Does AI make proptech SaaS irrelevant?
SaaS traditionally sells access, AI sells outcomes
Thought Leadership by Author Andrew Stanton CEO Proptech-PR
For twenty years, one of the safest assumptions in property technology has been that software companies will become increasingly important. A property business identifies an inefficient process, a proptech company builds software to solve it, and the customer pays a recurring subscription to use that software. It is the SaaS model, and it has created an enormous property technology industry spanning CRM systems, property management platforms, valuation tools, lead-generation systems, compliance platforms, inspection software, transaction platforms, data products and countless other applications. All built around essentially the same proposition: here is a piece of software that makes your business better, and you pay us every month to use it.
But AI introduces a rather uncomfortable question โWhat happens when the customer no longer needs the software? Not because the software is bad, and not because the SaaS company has failed, but because an AI agent can simply do the job itself. That is potentially a much bigger threat to property SaaS than another competitor entering the market.
The interface may become irrelevant
Traditional software requires humans to interact with it. An estate agent opens the CRM, a property manager opens the property management system, a surveyor opens the inspection platform and a commercial agent opens the CRM, research platform and valuation tools. The human is effectively the operating system sitting between all these applications.
AI changes that relationship. Increasingly, the human can simply state an objective: โFind all the landlords whose properties are likely to require compliance action, identify what needs doing, contact them, arrange the necessary appointments and update me when it is complete.โ The AI does not necessarily need the user to open six different applications. It can access the data, interpret it, make decisions within defined parameters, communicate with other systems and execute the workflow.
That is the significance of agentic AI. Gartner describes this as โagentic arbitrageโ: AI agents completing tasks across multiple systems and potentially reducing the need for users to interact with the applications themselves. Gartner estimates that as much as $234 billion of enterprise application software spending could be exposed to this shift by 2030.
Suddenly, the question isnโt โWhich SaaS platform should I buy?โ It becomes โWhy do I need a SaaS platform for this particular task at all?โ
Property may be particularly exposed
The property is full of processes that are fundamentally data and workflow problems. Take a typical property transaction. There may be a CRM, portal, valuation system, document management platform, AML checker, compliance system, conveyancing platform, messaging system, marketing platform and accounting package involved. Each solves a particular problem, but from the customerโs perspective, they are not really buying ten pieces of software. They are trying to sell or let a property.
AI has the potential to sit above those systems and orchestrate the entire process. That doesnโt necessarily mean the underlying software disappears immediately; it does mean that its importance can change dramatically. If the AI is the place where the human interacts with the process, the SaaS application may gradually become infrastructure rather than the product the customer thinks they are buying. That is a profound distinction.
The danger is becoming a feature
There is another problem for proptech founders. AI makes software development dramatically easier. A company that might once have needed a substantial development team to build a property application can increasingly use AI-assisted development to create functionality far more quickly. That means a feature that once represented a significant competitive advantage can become relatively easy to reproduce, and the moat gets thinner.
A clever workflow can become a prompt. A dashboard can become an AI-generated report. A search interface can become a conversation. A data-entry process can become an autonomous agent. And a relatively simple SaaS product can find itself competing against an AI system that doesnโt look anything like conventional software.
JLLโs recent analysis of the CRE technology market captures the question particularly well: if AI can generate working applications quickly and cheaply, corporate real estate leaders have to ask whether they should continue buying licences or build what they need themselves.
Andrew Stanton CEO Proptech-PR
Cloud connectivity and AI are reshaping long-term controller strategies
New Mercury Research Finds Growing Cybersecurity Gap in Physical Access Control Infrastructure
By Author Andrew Stanton CEO Proptech-PR
Press Release โ Cardiff, UK. September 29, 2026 โ Mercury Security, a global leader in open architecture access control hardware and an HID brand, today released its 2026 Trends in Access Controllers Report, revealing how changing cybersecurity requirements, interoperability needs, cloud adoption, and emerging technologies are putting greater emphasis on the role controllers play in long-term physical access control strategy.
Based on a global survey of 561 physical security and cybersecurity professionals, including administrators responsible for access control management, systems integrators, installers and end users, the report found that 78% of respondents consider the controller important or critical to their physical access control system (PACS) strategy, up from 72% in 2025.
This growth reflects the controllerโs expanding role in the security environment. As it connects more devices, systems and applications across the security environment, organizations are placing greater importance on infrastructure that can address current requirements while supporting new capabilities over time.
Cybersecurity represents one of the clearest gaps between respondentsโ requirements and their existing infrastructure. 32% say cybersecurity features are missing from their current controller systems, up from 21% in 2025. The gap comes as 74% reported cybersecurity and IT coordination have become more complex to manage, even as 86% say their organizations actively work to stay current with changing cybersecurity and data protection standards.
โOrganizations recognize the cybersecurity risks facing connected access control systems, but the infrastructure in place isnโt always keeping pace,โ said Steve Lucas, Vice President, Sales, Mercury Security.
โAs they look to modernize, users also want to protect existing investments. That makes interoperability increasingly important and puts more weight on choosing controller platforms that can address current security requirements while providing the flexibility to support what comes next.โ
Andrew Stanton CEO Proptech-PR
Christmas Came Early for Housebuilders
Prime Minister announces โYour First Homeโ buying scheme
Thought Leadership by Olivier Januiax Founder of Nestlink
โSomewhere in a housebuilderโs head office on an unusually warm September Monday morning, a finance director opened the news and did something finance directors rarely do in public.
He smiled.
The Prime Minister had just announced Your First Home.
First-time buyers can buy a new-build home in England with a 2.5% deposit, and the government will lend them up to 20% of the price through an equity loan, interest-free for a while.
How long a while is, what happens afterwards, what the price cap will be and who qualifies will all be revealed in the Autumn statement by the new Chancellor. Very much in the manner of a magician who has shown you the hat but not yet bought the rabbit.
The market did not wait for the rabbit.
By the close, Vistryโs shareprice was up 22%, Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey 15% each, and roughly ยฃ2bn had been added to the sectorโs value. Not a single additional buyer had collected a key. It is rare for a market to say so plainly who a policy is for, and it was the only part of the announcement that needed no further detail.
To be fair to Burnham, and I do want to be fair, he is aiming at the right target. He wants to help first-time buyers โespecially those who canโt call on the Bank of Mum and Dad,โ and that sentence sums up the problem with British housing.
Home ownership has quietly become something you inherit, and a Prime Minister saying so out loud is progress. The diagnosis is right. The prescription is a repeat of one we already know has side effects. Calling it a tiny plaster over huge bleeding wound is barely an exaggeration.
Meet the intended recipient.
Let us call her Jess. She is 27, a nurse, renting a flat in Warrington with a boiler midway through an existential crisis. She has no Bank of Mum and Dad, only a Mum and Dad who send her supermarket vouchers and occasionally a link to a Facebook property listing with the message โIs this near you?โ
Jess is exactly who the scheme is for. A few Saturday mornings later, Jess walks into a sales office on a new estate on the edge of town. It smells of coffee and ambition.
There is a model village under Perspex and a very enthusiastic young man called Tyler. The two-bed flat on the second floor is ยฃ230,000, (which is the governmentโs own worked example, so let us use it). Jess puts down ยฃ5,750. The taxpayer puts in ยฃ46,000.
Her mortgage is ยฃ178,250. Tyler mentions, a little too fast and mumbled, that there is a modest estate management charge, a recommended solicitor who can move very quickly, and a reservation fee payable today to secure the plot, because โPhase Two is flying.โ
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