The New York Times reports that an increasing number of property managers are using artificial intelligence to handle all the work related to property rentals. These chatbots—provided by companies like EliseAI, based in New York, which serves the owners of about 2.5 million apartments in the U.S., including some managed by Greystar—can answer questions, manage complaints and issues, and even prompt rent payments.

The bots relieve large landlords—who own hundreds of properties—from a huge amount of work; they are also "customizable," with different names and personalities depending on the task they handle: from tenant relations, utility management, paperwork, and maintenance, 24/7, and they can even speak with various accents and tones of voice. According to Minna Song, CEO of EliseAI, who aims to make her assistants as human-like as possible, they are so believable that some people “go to the leasing office and ask for Elise.” This is one of the points that has raised the most concerns, as some believe that tenants should be informed that they are interacting with a bot, although most U.S. states currently have no laws regarding this.

Chatbots have long been used in customer service across various industries, from travel companies to online stores and so on. However, in the context of rental management, they are raising some concerns because while it is true that they are highly efficient, especially in follow-up maintenance, they might be less "empathetic" towards tenants. Additionally, since they tend to sound very confident in what they say, they could make mistakes just to provide an answer. Therefore, it is still necessary for a human to monitor them. According to a report published in 2023 by the McKinsey Global Institute, “the money and time saved by these new technologies could generate more than $110 billion in value for the real estate industry”.

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