AI in CRE portfolio management: connecting data, insights and people

In CoreNet Global’s latest report, Advances in AI: Accelerating Use Cases and the Impact on the Future of Work, I joined industry peers to examine how artificial intelligence is becoming part of the operating fabric of corporate real estate. The research highlights how AI is moving beyond pilots to support strategy development, portfolio management, and data-driven decision-making across global occupier organizations.

The full report is available to CoreNet Global members, but this post shares how our Digital Experience team at Savills is putting many of these ideas into practice – helping clients connect data, insights, and people for faster, more informed decisions, greater efficiency, and reduced risk across their portfolios.

Make better decisions, faster

As highlighted in CoreNet Global’s Advances in AI report, one of AI’s earliest and most practical roles in corporate real estate is structuring and normalizing data. At Savills, our Digital Experience team integrates large language models into client environments so portfolio, transaction, and market data from multiple sources are automatically cleaned, aligned, and ready for analysis. While AI can now surface key data points from leases for quick portfolio snapshots, full-scale and reliable lease abstraction is still developing. The greatest impact we’re seeing comes from using AI to explore and analyze structured, disparate data sets – connecting insights across systems to improve speed and confidence in decision-making.

During a recent M&A integration, we processed 96 leases in six languages across 24 countries in six business days, giving executives a unified, actionable view. AI is quickly becoming an operating layer – one that strengthens data integrity and helps teams make better decisions, faster.

Connecting teams with AI for continuous innovation

Introducing AI for one purpose often sparks broader benefits. For Savills, what began as a secure, governed rollout of ChatGPT Enterprise to connect teams and enable safe experimentation has become part of our global and regional AI initiative. Key partnerships with CIOs and other thought leaders have been essential to scaling this effort, with Savills North America CIO Sarah Dreyer pioneering company-wide and function-specific AI Task Force groups that have accelerated adoption and surfaced new use cases. Each team that joins brings new ideas – from simplifying client reporting to drafting lease summaries – while strong data protections ensure responsible deployment. It’s become a bridge between efficiency and creativity, helping people connect, share ideas, and work faster while opening the door to new possibilities.

Binding real estate strategy more closely to cost and risk management

AI is creating a stronger link between real estate strategy, cost management, and risk mitigation. With structured data and advanced analytics, teams can move beyond static reports to dynamic insights—interpreting lease language, identifying risk exposure, and forecasting portfolio performance in real time. This deeper visibility connects financial, lease, and operational data to show where portfolios can flex, consolidate, or reinvest. The result is a more proactive approach to managing cost and risk, supported by an operating layer that improves both the efficiency and quality of decision-making across corporate real estate.

Managing AI limitations and adoption – data, trust and skills

For all its promise, AI in corporate real estate still depends on the fundamentals: clean data, user trust, and the right skills. These factors show up differently across organizations, but together they explain why adoption can feel slower than the headlines suggest.

Data remains the biggest challenge. The issue isn’t that AI can’t handle unstructured information – it can – but that information across the real estate ecosystem is fragmented. Portfolio and lease records, HR systems, workplace platforms, and occupancy data all exist in silos, each with different formats and levels of quality. Even the most advanced models struggle to produce reliable insights when pulling from incomplete or disconnected sources.

The next challenge is trust. AI can generate results instantly, but in real estate, decisions often involve multimillion-dollar commitments. If executives don’t understand how an answer was reached, they won’t act on it. Governance and transparency are critical. Secure deployments – such as ChatGPT Enterprise – can be transformative, but only when paired with guardrails that protect client data and make accountability clear.

Finally, there’s the matter of skills. Corporate real estate professionals are experts in strategy, transactions, and operations, but few teams have built-in AI or data science expertise. Closing that gap requires dedicated digital capability within account teams. That’s the role of the Digital Experience group within Global Occupier Services --, connecting disparate data sources, ensuring quality, and delivering cohesive analytics through Knowledge Cubed, our platform for unifying real estate data into a single, trusted ecosystem.

Evolving from efficiency to insight

A clear trend in AI adoption is the shift from efficiency to insight. Early applications—such as data structuring and enterprise chat models – have proven their value in organizing information and speeding up daily work. Attention is now turning to AI’s decision-support capabilities, from interpreting and benchmarking lease language to testing different portfolio scenarios. These applications move AI from background automation into shaping portfolio strategy directly.

The future won’t rely on a single tool but on an ecosystem of connected analytics and governed AI that brings data together from multiple sources. When structured and aligned, that data can flow seamlessly across lease, workplace, and portfolio systems, providing a dynamic foundation for strategy.

The takeaway: AI is moving from scattered tools to integrated, trusted systems that deliver both efficiency and strategic insight. Responsible integration lets corporate real estate teams spend less time chasing data and more time applying it to the decisions that matter.

The emerging AI skillset

AI is reshaping expectations around skills in corporate real estate, but it’s less about replacing roles and more about elevating them. Tasks like data structuring, cleanup, and routine reporting are increasingly automated, creating space for professionals to interpret insights, connect them to business priorities, and guide strategy. Data literacy and comfort working alongside AI are becoming baseline capabilities, much like Excel proficiency once was.

We’re also seeing the need for specialized expertise that complements traditional corporate real estate experience. Dedicated digital and data specialists help connect information streams, ensure structure and consistency, and make AI-driven insights usable in daily decision-making. Every professional doesn’t need to become a data scientist, but the strongest teams will blend deep real estate knowledge with digital fluency – a balance that’s quickly becoming the new standard for how real estate is managed. Increasingly, that same digital fluency is also becoming an important factor in how organizations select partners and service providers, as real estate leaders look for teams that can both advise strategically and operate confidently within an AI-enabled environment.

Getting started with AI

The best way to prepare for AI is to start using it in ways that make your work easier today—drafting a report, checking data quality, or testing a scenario. Getting hands-on is the fastest way to understand both the strengths and the limits.

Just as important, AI should complement your work, not replace your judgment. It’s only as good as the data and the guardrails around it. Know what you’re working with, validate the outputs, and build confidence before relying on it for larger decisions. Joining pilots or task forces – or suggesting them if they don’t exist – is a smart way to gain experience and help shape adoption in a safe, structured way.

The takeaway: preparation isn’t about waiting for a perfect roadmap. It’s about staying curious, building fluency, and engaging in the process. Professionals who approach AI this way will be ready not only to use today’s tools, but to shape how the technology becomes a standard operating layer – one that defines how corporate real estate is planned, managed, and experienced in the years ahead.

Bryan B. Ezell
Executive Vice President, Digital Experience
Global Occupier Services

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Savills Global Occupier Services offers Digital Experience – a core consulting capability led by CRE experts and data analysts that is supported by a proprietary digital platform, Knowledge Cubed. Our secure digital ecosystem easily combines market, economic, geographic, demographic, climate, operating cost, occupancy and property data -- providing accurate data management and compelling portfolio data visualization to inform and accelerate decision-making. With targeted reporting to measure progress, expert advisory support, and a platform built for growth, clients can control costs, improve productivity, and align corporate priorities with real estate strategy.

Savills Digital Experience technology and advisory services are embedded in the management of corporate real estate portfolios that total over 5 billion SF of occupied space around the world.

For more information, please reach out directly to bezell@savills.us.