The invisible world of โworked judgementโ that all AI-generated decks sit on
Todd Terry (Pictured above) is the co-founder and CTO of Ascendix Technologies. Over the years, Todd has designed and delivered solutions for many thousands of users from Fortune 500 companies in financial services and commercial real estate to a variety of small and mid-market B2B enterprises. Along with enterprise CRM solutions, he has also delivered innovative software products leveraging technologies in cloud computing, big data, natural language search and cross-platform mobility.
In a recent thought leadership piece see LINK, Todd articulates the position that, โAI promised commercial real estate professionals it would automate the deck, the memo, and the pitch. It delivered. But every high-stakes deck sits on a body of work you cannot see. The preparation, the objections, the alternatives, the sourcing. AI can make that body of work easier to draft and easier to keep, yet too often the reasoning still disappears after the deck is done.โ Todd calls that that body of work the deal file. And he goes on to explain what it is, and why AI-generated decks often fall apart without it, and how to prevent this from happening.
Todd further explains that the deal file is the body of worked judgment behind every important commercial real estate deliverable. It contains the alternatives considered, the risks assessed, the objections anticipated, the recommendation logic and the sources behind the claims. A deck may be the visible output, but the deal file is what makes that output defensible when someone starts asking difficult questions. It is the preparation that sits underneath the recommendation and gives the team confidence that the conclusion can withstand scrutiny.
This distinction has become increasingly important as artificial intelligence becomes embedded in commercial real estate workflows. For several years, AI development has concentrated heavily on making the final deliverable faster and more attractive. Generate the slides. Format the memo. Improve the language. Produce the recommendation. The technology has become remarkably good at this part of the process.
But the deliverable was never the hardest part of high-stakes commercial real estate work. The difficult part is the thinking behind it.
Under an investment committee presentation, for example, there may be a detailed comparable set and the reasoning behind why particular properties were selected. There may be downside scenarios that never appeared on a slide, alternative assets that were considered and rejected, assumptions that required testing and objections that the team expected the investment committee to raise.
That is the worked judgment that makes the final recommendation meaningful. Without it, an impressive presentation can quickly fall apart under questioning.
Every serious CRE deliverable can effectively be viewed as having three layers.
The first is context: leases, rent rolls, emails, CRM records, market information and the other source material that provides the raw information.
The second is the deal file, where that information is turned into worked judgment.
The third is the trust envelope, which carries the evidence behind the finished deliverable and allows a reader to understand which claims are sourced, derived, assumed or unsupported.
Andrew Stanton CEO Proptech-PR
The commercial building is becoming the technology platform
For decades, commercial property owners have largely viewed technology as a cost of operating a building, while much of the technology and connectivity within a property has been regarded as something for the tenant to arrange and manage. But that model is changing. Building technology and the data it generates are increasingly becoming valuable assets in their own right, capable of improving operational performance, enhancing the tenant experience and, ultimately, increasing the value of the property.
This was one of the central themes of a recent episode of the Peak Property Performance podcast, How Owners Use Technology and Operational Intelligence to Drive Asset Performance which examined how commercial property owners can use technology and operational intelligence to drive asset performance. The discussion focused on Esperia, a huge former Sprint corporate campus in Overland Park, Kansas. The site covers approximately four million square feet across 200 acres and includes 17 office buildings, 14 parking garages, its own power plant, extensive fibre infrastructure and a wide range of amenities.
What makes the example particularly interesting is that the technology was not simply being used to make the buildings more convenient. It was being treated as part of the underlying property asset.
The owners discovered that the campus already contained an enormous amount of fibre and technology infrastructure. Rather than expecting every tenant to install and manage its own connectivity, they took control of that infrastructure and effectively turned connectivity into a service provided by the building. The proposition therefore changes from, โHere is your office space; now arrange your own technology,โ to, โHere is a fully connected, secure and technologically enabled building.โ
That distinction matters. Technology can become a leasing advantage, a tenant-retention tool and potentially a source of additional revenue, rather than simply another operating expense.
The same principle applies to building data. At Esperia, the building-management systems monitor approximately 51,000 data points. That level of visibility can provide early warnings when equipment begins to deteriorate or when systems are not operating as they should. Instead of waiting for a failure to occur, creating an emergency, disrupting a tenant and generating an expensive repair, the owner can use data to identify problems earlier and undertake preventative maintenance.
This represents a fundamental change in the way buildings can be managed. Data turns the building from a largely reactive environment into one that can increasingly be monitored, understood and managed proactively.
Perhaps even more important is the question of who controls that data?
There is an important distinction between personal information generated by people using a building and operational data generated by the building itself. Information about HVAC performance, energy consumption, equipment, building automation, infrastructure, occupancy, utilisation and connectivity is fundamentally different from personal information about individual occupants.
Andrew Stanton CEO Proptech-PR
The age of tenants living in shared houses in the UK is now 35
Thought leadership by Adam Pigott CEO of tlyfe (Openbrix)
โThe headline figure that tenants are now in their mid 30โs and still have to share facilities, not even have the privacy of renting the whole residence shows that there is a fundamental shift in the pattern of occupancy.
For years, the image of a shared house has been closely associated with students, recent graduates and people in their early twenties taking their first steps into independent living. Sharing a kitchen, negotiating the bathroom schedule and putting up with a succession of unfamiliar housemates was often seen as a temporary stage of life before moving into a flat or house of your own.
That picture is changing.
Today, a significant proportion of people living in shared accommodation are well into their careers. They may have full-time jobs, established professional lives and considerably more experience of renting. They may also have very different expectations of the experience.
The shared house has become less of a rite of passage and more of a practical housing solution.
The reasons are not difficult to understand. Rents have increased significantly in many parts of the UK, while the cost of buying a home remains out of reach for many people. For some tenants, sharing is no longer about saving money for a short period before buying or moving on. It is simply the most practical way to secure good-quality accommodation in a location where they want to live.
And that changes the relationship between tenant and landlord.
A 35-year-old tenant is likely to approach renting differently from someone renting their first room at 22. They may have a demanding job, a busy family life or simply less tolerance for processes that feel unnecessarily complicated.
They expect things to work
They expect communication to be straightforward. They expect applications and verification to be handled quickly. They expect documents to be available when they need them and questions to be answered without endless emails and phone calls.
Most importantly, they increasingly expect the technology involved in renting a property to reflect the technology they use everywhere else in their lives.
Consider the contrast. People can open a bank account from their phone, verify their identity digitally, sign contracts electronically, order goods for next-day delivery and manage almost every aspect of their lives online. Yet parts of the rental process can still involve scanning documents, sending emails back and forth, chasing references and waiting for someone to confirm that paperwork has been received.
For tenants, that can feel remarkably out of step with the rest of the world. This is one of the reasons the way technology is designed for the rental market matters.
Andrew Stanton CEO Proptech-PR
