The problem isn’t new, says Francesca Loftus of EliseAI: Rental property managers are understaffed and overwhelmed.
“We’ve got a lot of customers that have said they know, based on their staffing rates, they're going to struggle to respond to everyone,” said Loftus. “They can be hit with things like fines because they can’t maintain the quality of service that they want to.”
That’s where artificial intelligence is stepping in to do what it’s often sold as doing best: automate workflows and increase efficiencies.
“You can add AI and respond within seconds,” said Loftus.
New York-based EliseAI was formed in 2017 and represents clients that oversee one in six rental units in the U.S., according to Loftus, the company’s chief experience officer. Half a million of the units it represents are affordable housing.
The company integrates AI into nearly every step of the rental process, from AI-guided tours to lease renewals to maintenance orders to payment delinquency management — and it can do it while talking with everyone at the same time. The company says it has saved clients 215 hours in phone calls.
As local governments struggle with a widespread housing affordability crisis, how is AI making a difference? Loftus says it’s all about speed. Instead of languishing on wait lists and leaving properties vacant for extended periods, prospective tenants can get housed faster and more efficiently, according to Loftus.
EliseAI is always learning and can navigate a conversation with a prospective tenant differently based on answers to certain questions. For example, if someone talks about income in a certain way, such as hourly versus annually, the AI can begin to ask questions in a different way to improve the experience, Loftus said.
But there are some things the AI is not flexible about.
“There’s no interpretation for any of those qualifications and compliance items like fair housing [laws],” Loftus said. “We’re not going to interpret any of that.”
The AI does not answer questions it does not have the right information for, which also reduces the likelihood of a hallucination, according to Loftus.
“Our product definitely works with the human team,” Loftus said.
That said, 86.7% of the company’s AI conversations are fully automated and require no human intervention, according to its website.
EliseAI also services the likewise highly regulated healthcare industry and takes data privacy “very seriously,” according to Loftus. It has dedicated “significant resources internally” to protecting sensitive data, and the fact that it has a dedicated healthcare arm often puts its housing clients at ease, she said.
While the company strives to address affordable housing bottlenecks up front, it also wants to make sure “the living experience is high quality.”
"We're bringing back the dignity in ‘affordable,’” Loftus said. “There should be the same quality of reply and response time. Emergencies should be escalated the same way as a Class A building.”
