - explore exnovation as well as innovation.

When I say "digital transformation," what comes to mind first? Is it: 1️⃣ The technology? 2️⃣ The people expected to use them? I've seen organizations spend millions on technology, only to watch it sit unused or underutilized. And this has nothing to do with the tools, but because the people behind them weren’t equipped or prepared to make them work. Every digital shift brings the same question to the surface: Have we upskilled our people as much as we updated our systems? Change is hard, and it brings uncertainty. This is why transformation has to also occur on the cultural level—and culture starts with leadership. Managers must act as coaches. They have to guide their teams through new territory with empathy and purpose. This means involving them early, listening to their concerns, and giving them the resources and support they need to succeed. Technology can make work faster. But people make work better. And when we invest in both with equal focus, the future of work actually works.

Seven months ago, I sat down with Justin Segal, President of Boxer Property, to explore how artificial intelligence would reshape commercial real estate beyond the GenAI hype cycle. Reflecting on that conversation today, I see how quickly the line between experimentation and reality has blurred. Through my journey of deploying these technologies, especially in applying AI architectures within Finance, I have concluded that true operational ROI is achievable if built with the right structural guardrails. When processes are bounded within a well-defined agentic architecture, the efficiency gains are clear. The highest-impact applications in commercial real estate arise where data complexity meets operational bottlenecks: 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐏𝐢𝐩𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐔𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: Significant value in using agentic systems to ingest, extract, and standardize thousands of unstructured lease agreements, loan documents, and offering memorandums in minutes instead of days. 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐏𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐨 𝐒𝐮𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: Continuous tracking of physical asset performance, tenant health data, and complex cash management flows enables us to flag critical risk metrics long before they appear on a standard spreadsheet. 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐌𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐞-𝐎𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐎𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: The advantage lies in seamlessly managing complex property accounting, construction draw schedules, and multi-jurisdictional compliance reporting without the need for linear headcount scaling. Looking at the broader landscape, I believe the next phase of transformation will not rely on systems that merely predict the next text token. The future belongs to autonomous, objective-driven systems built around predictive world models and spatial intelligence, as championed by innovators like Yann LeCun and the team at AMI - Advanced Machine Intelligence. Commercial real estate fundamentally revolves around physical, structural, and spatial realities, necessitating an AI architecture that comprehends cause, effect, and the physical environment. You can watch the full archive video of our discussion to see how we mapped out this strategic evolution: https://lnkd.in/dqHRFgXa #PropTech #CommercialRealEstate #CRE #RealEstateInvesting #PropertyManagement #ArtificialIntelligence #AIForBusiness #Innovation #FutureOfWork #Tech #AgenticAI #SpatialAI #WorldModels autoCIO 1BusinessWorld Cambridge Judge Business School

The system didn’t crash. The people did. A hospital launched a sleek new documentation system; 🔸 Training? Done 🔸 Interface? Clean 🔸 Leadership? Proud By the end of Week 1: 🔸 Nurses were scribbling on post-its 🔸 Doctors opened a shadow Google Doc 🔸 Admins retyped notes just to “make the system look used” No one raised alarms. No one filed complaints. They just.. worked around it. From the boardroom, it looked like success. On the ward, it felt like sabotage. This is not uncommon in big hospitals, small clinics, and everywhere in between. The tech might change, but the pattern doesn’t. And with AI tools, interoperability mandates, and shrinking workforces hitting all at once, getting this balance wrong costs more than ever. Because when transformation is treated as just an IT project, it wobbles. When it wobbles, staff feel it. And when staff feel it, patients feel it even more. Real transformation happens when people, systems, and technology move together. If one lags, the whole thing tilts. That alignment doesn’t happen because you held a training session. It happens because you manage the change, the beliefs, the behaviors, the trust. Change management isn’t “send an email and cross your fingers”. It’s: 🔹 Surfacing resistance before it hardens 🔹 Involving frontline voices, not just top-down decisions 🔹 Creating safety to fail, reflect, and iterate 🔹 Addressing the emotional toll of “yet another system” People don’t resist technology. They resist systems that make them feel unheard, unsupported, and replaceable. The bigger picture: 🔹 People need to believe in the change and see their role in it 🔹 Systems need to adapt so workflows make sense 🔹 Technology needs to fit into those workflows, not bulldoze them Miss one, and the transformation tips over (as I like to say: Transformation isn’t an upgrade, it’s an alignment). Let's go beyond noise💡 What’s a time you saw the tech work, but the transformation fails, and why? === 🍎 Missed my previous posts? Stay updated though my WhatsApp channel (no numbers shared) www.gobeyondnoise.com/#wa Like, repost if the content resonates with you. 🍎 This post is part of 'Rethinking Digital Health Innovation' (RDHI) #GoBeyondNoise

𝗔𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵. 𝗡𝗼 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁. A few weeks ago, I watched a brilliant GenAI demo at a client. There was energy in the room - ambition, senior leadership support, and a genuine sense that this could be a turning point. But when I spoke to different stakeholders afterwards, I realized something unsettling: no one felt responsible for what comes next. Not because they didn’t believe in it. But because taking ownership would mean stepping into internal resistance, navigating politics, and absorbing a massive time investment - without clear support structures or incentives. Interestingly, I’m not even sure the organization as a whole is aware of this gap. The board is fully behind the transformation. The vision is there. But somewhere between strategy and execution, the ownership disappears. And so the bot remains a promising pilot. A symbol of potential that might never scale. 𝗕𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗔𝗜 𝗶𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗮 𝘁𝗼𝗼𝗹 - 𝗶𝘁’𝘀 𝗮 𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝗿. It surfaces all the tensions that already exist in an organization: unclear ownership, siloed structures, fragile incentives. Not because the technology demands it, but because real transformation does. Most companies aren’t underinvested in AI. 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆’𝗿𝗲 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲. It makes me wonder: what if more organizations embraced the ecosystem? Brought in partners not just for tools, but for traction? Offloaded some of that internal resistance to teams built to move fast? Because what I keep seeing is that it’s not the technology that fails. It’s the lonely burden of trying to drive change without air cover. 𝗜𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗔𝗜 𝗮𝘀 𝗮𝗻 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗼 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 - 𝗼𝗿 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗼𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘀? #GenAI #Leadership #AI #DigitalTransformation #Ownership #EcosystemThinking

I’ve seen businesses spend millions on digital… and forget to bring their people with them. Earlier in my career, working in Ecommerce roles at Burberry, Pentland Brands and Ted Baker, I saw huge investment in platforms, systems and digital capability. The ambition was always right: transform the business and serve customers better. But one lesson became very clear. Technology doesn’t transform businesses. People using it do. If teams aren’t brought on the journey… If they don’t understand the change… If they don’t feel confident using the tools… Even the best technology struggles to deliver. The transformations that succeed aren’t just about systems. They’re about people. 👥

𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐬. 𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐝𝐨. Every year, billions are invested in transformation programmes. Yet research from McKinsey suggests that nearly 70% fail to achieve their intended outcomes. The common explanation is usually technology. More often, the real issue is leadership. Saudi Arabia makes this point well. Ranking first in the 2025 ICT Development Index with a digital economy contributing SAR 495 billion to the national GDP, the Kingdom has built a world-class foundation for transformation. - The infrastructure is in place.  - The investment is there.  - The ambition is clear. That matters because it removes the usual excuse of technology limitations. When a market has already built these foundations, access to technology stops being the constraint, and stops being the differentiator. What you decide to do with that capability becomes the differentiator instead. This is why so many organisations invest in AI, automation, and cloud yet still struggle to move outcomes. The technology is rarely the problem. The decisions surrounding it usually are. Even in technology-led transformation, the hardest questions are leadership questions: 1- What problem are we solving? 2- Who owns the outcome? 3- How will success be measured? 4- What processes need to change? 5- What should we stop doing? How an organisation answers these decides whether transformation delivers or stalls, long before any platform goes live. Transformation isn't a deployment. It's a series of decisions about strategy, governance, accountability, adoption, and customer value. While technology can accelerate the transformation journey, decision-making sets direction. #DigitalTransformation #Leadership #SaudiArabia #Tech