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PROPTECH-X : News Roundup – Seven Days of Articles & Analysis

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  1. Back to the future – is ConTech still in the foothills or at the summit?
  2. Will construction sites be human-free by 2050?
    1. Analysis – December 2025
  4. AI will not replace Estate Agents, but it will expose them
  5.  

Back to the future – is ConTech still in the foothills or at the summit?

Andrew Stanton article originally published by Unissu – then subsequiently appeared in RICS publication 9th January 2020

‘ConTech, which may or may not be a subset of PropTech, is in its infancy and receives only a tiny percentage of the tech sector funding budget, so in the next 30-years it is unlikely to become a mature technology. But, these two factors are not the main inhibitors to digital progress. 

Construction sites fall into the category of ‘the built world’ where data is driving a cleverer way to build productivity and communication through the supply chain. We have all heard about ‘smart’ or ‘automated buildings’ where linked tech, make the space more responsive. At present we are only tinkering at the edges, concentrating on making lived in space a more comfortable cave to hang out in, either at work or at home.

There are exceptions, like Distech Controls who design spaces which “integrate disparate building systems from multiple vendors into one open platform, and dashboards that provide insight and visibility into operations, alarms such as equipment faults, and trends including energy usage.”

Similarly, HB Reavis are blazing the trail in the built workspace sector, with a tech/holistic approach, or as they say Symbiosy – a “mutual symbiosis between a space and the people.” Projects like the Nivy Tower in Bratislava, the upcoming Vinohradska in Prague and DSTRCT Berlin. But though the design systems will be utilising tech, it will be humans creating the reality.

With ConTech, there might be oportunities to further innovate in construction sites

I know you may be thinking, we have the tech to automate most industries, so surely Con Tech, through artificial intelligence and robotics, could easily dominate the construction sector – especially if construction moves towards digital prefabricated modular design.

ICON construction has Vulcan the robot, capable of 3D printing a property in 72-hours. Then there is SAM 100, the American Semi-Automated Mason, a bricklaying robot able to lay brick more than six times faster than a human: it does not rest, and it does not become injured. Or Hadrian X, the Australian robot with an inbuilt CAD system used for project management and construction, aided by dynamic stabilisation, which is undergoing final trials.

Maybe we are close to a technological watershed, an end to the thousands of accidents and fatalities in the construction sector worldwide, and a more planned and less wasteful industry.

“Maybe we are close to a technological watershed, an end to the thousands of accidents and fatalities in the construction sector worldwide, and a more planned and less wasteful industry. ”

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Well yes, perhaps, but the example of the aerospace industry is useful; when I was a boy we landed on the moon, but the tech and resources were a massive dollar cost. So, 40-years later, spaceflight is not the norm, though mass production of small satellites may be on the up (and of course Elon Musk the space aviator is on a mission – though he has deep pockets).

Lack of investment is a primary factor holding back the introduction of a seamless automated, efficient and much needed disruptor to the industry. So too, people. And, as I saw recently in a successful award winning proptech pitch given by Nucon to HB Reavis, continued use of paper is an equally major stumbling block.

Let’s talk money: construction is a multi-billion-dollar game world-wide, next year it will generate US$ 24,334bn (in America alone it will generate US$ 1,293bn revenue). If you do the maths, you will see that there are some strong vested interests to keep the humans in construction, and some pretty big drivers to get Con Tech involved with all processes.

“Lack of investment is a primary factor holding back the introduction of a seamless automated, efficient and much needed disruptor to the industry. So too, people. But continued use of paper is an equally major stumbling block. ”

Let’s talk people: the big sticking point, putting aside unions, financial interests, etc is us humans. In America there are 7.2 million humans in construction; in China over 56 million are involved in building properties. Economically what are these people going to be doing if they leave the sector?

Finally, let’s talk paper: Malaysian based Nucon expounded a solution to the 20% cost of waste caused by defective processes in the built construction sector; at the heart of the company’s solution was the hidden fact that most of the construction industry is run on paper – not just in the planning phase, but at every painful point of the supply chain. Then, when defects occur, that is all written down as well.

This needs to be remedied and standardised globally, creating significant savings, efficiencies and transparency. This will allow for a ‘new way’ of constructing buildings. It will not be an overnight process.

Intriguingly, ConTech is the solution to the pivotal paradox that construction has: a massive and unending skills shortage, dating back three decades. This is why we should embrace the relentlessly efficient and never-sleeping machines that will, in time, plan, execute and build our shimmering utopian cities.

Analysis – December 2025

‘Here’s a data-supported assessment of whether Andrew Stanton’s RICS article from around five years ago about construction sites being human-free by 2050 was accurate, overly optimistic, or misplaced — based on technology, industry practice, labour markets, and current trends in automation (as of late 2025)’.

1. Stanton’s Core Claim (RICS 2020)

In the RICS article, Stanton argued that: ConTech (construction technology, including AI and robotics) might fundamentally change construction. That there was potential for highly automated construction sites and reduced reliance on human labour by 2050. However, the article also emphasised that ConTech was immature, under-funded, and not yet a mature industry — meaning that large-scale automation at that time was unlikely without significant investment and momentum.

Bottom line of the original position, Stanton did not assert that sites for sure would be human-free by 2050, but rather that the idea was a possible future enabled by automation — contingent on overcoming structural barriers.

Andrew Stanton

Read the article in full

Andrew Stanton CEO Proptech-PR


AI will not replace Estate Agents, but it will expose them

The question of whether AI will replace UK estate agents is often framed as a binary proposition: survival or extinction. This is the wrong question.  

By Andrew Stanton

The question of whether artificial intelligence will replace UK estate agents is often framed as a binary proposition: survival or extinction. This framing is intellectually lazy and strategically misleading. The more important, and more uncomfortable, reality is that AI will not eliminate estate agency as a profession, but it will decisively strip away roles, behaviours, and business models that have relied on friction, opacity, and inefficiency rather than expertise.

Artificial intelligence is exceptionally good at reducing transaction costs. It excels at speed, pattern recognition, scale, and consistency. In estate agency, these capabilities map directly onto many of the activities that have historically consumed time and justified headcount: enquiry handling, applicant qualification, appointment booking, CRM administration, listing optimisation, marketing automation, and increasingly, algorithmic pricing guidance. The implication is unavoidable. Any agency whose value proposition is materially dependent on these functions is structurally vulnerable.

What AI is dismantling is not the profession itself, but the assumption that operational labour equates to value.

Yet property transactions are not mechanistic exchanges. They are complex socio-economic events shaped by emotion, power asymmetry, local knowledge, and imperfect information. Buyers do not behave rationally. Sellers anchor on aspiration rather than evidence. Chains collapse for reasons that cannot be reverse-engineered from historical datasets. In this environment, judgement, negotiation, and accountability remain central, and they remain human.

This is where the replacement narrative breaks down. Artificial intelligence can model markets, but it cannot inhabit them. It can estimate price, but it cannot persuade a buyer to stretch, nor a seller to concede. It can optimise listings, but it cannot absorb blame when a deal fails, nor rebuild confidence when trust erodes. These functions are not peripheral to estate agency; they are its irreducible core.

However, acknowledging this is not a defence of the status quo. On the contrary, AI is about to expose a long-standing problem within the industry: a significant proportion of agents have operated as intermediaries rather than experts. When access to portals, coordination of viewings, and basic market commentary were scarce, this model persisted. In a data-rich, automated environment, it becomes indefensible.

The estate agent of the future will not be measured by activity, but by judgement. Their value will lie in pricing strategy rather than price delivery, in negotiation rather than facilitation, and in risk management rather than progression chasing. AI will compress the time required to transact, but it will simultaneously raise the standard for professional contribution. Fewer agents will be needed, but those who remain will command greater influence and, potentially, greater remuneration.

From a Proptech perspective, this shift represents a reconfiguration of the industry’s value chain rather than a disruption event. Technology will not disintermediate agents wholesale; it will stratify them. Firms capable of integrating AI meaningfully will scale expertise rather than headcount. Those unable or unwilling to do so will find their margins eroded as previously monetised inefficiencies disappear.

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The provocative conclusion is this: artificial intelligence is not a threat to good estate agents. It is a threat to mediocre ones. It will not replace professionals who add insight, confidence, and accountability to inherently uncertain transactions. But it will rapidly delegitimise roles that mistake busyness for value.

Andrew Stanton

Read the article in full

Andrew Stanton CEO Proptech-PR

 

 

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Andrew Stanton Founder & Editor of 'PROPTECH-X' where his insights, connections, analysis and commentary on proptech and real estate are based on writing 1.3M words annually. Plus meeting 1,000 Proptech founders, critiquing 400 decks and having had 130 clients as CEO of 'PROPTECH-PR', a consultancy for Proptech founders seeking growth and exit strategies. He also acts as an advisory for major global real estate companies on sales, acquisitions, market positioning & operations. With 200K followers & readers, he is the 'Proptech Realestate Influencer.'

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