Commercial Property Executive Article Link
AI is no longer a side experiment for REITs – it’s becoming a core advantage. Marc Norman says the technology is now a “differentiator” and a “fundamental driver of value” for commercial real estate, and the latest NYU Schack REIT Symposium showed that the industry agrees.
At NYU Schack’s 30th Annual REIT Symposium, Norman, as Symposium Co-Host, framed the discussion around how AI is reshaping everything from data centers to portfolio management. He said that “new asset classes and new technologies are disrupting the status quo,” and that AI has moved beyond being a simple efficiency tool: it now helps determine who can compete, how quickly firms can operate, and where value is created in modern CRE markets. The article’s broader message is that large public REITs are leaning in because they have the scale, capital access, and data to benefit most from AI adoption.
The panelists echoed that shift. Executives from firms like Brixmor, Kimco, Ares, and Eastdil described AI speeding up lease generation, cutting document-review time, improving rent collections, and shortening capital-markets timelines. At the same time, they stressed that adoption is still early and that firms with the best data will have the biggest edge. In short: AI is already changing how REITs work, and Norman’s point is that the winners will be the companies that treat it as strategy, not just software.
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