AI needs access to accurate data. Most firms aren't ready.
If your quarterly reporting is still manual, your data isn't ready for AI.
Every real estate COO and CFO is getting the same pitch:
AI will transform your portfolio management. Predictive analytics. Automated reporting. Portfolio optimisation.
It's all true. But there's a prerequisite nobody mentions: AI needs access to accurate data.
If your quarterly reporting takes 2 weeks of manual work, if you can't answer board questions without chasing 5 people, if your data lives across property managers, fund accountants, and ESG platforms you don't control, your data isn't ready for AI.
The Real Gap: Data Foundations
Investors and operators deploying AI today didn't start with AI. They spent years fixing their data foundations first:
Built unified data warehouses (one source of truth)
Automated data ingestion from all sources
Established data governance and quality standards
Gained full ownership and programmatic access to their data
Then they added AI. Because AI amplifies what you have. If you have messy data, AI makes it worse. If you have accurate, structured, accessible data, AI is transformational.
A simple assessment
Five questions that show if you're ready for AI:
How long does quarterly reporting take?
If it's more than a few hours, your data isn't unified.
Can you answer board questions immediately?
If you need to ask 5 people across different teams, your data isn't accessible.
Do you own your data?
If it's locked in vendor platforms you can't programmatically access, you can't build on it.
Is there one version of truth?
If different teams have different numbers for the same metrics, your data isn't clean.
Can you deploy AI today?
If the honest answer is "we'd need to clean up our data first," you're not alone. But you're not ready.
What AI-ready looks like
Firms that are successfully deploying AI have three things in common:
Unified data warehouse
All property, financial, and operational data in one place. One source of truth. Built in their own cloud environment, not a vendor's platform.
Automated ingestion
Regular data feeds from property managers, fund accountants, valuers, ESG platforms. Validated, quality-checked, and loaded automatically. No manual quarterly scrambles.
Full ownership
They own the infrastructure. They control the data. They can integrate any AI tool, switch vendors, or build custom models without being locked in.
Our take
AI is real, and it will transform real estate portfolio management. We've built some incredible AI tools ourselves. But running an AI pilot on messy data is just an expensive way to discover your data is messy.
Fix the foundation first.
Build a unified data warehouse. Automate ingestion. Establish quality standards. Own your infrastructure.
The work will take a few months, but then your AI will actually work.
We've built these platforms for Europe's largest operators. We know what it takes. If you want an honest assessment of where you are and what it would take to get ready, let's talk.
Let's talk
No pressure, no sales pitch. Just a conversation about your data challenges. We can meet at your place, ours, or on Teams.