Where your agency sits in the AI quadrant (and why it matters)

Ben White spent the past year watching property management agencies split into two camps: those leaning into AI, and those in wait-and-see mode.

His theory about what separates them has nothing to do with the technology itself. It's about clarity.

Ben sat down with Samantha McLean from Elite Agent to unpack why AI is actually a cultural problem, not a tech one, and what that means for the future of property management.

For years, building new products or features meant long development cycles and significant investment. That created a natural barrier between having an idea and bringing it to life.

"When product was much harder to build, it was a tech problem," Ben said. "Now I think it's a cultural problem."

AI has democratised product development. Anyone with an idea can create something functional.

The hard part isn't building anymore. The hard part is knowing what to build. And you can't answer that unless you understand how you create value for customers.

Ben offered a framework built on two questions:

Your answers place you in one of four quadrants, and each one leads somewhere different.

If you believe the property manager is at the centre and the job will stay the same, you're building AI that helps property managers do their current job faster. "If you see your job as taking photos and writing a report, you're in competition with your inspection app," Ben said.

If you believe the landlord is at the centre but the job stays the same, you're headed for the direct-to-landlord model. "That person is putting the landlord at the centre and assuming the future is to take your salary."

But there's another option, and it's the one Ben is betting on. "I think property management is one place where you create and nurture ongoing customer relationships with everyone in the community."

The quadrant you choose determines whether AI threatens your business or transforms it.

Ben pointed out something most agencies haven't reckoned with yet.

"If you look at the P&L of a property management business, the most important fee is the fee for collecting rent. It's 80% of the revenue," he said. "Honestly, how much time does it take you to collect rent?"

There's a misalignment between where value sits and how agencies charge for it.

This is where the opportunity sits. Not in automating what property managers already do, but in systematising the things that actually create value such as risk management, capital improvement planning, energy efficiency upgrades, or maintenance strategies that protect capital value.

Ben believes AI will strain agency culture more than anything that's come before.

"It tests whether or not you're committed to the customer and your commitment to innovate and change," he said.

If your culture is built around doing the same thing over and over, AI will replace you. If your culture is built around judgment, context and relationships, AI becomes an enabler.

"People want to be challenged, push themselves and create something," Ben said.

You have to be optimistic to see the path forward clearly, Ben said.

"A precondition to seeing the future is optimism. If you're optimistic that you can create value, and you can create more value over time, the pathway's a lot clearer than people think it is."

Property management has every ingredient you'd want in a post-AI world. It's built around the most important asset people have. It's local. It's relationship-based. It's full of human dynamics and emotion.

But that only holds true if you believe property management is more than collecting rent and fixing ovens.