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A robot could probably out-predict most financial advisors. People still want to talk to a person anyway. Nicholas Cook says the same thing is true in property management, and figuring out where that line sits is the real challenge. In this Hot Takes episode, Randall and Nicholas Cook from Sleep Sound Property Management dig into where agentic AI actually belongs, and where the human touch still wins.
Teams are bringing labor back in-house
Randall shares that an 8,000-door customer is seeing a contraction in their labor force as they move work from offshore to in-house. They're focusing on talent, then using agentic AI to fill the gaps. Nicholas says that makes sense. Offshore was an era where you could find value and meet the quality standards people expected without the same cost.
The Amazon effect raised the bar for everyone
Residents and owners now expect on-demand results from every business, whether it's a two-person shop or a 2,000-person company. Speed and quality are the baseline now, no matter your size.
Put your people in a position to win
If you have offshore talent, set them up to oversee agentic tools and handle QC. There's a human element you don't want to replace when you have a really qualified person. Nicholas is direct about the other side of it: if you're mediocre at your job or hanging on by a thread, it's time to find a new industry.
The scramble: what becomes an agent, and what stays human
Property management is very process-heavy, so the big question right now is which processes can become an agent and which need to keep the human touch. Nicholas says early adopters have focused on leasing, and that's a double-edged sword. Leasing is still about building a relationship, and moving comes with a lot of anxiety about getting the property delivered correctly.
There's plenty of helpful automation in the mix:
- The application process
- Status updates
- Self-tours
But at the end of the day, people still want to talk to somebody.
When something goes wrong, people want a person
It's the financial advisor comparison again. A robot may out-predict a human, but people want someone to confer with. The same is true at the property. AI tools can support everyday maintenance requests. But if a water line blows up and the house is flooding, nobody wants to talk to a robot. That's where your people should focus: the emotionally escalated situations.
