At the recent annual mandatory continuing professional development training organized by the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV) in Lagos, Mr. Femi Madariola, a partner at PwC, delivered an insightful presentation on the topic “Embracing Technology: The Future of Real Estate Services.” Represented by Mr. Rafuel, a director at PwC, the speaker who holds a Ph.D in statistics and possesses extensive experience in Artificial Intelligence (AI), outlined the eight key technologies currently shaping the business landscape.
During his presentation, Mr. Madariola stated PwC’s commitment to research and monitoring emerging technologies, identifying critical innovations that influence the broader spectrum of over 250 identified technologies. His discussion addressed how these advancements, particularly in AI, augmented reality, blockchain, drones, the Internet of Things (IoT), 3D printing, robotics, and virtual reality, are transforming the real estate sector and reshaping business practices.
…At PWC, we invest in research. And we constantly keep track of new technologies, emerging technologies.
In the world today, we have slightly over 250 emerging technologies, right? But at PWC, what we have done is identify the critical hits. Critical hits that speaks or touch on the 250, as it were.
- ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)
AI to some people, it seems like a buzzword, right? It seems like a scam. The only reason why they can’t find the fact that it is a scam is because the AI is there and they can use it. They see that it is real.
But the way we use the AI today is limited in a way. Because we use it to extract the information and then take it somewhere else. AI is a tool, that is not human, but a part of activities of human intelligence, that has human intelligence. Do we understand? For example we are given a plan to build and part of the building is going to encroach into something, What would a human do? Is to stop that development, And come back to engage it because there is something wrong with the plan. AI would not necessarily do that. Except it has been taught to do that.
Because AI, in the first instance, is a machine, and when you tell a machine to go in this direction, it is going to clear everything on its path. Just like imagine you put a tractor on the road or on the land. And you say, clear the path without a human driving it.
If there is a wall on that path, what happens? It clears the whole thing. But if a human is driving it, what happens? However, you can teach AI, You can teach the machine to have intelligence. And when you see something that is not grass or a tree, you stop and ask for further instruction. That is what AI is.
- AUGMENTED REALITY
I am not in the country. Or I am in Lagos, as we all are today. And someone calls anyone of us.
Someone calls and says we are in a property somewhere in a remote village, right? In Sokoto.
What is the next thing we are going to do? We want to inspect, right? So we pack our bag and then we take the trip down to that state, And go through whatever security issues just for us to inspect. However, augmented reality, you can be right in that property in a second. Right? And you see everything that you need to see about the property.
An augmented reality. There are quite a number of realities, right? Augmented, virtual, mixed, and direct. All the realities can be used, right? For you to do whatever it is you want to do when it comes to things like inspection and giving directions without necessarily leaving where you are. And I’m sure because we are practitioners in this industry, we must have seen videos or sites in developed countries where you go to, you pick up your phone, the site is currently still in reparation. Right? But they’ve installed augmented reality in that space such that if you put up your phone and you put on the camera, you can actually see the model of the property that is going to be built on that land. Even though the land is still there or it just happened to be constructed. And things like this can also help, you know, those who are actually builders, right? To know what is supposed to be where without necessarily having supervised guidance. Right? Because they can see the model and they know what is supposed to be in what space.
- BLOCKCHAIN
So let’s look at my blockchain area. This might still be far away from us to reach because the infrastructure requires to get to this level, Bios needs to be a need.
You know, security exchange permission needs to be a need. EFCC needs to be a need. A lot of people need to be on blockchain so that it is secure for us all.
Those are customers ourselves, right? Property owners. Soon, we will leverage blockchain for safe transaction.
- DRONES
There is drones. I will talk about drones in a lot of time. There are a lot of use cases in the industry of drones.
- Internet of things
I think this is the biggest. From my perspective in the country today because of the increasing emergence of smart homes. Smart homes are like internet of things.
So, internet of things is the key technology.
- 3D PRINTING
Do you know what 3D printing is? A machine that adapts to 3D apps. And you need specifications. There is no other industry in the world that has that kind of technology.
And 3D printing will make use of almost every other technology that you can think of. From AI, as we’ve spoken about, to vertical set of motion, to machines that can use physical robots, To mix and put things together. I’ve also learned from the architectural diagram.
I tell you that architecture is good for the kind of building you want. To me, I just want to say. So our industry is the biggest beneficiary, right, of technological advancement.
- ROBOTICS
We have robotics. Robotics coupled with internet of things is amazing.
You get home. You want to make your food. You do not have energy. Your food is in the freezer. You can tell your Internet of things to place your food in the fridge, then Microwave it, Put it in the diner. While you go to your bedroom to freshen up.
And while you are doing all of that, your food is ready. You just go back to where it is. Some people say, oh, can the robots also feed you? The answer is yes. If It is designed to do that. Right? So, I met a person. What does the future of medicine look like? Right? We all complain about GenZs in the room, right?
So, imagine GenZs of today. Imagine if we have these tools and these solutions, you know, to help the future. What would happen to the generation coming? Right? What would it look like? And what happens when you look at it from a business perspective and from a real estate industry? What it means is that we need to employ all of these, right, into our services.
I think yesterday or two days ago, we were discussing this. We said 10, 15 years ago, my generation would not dare to enter a private car.
Right? To go to a stranger’s home to sleep. Do we understand? About 10, 15 years ago, I can’t stop by the road and enter a stranger’s car.
Then I go to a strange land, to a strange man’s house to sleep. I eat a strange man’s food. You still don’t get it? Today, you do that? Right? Or both.
Whichever one you choose. And then you go from there to a state you have never been before. To stay in Airbnb.
Right? And the Airbnb man there has cooks. They will cook for you. And you are so fine, you don’t have any issues, you are comfortable with everything.
But that’s the reality of today. Which means tomorrow, a 10-year-old can wake up and decide to buy a property. And has no business visiting the property.
Do we understand? Maybe pocket money is enough for the child to buy a property in a remote state or a remote country. He buys the property and he puts it out for leases just to get rental income. And has no business even knowing specifically where that asset is.
More importantly, is the fact that today, we do a lot of… I think the best we do today is more Please correct me if I’m wrong. Is that the real estate industry, you have residential properties or commercial properties. And then you tell people to come and buy spaces.
Right? So I can buy an apartment within a block of land. I can talk about that plant being owned by multiple people. And now I’m using technology to make that process easy for people.
I don’t have to do so much optimization. It’s like buying stocks on the address of a store. Create platforms using technology for people to see the value of that building.
Right? And buy into it. I don’t want to live in it. It’s an investment.
And not to party to you. You’re putting it out for rental . Right? Somebody rents it and you know that the owner has to collect their share of the profit at the end of the year.
And the price can vary, just like share prices vary. These are things that technology can enable. You, on the other hand, will have to fix the business side.
Technology will not fix the business side. Technology will enable the business side. I already talked about three different things.
Automated property system. Even as practitioners in this industry, you actually don’t need to engage the tenants.
Yes. You actually don’t need to engage the tenants. At all.
You don’t need to know them. They don’t need to know you. Just similar to the example I gave on individuals buying small parts of an apartment.
Because they don’t need to live in it. It’s an investment. Right? They buy it to give you cash.
Right? To put the property in place and to put it on the market. Right? Same thing applies here. Property management.
So, right now, I’m sure we all have our own web apps. Right? Right now, the customer can go to your website to make inquiries or something. The customer can go as far.
Right? As paying for that property without physical interaction with us. Because they’re using and they’re making all the technology available to us through property management.
I talked about AR and VR. And I’m sure the drone discussion is also going to be quite interesting as well. Because there are so many use cases.
We talked about the navigation. We talked about AR. Rather than going there, you can tell them to use the drone.
You won’t see anyone around you. And things like that. Blockchain technology.
As I said, this is still an intimate platform. You know? What we can achieve.
But we can always improve. Because we have done all that technology.
- VIRTUAL REALITY
And AR can also be leveraged in two ways.
AR can be leveraged by us. AR can be leveraged by our customers. Right? As well as the property owners on the other end.
Because we sit in the middle. Right? In some places, we are property owners. Right? In other places, we sit between the customers and property owners.
And AI can help in making our lives a lot easier. Smarthome leveraging Internet of Things. As big as this is, correct me if I’m wrong, in the country, it can be bigger.
We can do away with traditional tools. Right? We can start computing and having technology embedded in our properties. So that is the basic things people can use as a game in their properties.
Like, you walk into the room and the room is environmental friendly. You stop using the regular bulb and you start using the body sensor bulbs. The ones that you walk in, the light comes on. If nobody is in the room, the light goes off.
Those are simple technologies that we can use to operate. But things, you don’t want the light to come on. You want it to come off based on voice activation. You can implement that as well.
– Promise Babatunde
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