Proptech’s Buzziest Buzzword: Workflow

Agentic artificial intelligence is bringing together data platforms and management tools to create the missing underlying technology layer that appears to be the next step for proptech users.

The result is the word on everyone’s lips in the industry today: workflow.

“For the past two decades, most of proptech has been focused on two main layers: data, your marketplace data primarily, and [customer] management tools and dashboards to help firms track pipeline, reporting and internal oversight,” said David Young, founder and CEO at Manhattan-based Enaia, a prospecting and deal management platform for commercial real estate brokers. “And the reason why that’s so important is because the rise of agentic AI has to exist within a full, complete workflow. This industry is filled with point solutions that are disconnected.”

What has historically been missing is the workflow layer, the place where the actual work of commercial real estate happens, Young added. Prospecting companies, managing client relationships, analyzing documents, collaborating with partners, and preparing client deliverables — those are still often spread across multiple disconnected tools.

“To build exceptional workflows, you have to think about digitizing a profession, not a process,” Young said. “The reason workflow software has been neglected is simple: It’s really hard to build.  It’s much easier to build within the data layer or management layer than within the workflow layer, so companies are often reluctant to commit to the process required to build extraordinary workflows focused on the user experience. But this is where AI’s core value can be best activated.”

In Young’s view, the rise of agentic AI is making the workflow layer even more important, because it becomes more powerful when operating directly inside professional workflows — researching prospects, analyzing proposals, preparing reports, and assisting decision-making in real time. 

“Without a strong workflow layer, it becomes difficult to fully realize that potential,” he said.

While Young noted that the term “workflow” can be traced to the 19th century’s Industrial Revolution with its emphasis on increased efficiency and production, Patrick Ghilani, CEO at real estate technology giant MRI Software, focused on a more recent derivation tied to software.

“I actually always used the word workflow,” said Ghilani. “When you think about traditional enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, going back to the `80s and early `90s — when large-scale ERP became very popular — it’s the idea of taking a multitude of connected business functions and making them into a much more connected way of doing business. I think it is a buzzword for something that has historically been the ultimate goal.

“And the word is becoming so popular now because AI by definition allows the agentic connectivity of so much information in a more efficient way. When it was just humans doing it, we called it ERP, we called it methodology, we called it process. Workflow is just the more modern moniker.”

Ghilani explained that for MRI’s business, AI acts as a “great connector,” enabling the company to integrate multiple systems and create personalized solutions for various regions and compliance needs. AI may displace some point solutions, but it also opens new possibilities for innovative startups, he said.

“People forget that AI is software,” Ghilani said. “Software companies are AI companies, and if you’re a software company, five years from now you will still be a software company. You probably won’t be called an AI company, you will be called a technology company. I think that’s the era we’re in. We see the maturation of the technology that is hugely impactful, but it will be the standard.”

The move toward workflow solutions is putting a number of point solution proptech companies in jeopardy, as the industry embraces integrated platforms that can handle the entire dataset within a built environment.

“Workflows have always been foundational to everything that we have done, because we believe that one of the key ways to providing quantifiable value to the built environment is via this new tech that is being pitched now,” said Edi Demaj, co-founder of Kode Labs, a Detroit-based building management platform. “If you’re only attacking reporting on energy or energy savings, etc., without accounting for the entire tech stack within the built environment, you will inevitably miss the goal of what we believe the built environment needs, which is why the entire data stack that we integrate with is literally the entire dataset within the built environment.”

Even so, some point solutions companies still have their place, said Demaj.

“We believe that there are certain solutions that will continue to exist and need to exist,” he said. “I’ll give you a specific example. Occupancy sensing is going to exist. It’s an important dataset from the built environment in order to drive a whole host of automations, workflows, etc. But you don’t need to build a whole software layer over the top of these sensors anymore, because they need to plug into a platform like Kode in the entire data stack. Otherwise, I have to go to your platform and go to another and then go to another. That’s solving an old problem with new technology, but using the same methodology.”

Elena Beloshapkova, CEO and founder at Boston-based Inspace, an AI-powered workplace platform, also affirmed the primacy of workflow in proptech.

“Workflow isn’t just a buzzword in proptech — it’s the dividing line between companies that will matter and those that won’t,” Beloshapkova said in an email. “For years, the workplace tech stack has been a patchwork of point solutions: one tool for desks, another for rooms, another for visitors, another for service requests. Each one solves a narrow problem, but none of them talk to each other. The result is fragmented operations, frustrated employees, and workplace teams spending their time stitching systems together instead of running great offices.”

Inspace seeks to address that issue through a single intelligent layer, so that employees talk to a single source without having to app-switch or face other friction, she said.

However, she added, point solutions aren’t doomed because they’re bad products necessarily. 

“They’re doomed because they can’t generate the data AI needs to actually work,” Beloshapkova said. “Most workplace platforms average 30 to 35 percent adoption. Inspace hits 96 percent. That’s not just a better user experience, it’s three times the data points feeding our AI, which means dramatically better insights for real estate portfolio decisions, space optimization and operational efficiency. Without high adoption, AI is guessing. With it, AI is predicting.”

In the end — as with so many things in business — it might come down to return on investment.

“’Workflow is more than just the latest buzzword in proptech,” Frank Spadafora, industry principal for real estate at Intapp, a provider of cloud-based software for professional and financial services, said in a statement. “It reflects how work actually gets done across the real estate life cycle as firms take a more vertical, operator-led approach. CRE investors are expanding beyond fund management into full-service operating platforms that help work move seamlessly from sourcing through transaction, asset management and divestiture.”

It’s something “the best real estate operators have known,” Spadafora said. That includes real estate investment trusts (REITs). 

“Control the workflow, and you control the returns,” he said. “Tangible, proven value creation is already found in segments. Consider vertically integrated REITs, where connected workflows from development through leasing and management consistently drive 100 to 300 basis points of excess returns, higher development and NOI margins, and faster lease-up. Ultimately, integrated workflows don’t just drive efficiency. They create the structured, compliant, continuous data foundation for the deployment of emerging AI capabilities. AI-enabled connected systems enable firms’ focus to evolve from chasing data to deploying transformative agents, skills, and playbooks at scale.”

The current jones for workflow is part of a correction for proptech, according to Konrad Koczwara, CEO and founder at ElevateOS, a resident app and services platform.

“Proptech spent a decade creating fragmentation,” Koczwara said in an email. “The next phase is consolidation around platforms that actually run the business, not just support a function.”

Philip Russo can be reached at prusso@commercialobserver.com.