AI, Robots, & the Future of Apartment Operations: Takeaways From the M&M Southeast Multifamily Forum

“Everyone across multifamily is looking at AI today — but do we even know what we’re trying to solve?” — Ben Nowacky | President, HappyCo

That question opened the panel, and it was the right one to ask. Not skeptical, not dismissive — just honest. Before you can evaluate whether AI is delivering, you have to be clear on what you were hoping it would do in the first place.

“We’re in 1994 for AI” — And That’s Not a Bad Thing

One of the most memorable lines of the afternoon came from Tim Cantwell, who put AI’s current moment in perspective: “It’s like a new Internet, and none of us could imagine doing our jobs today without the Internet.” The comparison landed because it’s both humbling and exciting. We’re not at the finish line — we’re barely off the starting blocks.

That reality check set the tone for the whole conversation. Nobody on stage was overselling AI as a magic wand. Instead, the panelists were refreshingly honest about where it’s actually working, where it’s still clunky, and where the real opportunity lies.

Where AI Is Actually Working Right Now

Ask any operator what’s in their AI tech stack today and you’ll get a pretty consistent answer: leasing, renewals, and collections follow-up. Sarah Genay-Fore of Ginkgo Residential summed it up well — those functions are where AI has genuinely replaced repetitive site-level tasks, and it’s working. The key is that it’s not just replacing busywork, it’s freeing up leasing agents to focus on the thing AI absolutely cannot replicate: showing up and being a real human presence for residents.

Shannon Judd from Integral Property Management highlighted something that doesn’t get talked about enough in the affordable housing space specifically. For communities that are under-resourced when it comes to technology access, layering AI on top of an already complex regulatory and compliance environment isn’t just a tech challenge — it’s a people challenge. You can’t automate your way out of a community that isn’t ready to receive it.

“It’s also your residents, it’s also your vendors. User adoption has been our largest challenge.” — Shannon Judd | President, Integral Property Management

The Human-in-the-Loop Is Non-Negotiable

Jay Friedeck of STYL Residential said the quiet part out loud: chatbots still aren’t as advanced as we all thought they’d be a year ago from now. They get stumped. They need humans watching the window, ready to step in when a conversation goes sideways.

But STYL hasn’t let that slow them down. One of the more impressive things they’ve built internally is an agent that listens to every leasing and sales call, scores them against a defined set of parameters, and organizes the weakest calls for coaching and training. The result? A visible leaderboard, better call quality, and a tangible improvement in team performance. That’s AI being used not to replace people, but to make people measurably better at their jobs.

“AI is inherently a statistical system. So statistically, 98% accuracy is really good — but on the trust side, 2% is wrong. And ultimately it’s about trust.” — Tim Cantwell | CEO & Co-Founder, Tailorbird

The human loop isn’t a workaround for AI’s limitations. It’s the design. Ben reinforced this from the moderator’s chair, pointing to call recording as a perfect example of where AI and humans work best together:

“Five years ago you would never have been able to listen to every single call recorded. But with AI now you could just pass the transcripts through, train, and get everyone standardized — catching things that shouldn’t be said on a phone call before you get stuck with a fine.” — Ben Nowacky | President, HappyCo

The Centralization Reality Check

A few years ago, the industry narrative around centralization was pretty straightforward: pull people off site, consolidate functions, cut costs. Ben framed it well:

“The idea behind AI — just like when we thought about centralization two years ago — was, ‘it’s going to remove people, reduce costs, and make everything simpler.’ What’s the reality you’re actually seeing?” — Ben Nowacky | President, HappyCo

What the panelists described was a lot more nuanced than the original promise.

Ginkgo Residential tried centralizing and ended up with something nobody wanted: ghost towns. Residents noticed immediately. There was nobody there for drive-by traffic. No one to make the place feel like the lights were on. So rather than doubling down on removing people from site, they shifted toward something more interesting — vesting more power and responsibility in site teams, creating pods of staff with real management depth, and treating the property manager role like the legitimate career it should be.

STYL took a harder centralization stance and found real savings doing it — roughly $60,000 per property annually in payroll by eliminating the assistant property manager role and centralizing inbound calls, application processing, and vendor management. But even they acknowledge there’s a floor. You can’t cut your way to great customer service.

The OPEX Conversation Nobody Skips

Ben opened up the floor to the inevitable question: what’s the single biggest lever on operating expenses? The answers were practical and honest.

Payroll is still number one. After that, it’s utilities — vendor negotiations, smarter contracts, and fighting the creep of rising costs. And then, maybe surprisingly, paint. Paint is the largest single turnover expense, and Jay Friedeck said they spend a lot of time on who owns the supplies, what they’re paying, and how to reduce it. It’s not glamorous, but it moves the needle.

Sarah Genay-Fore added one that flies under the radar: captive insurance for tenant liability. Ginkgo rolled out a program where tenant liability policies run around $9 per door. Actual losses on those policies are around 5% or less — and participating has allowed them to meaningfully reduce their general property insurance costs. It’s worth exploring if you haven’t already.

Ben put it well: Unit turn times, call quality, and vendor costs — you can’t optimize what you’re not tracking.

“Get a good baseline of what’s actually happening at your properties, then find the specific things to improve. My unit turn times are taking 15 days on average — how do I get that to 10 or 12?” — Ben Nowacky | President, HappyCo

The Talent Pipeline Question

It wouldn’t be an AI panel in 2026 without someone asking the uncomfortable question: if AI is doing the work of entry-level analysts, where does the next generation of industry leaders come from?

Tim Cantwell was candid about it. Tailorbird has half the headcount it had last year. But acknowledged the people who are there have bigger, more autonomous roles and — importantly — are happier.

One of the sharpest observations of the afternoon came from Ben on how AI is changing org design itself:

“In the past you hired for specialties because one person could do a job really well but couldn’t do 10 jobs well. With a lot of this new tooling, I can now do 10 jobs really well. We’re starting to see that tied into centralization, where people are being asked to multitask but not necessarily do more work.” — Ben Nowacky | President, HappyCo

Jay Friedeck echoed the concern, but landed on a cautiously optimistic take: the industry will likely see more specialized AI companies spin up out of this moment, creating new types of roles that don’t exist yet.

The Internet created entire categories of jobs nobody had imagined in 1994. AI probably will too.

What’s Coming in the Next 12 Months

Closing out the panel, Ben asked everyone to look in their crystal ball. The consensus on 2026: slightly better than 2025, but nobody’s doing a victory lap. Slow occupancy gains, moderate rent growth picking up later in the year, and transaction volume starting to shake loose — mostly in distressed deals.

Jay Friedeck made the prediction that got the most reaction in the room: robots. Light maintenance tasks, leasing support, and common area upkeep. Ben wasn’t subtle about his enthusiasm:

“I can’t wait to walk into a property and see four or five robots just wandering around picking up dog poop, cleaning the pool — this would be fantastic.” — Ben Nowacky | President, HappyCo

Tim Cantwell’s big bet is on pre-construction. His view is that the industry is on the verge of making the entire pre-construction process essentially instant — from multi-year CapEx budget to signed contractor agreements. If that happens, it removes one of the biggest friction points in new development and could meaningfully expand supply.

Shannon Judd’s outlook was more cautious, particularly for affordable housing operators navigating federal policy uncertainty. The regulatory environment isn’t settling down anytime soon, and for developers who rely on subsidy programs and Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) equity, that uncertainty is real.

The Bottom Line

What made this panel worth attending — and worth recapping — is that it resisted the temptation to be a highlight reel. These aren’t operators who are going to tell you AI has solved everything. They’re telling you where it’s actually delivering value (leasing, call quality, corporate analytics), where it’s beginning to elevate (autonomous chatbots, voice AI), and where the human element is irreplaceable (community presence, relationship-driven service, nuanced judgment calls).

For HappyCo, these are exactly the conversations we want to be in. Building tools that fit into real workflows, at real properties, run by real people — that’s the whole point. And if this panel was any indication, the operators who are going to win in this environment are the ones who are thoughtful about where technology helps and honest about where it doesn’t.