Applied Ai in a Multifamily Business

Alright, today I'm talking about applied AI in a multifamily business, and this is a framework that I've developed inside and talking with multifamily owners and operators and, obviously, getting educated myself, but also spending my own money developing things. This is a framework that I've used after having Hundreds, actually thousands, of conversations, listening for two years around the current challenges, the current priorities and the current current bigger and better futures that multifamily owners and operators are Trying to create in their organizations, both from a. I'm an employee and I want to do bigger and better things, but my company is so wildly successful they're familiar with a process that that Isn't the best process today. However, they're incredibly successful. So how do I move through that change Right? How do I get them to understand a new way of working that will get them the similar results but also reduce risk and maybe leverage some opportunities? And Then there's the conversation around AI, and then obviously generative AI and then the concept of automation, and Now we're getting into business decisions like centralization, and you know, I look at the corporate office and we've been centralized forever, so a lot of companies are going back to that, but it's not great for everybody and it's not understood by everybody, and and they're in this framework I'm going to share with you today I think it'll give you a lot of pause and how you approach Just purchasing something right now to fix fix a problem. Now I operate around what's called first principles thinking. I'm going to do another episode on what that means if you want to. Before you listen to that, you can Just go to YouTube and learn about what that means it's. It's a really good thinking process that you know.

Elon Musk has said that oftentimes one of the best thing, the best engineers in the world sometimes they Optimize something that shouldn't exist and when you use first principles thinking, you start to think about well, wait, what are we trying to fix a problem? We're putting all this resources into fixing a problem that doesn't exist or shouldn't exist, maybe the step in the process. So my view on all this by not only developing technology, but also spending time with Running these companies and then also spending time with those that have run much bigger and more diverse portfolios than I have, I've got a really good sort of Inside look at this and what I'm going to tell you. The framework that I came up with I'm calling the applied AI and multifamily business. I Believe that it begins and ends with people, and what that means is and and I will I will be providing Webinars and some other training on this framework. But if we think about why we want to automate or why we want AI right in our business, it's because we're looking to Do something that's going to give us a competitive advantage or maybe get the redundant work Away from people because they're quitting, they don't want to work and do these things. We're using software that requires us to copy paste, move something from system A to system B, and and our employees are like Wasting their time on this stuff.

And, by the way, most of the technology and software that you're buying today Our dashboard centered. In other words, they're making the assumption they built that technology with technical debt that you're going to be sitting in front of a computer working and, guess what? Everybody's got a TV, a radio phone, computer in their pocket. They're not even in the offices anymore, like they used to be, right? So all this technology was built with dashboards, right? I don't need to see the dashboard, I need the answer to the equation. I need the answer to the thing so I can make the decision.

So this framework I'm going to share with you is going to take the the idea of bringing AI, generative AI and automations into your business in a way that doesn't require you to take on any risks, upset anything that's already in place, and actually it's going to make your business better, because You're going to think about something that you may not have Thought about as intentional and tell this point. So I'm going to give you the stages, and the goal here is to Think of. I want you to just think about what takes 10 minutes of your time. 10 minutes, all right. If you had to do something for just 10 minutes and you had to do it five times a week, once a day, it's 10 minutes, it's nothing. But you had to do it every day that you were working Monday through Friday and you made every employee do that thing and you had 50 employees.

We're talking about that thing happening 250 times in a given week, with it taking 10 minutes. That's 2,500 minutes to complete that task. If you add that up over a month, that's 10,000 minutes. That's 120,000 minutes a year and that's almost 167 hours a month across the company. And if you're paying people $60,000 a year, fully loaded like insurance and all that stuff, that's like $29 an hour for those 50 people to be doing this. You're paying people a lot of money to do very silly things. If you had all your employees, those 50 people at $60,000 a year, by the way, you're paying people a lot more than that. I know that that would be $1,400 an hour for a meeting. Everybody was in a meeting at the same time. So we're not doing the math right.

And something as simple as that over 50 employees of 10 minute task is almost $60,000 a year to the company as an expense, some $57,000 or something like that. So imagine I can take that 10 minutes and do it in 3 minutes. Would that be better? That would be a 70% automation of the task. And what we're doing is we're going to keep the people in front of the task and at the end of the task, because we like to be comfortable, we like to be involved and, by the way, that's what is the differentiator, that's the magic. It's not going to replace people, it's going to make people smarter, and if the software that you're buying today isn't making you smarter, it's not the right software. So when we can automate 70% of a task a 10 minute task we can take it from 10 minutes to 3 minutes. You take a $57,000 annual expense down to $17,000 annual expense. You know that's what some $40,000 of found money.

If you're a leader, you may not be doing the math. I have the schedules to help you do the math but this is the framework I'm talking about Now, with generative AI paired with business automation, what we're going to do is we're going to accelerate our team's capabilities. Now, in my last episode, I talked about that with the seesaw. The state of AI and how fast it's moving can feel like hype, but it's not. It's just the capabilities aren't there. Well, with generative AI and automation, we can accelerate our capabilities, reinvest in our people. This is going to lead to more profitable and more efficient and more effective and more creative organizations. This is why we're here.

If you're not all in on this stuff, you're missing it. You're leaving money on the table. You're leaving opportunity on the table. You may be leaving your hours, your time, your life on the table, literally like your time, your energy, your momentum. Now I'm going to take you through the phases Again. People begin and end the process. People, your people to be your leasing agent, investor, whatever it is. Your people begin and your people will end the process. Now, this isn't how you have to design it.

I gave you a very easy thing to think about 10 minute task. I did the math for you on a 50 person company. I mean, if you have a 2,500 person company, you can really start to see the impact here. Even at one person, it matters. I said generative AI and automation will take 70% of the thing you're doing. Now I'm not talking about something complicated that's going to hurt the business and put you in as risk. I said a 10 minute task, automating 70% of it. That's what we have to think through. The reason for that is because once people experience this, they'll do more of it. You know what your employees, once they see a 10 minute task go to three minutes and they only had to do the really cool stuff they will see the business differently. They will be looking for opportunities for you instead of threatened by them.

People begin in the process. Let's start with the number one thing. That's where people are. This is your teams. They are going to initiate the process. They're going to define what needs to happen. Then they're going to set these things in motion the automations, the triggers, all these things. Now that's step one People they're going to initiate the process. They're going to understand the task, they know what has to happen in the current state of things, they're going to set those automations in motion.

The second stage is process. This is probably the most underestimated part of the entire equation because it's not interesting. There's no hype around it. There's no SOPs, standard operating procedures. How do we communicate? How do we instructionally design training that people will actually consume and make the business better? With so much turnover, if you don't have a documented process, it's going to be very taxing on you. Now I just did the math on 10 minutes. Imagine how much time does it take to train and retrain somebody? Those numbers are much greater, right?

So a process when we build an automation, we record a video of it, we deploy it, we have a schematic, like an architectural plan. We know what, who's doing things, where is it going, where is it stored, who has access to it right, screenshots, a documentation of written scope of the process in the end, right, and that allows us, like an architect when it builds an apartment building, to make something great. So that's the second step. So the first step was people, the second step is process and that's just really the sequence. The process is like what are these actions that are being taken to make this task happen efficiently? And we're not even talking about AI or automation at this point. We're just like this is what has to happen, in this order.

Now the third thing is AI bringing generative AI and AI AI applications into the business workflow. Now I'm not talking about chat, gpt and prompting and prompt engineering and and doing those things, because those Things are happening out in the public world like toys. Lots of new things are going to spin off from that, but eventually, like in my last episode, it's of the hype. It's like electricity everybody will have it. You've already had it, had it. You had Grammarly, right? You stop trying to spell things. It was in. It's now in every application. There's no longer a differentiator, right? You start your emails, start self Generating suggested messages on text threads, things like that. It's not a differentiator, you are the differentiator.

But when you can bring AI and automations to your unique company, your unique process, your unique people, that's the third step. It's going to enhance decision-making Because it understands the process and understands the sequence of actions and it's going to identify opportunities for optimization For your business, right? So that's the third one AI, so it's people process AI, generative AI into your business. And once you have that, next is automation, and this is where we are reducing the manual effort by 70% and streamlining tasks that need to be executed for your people. Now think about how that's going to unlock people's world life, creative thinking, and that's where we have the platform that moves things through automations and sequences so people can do the work that they love.

The next thing is data, and data drives the automation, because when you're moving this, when you're using generative AI and AI and you're automating it, you have to change the way the data flows. Integrations is only a problem because we don't have access to our own data or you haven't. You haven't changed the way the data flows. Back to my thought around integration, or what Elon must said about. Sometimes we often optimize something that shouldn't exist. The only reason why you have an integration problem is because you don't have a lot of data. The only reason why you have an integration problem is because you don't have your own data. So if you had your own data, you wouldn't need to you, you wouldn't need to get it out. You would have it before it goes in, right, and there's a whole nother conversation on that but data, centralized data, right.

Is that? That other piece? And then that final piece is people that come in behind, right? So you got people that start it with people, process, ai, generative AI, automation, data, people and that's the framework. And that framework what's interesting is for us, we have a platform that brings all that together the process, the AI, the automation and the data and what you do is you sandwich that, right, and with that middle piece, we're taking out 70, 80, 90 percent in many cases, 100 percent of the work, but it's reasonable to say 70 and take a 10 minute task to three and get started. And once you get started, you build more confidence, you build more capabilities and you start taking on more and you're more familiar with it. But the heart of this is this framework.

At first, a lot of people want to go right to automation, or they want to go right to data, or they want to go right to AI, and they haven't factored all these things together on how they integrate together. And that's why we have our platforms. We have inmultifamilycom, which is the automation. We have multifamily GPT, which is the generative AI, the multifamily GPT, generative AI, which means it's not a race to the bottom where everything else is going to be. Everybody else has it, not everybody else is going to have multifamily GPT In a platform that can be accessed and automated through workflows that you've orchestrated with your teams and then we move it into data. So we also have multifamilydataio, which together multifamily GPT with the generative AI automated on inmultifamilycom platform so we can move the tasks around and then, when it's doing the things putting that data in a place that's turning like your spreadsheet into an API, putting those things together multifamily GPT, inmultifamilycom and multifamilydataio those things together are the heart of how you bring all these things into one sequence. That makes the business better and the first phase of this we don't our people begin and end the process. The platform and those technologies happen all the way.

I want to lean into more of the multifamily GPT. Just because why it's different from chat GPT and like a co-pilot and these other things that may exist out there is because are you buying a software today off the shelf from a business? Sometimes somebody makes a technology for many people and then they try and sell it. The problem with that is all these multifamily companies are so unique and different. It's hard to scale, it's hard to grow and it's hard to use those technologies because you're trying to make it do something and it won't do that and you may not have the support or influence over the development of the software. You're trying to make it do something and it won't do that and you may not have the support or influence over the development roadmap to do that.

And so with in multifamily and multifamily GPT, and then, of course, together with multifamilydataio, you have all the tools and all those things and an outside innovation team to help you build the thing that you need in like a microservices, micro solutions or platform approach to make your business better. So a lot of times we think we have to buy technology. In a lot of cases you can just build it. So with Multifamily GPT, you may have a portfolio of 20 properties and you're seeing a lot of large language models do things in the public. And then you're seeing big platforms bring AI to applications, but they're bringing it the same thing to everybody and it's not unique, it's not different. They don't know your customer, they don't know your business objectives, they don't have that model.

So Multifamily GPT allows you to retrieve company data and use it all across the internet with APIs, open APIs to the online database MultifamilyDataio and use it wherever else you want it, but it allows you to use retrieval, which is retrieval, augmented generation, which is RAG, and using embeddings and things like that, leveraging different ways to access the API. That's not training the large language model. So when Multifamily GPT is interacting with your workflow or prompt or whatever you're working on, you may not even need an employee to be involved in it. It may be happening like an agent for you that's 70% but when it does that, it responds with better outcomes and responses because it knows your company avatar, it knows your employees, it knows your values, it's trained on your processes, it knows your loan agreements, whatever that may be. It's things that is unique to you and then, paired with the large language model, is what makes it magical. And so with that platform, we've given you everything that you need to develop your own success, and we also have a support team. We have AI developers on staff. We have a lot of support to take on really complex projects. But at the end of the day, what we're talking about here is a 10-minute task going to three minutes and the incremental value of that over time.

In professional sports. The difference between some of them makes a million dollars a year in baseball and 10 million is one hit a week, one base hit, one bunt, one extra sprint to the beat out the ground ball. It's the small things. Everybody's trying to hit these home runs in AI, trying to do big things in AI. I'm here to help you tackle the things that are going to move the needle financially, that are going to allow you to do it in a way that the employees don't feel like there's an overwhelm, do it in a way that doesn't put anything at risk to liabilities, and do it in a way where you have fractional support. You have sort of an outsourced innovation arm to help guide you. Hopefully this podcast will bring information, insights. But people to get it done for less than hiring like your average employee. Exciting times in multifamily.

I wanted to take you through our applied AI in the multifamily business. It's our framework People beginning in the process. The goals automate about 70% of the work. I know we can do 90, 100 in many cases, but goodness, 70%. Making assumptions about what it takes to get the job done, having better clarity around the process, being able to bring AI in your business. See it happen for yourself. Then you unlock what's next Not a webinar. You unlock ideas once you see it working and then you automate it and you're enjoying your work and you're redefining what happens in an employee experience. You're bringing that data all into one place. You have a place to see and you have perspectives on the customer and your employees. You're making better decisions because you have that data. You can honestly say you're creating an applied AI in a multifamily business strategy that starts and ends with people. It dismisses that whole idea that we're going to reinvise all that stuff. This is a great place to start.

I hope this was helpful. If you found it helpful, please give us a like, a review, subscribe rate, whatever that means to you. I would love some feedback. You have ways to reach out to me. Multifamilyaipodcastcom is a great way to get access to us and learn about what you may need. If you have episode ideas, send us an email, send us a message right on the website. You can even do video. I think you can do audio right on the website. You can tell us. Maybe we'll introduce, take questions and answer those questions through this process. Plus, we're going to be seeking out some really interesting guests, really interesting experiences to help you move through this. Get those capabilities up, because the opportunities are there. We'll see you guys in the next episode.