Artificial Intelligence (AI) is all around us. Not as the devious chrome-plated robot movies primed us to envision, but as Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s suggestive search results and Tesla’s self-driving cars. Several industries are putting AI to use to improve sales efforts, manufacturing and customer service. But does AI have a place in the apartment industry? It most certainly does.

AI Explained

Artifical Intelligence is designed to emulate organic thought processes. The most common form of AI you’ll find in use today is the artificial neural network, or ANN. ANNs mimic the basic organization of neurons in the brain and use that structure to detect patterns in large sets of data.

ANNs and other types of machine learning models start out as blank slates and must be trained on very large data sets to learn how to process and classify that type of data. The training is similar, in many ways, to how you were trained at a young age to speak by building a mental model that associates things with certain sounds.

ANNs must be trained to properly associate a certain set of inputs with a certain set of outputs. They can then start predicting outputs based on the inputs. Of course, it’s not perfect. Sometimes the outputs are incorrect, in which case, the training process repeats until the target is achieved.

Machine learning rarely produces exact predictions, but rather probabilities that allow us to detect patterns in large sets of data and use those probabilities to inform the decisions we make. And just like you, machine learning models get more accurate as time goes on and it has more data to compare.

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The Future Is Now

Artificial intelligence isn’t just for tech giants. The multifamily industry is taking advantage of the technology to streamline the leasing process. To start, LeaseHawk has revolutionized traditional call tracking with the introduction of AI-powered lead analysis.

Using AI, we analyze call recordings to reveal the advertising origin of the call and determine if the caller is a prospect with leasing intent. The insights are then populated into actionable business intelligence reports, so property owners and management companies can know the true value of their advertising spend.

Our AI lead analysis takes the multifamily industry a giant step closer to improved advertising transparency, giving owners and managers the ability to better manage their marketing spend. It also paves the way for other industry applications of AI.

Another AI technology from LeaseHawk takes automated call answering and chatbots to the next level. ACE™ Virtual Leasing Assistant is the multifamily industry’s first virtual leasing agent. It uses powerful Natural Language Processing (NLP) and speech synthesis to answer leasing office phone calls, text messages, and chat across your entire digital marketing ecosystem. It answers questions, collects guest card information, assists with work orders, and sets appointments. According to Econsultancy, 79% of consumers say they prefer chat functions because they don’t have to wait on hold and can get their questions answered immediately. ACE shows this stat to be true with its successful conversion rate of turning inbound calls to appointments. In fact, 31 percent of prospect calls, answered by ACE (Jan. 1 – Sept. 30, 2019) resulted in an appointment being set. To compare, the industry average for human leasing agents to covert a phone call to appointment was 38% in Q3 of 2019.

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What’s to Come

Artificial intelligence is developing rapidly, and LeaseHawk is at the forefront of using these latest innovations for the multifamily industry.

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Just consider the possibilities:

Maintenance

Imagine never having to call maintenance out in the middle of the night again. Artificial intelligence can read environmental cues to suggest preventive maintenance and predict equipment failures. This means you won’t have to keep excess parts on hand in order to fix problems quickly or inconvenience tenants while waiting for parts to be delivered.

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Energy Efficiency

Similar to automated thermostats that read when individual users are home and adjust temperatures internally, artificial intelligence systems take it several steps further by tracking and analyzing human presence and movement. Currently in use in some commercial buildings, these systems can take into account occupancy, people’s locations in the building, weather and time of day to make the most efficient use of energy resources.

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Property Management

Residents may never have to fill out a web form, call or come into a leasing office again to report issues, manage energy billing or pay rent. Artificial intelligence is making these tasks possible for residents to check off their to-do lists from the comfort of their apartment homes using chatbots and devices like Amazon Alexa and Google Home.

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Measuring Leasing Agent Performance

Property managers and owners can measure the sales performance of their leasing agents on phone calls using AI. Here’s how it works: first it records and transcribes every inbound first-time prospect call to text, then it analyzes and scores the call based on best practices set by multifamily experts. The results give property managers and owners insight into their leasing agents’ telephone skills with prospects, and their ability to set an appointment and collect guest cards. Interested in this tech? LeaseHawk can measure your Agent Performance using AI providing you instant results—no more waiting for mystery shop reports that take weeks!

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Advertising and Marketing

Think your marketing efforts and online ads are targeted now? Just wait until artificial intelligence gets involved. Rather than displaying ads for wide groups of people based on demographics or search history, artificial intelligence can capture and analyze the demographics and IP addresses of people who click on apartment ads and then serve up those same ads to people most like them, and therefore most likely to also click.

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Answering Calls and Setting Appointments

With all the technology available today, prospective tenants are still most likely to call your property (59 percent) versus email (23 percent) and text (18 percent) for information. Leveraging technology that uses Natural Language Processing (NLP), like ACE, could answer these calls for you.

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What else is on the horizon remains to be seen, but you can bet LeaseHawk will continue to be at the forefront of integrating AI into its technology. LeaseHawk is uniquely qualified to develop AI solutions that will help elevate the multifamily leasing industry into a more profitable, technology-focused and data-driven future. Learn more about LeaseHawk’s latest AI-powered technology, ACE™ Virtual Leasing Assistant here: leasehawk.com/ace.

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