We all talk about tech in property these days, but for just four characters, it is quite a big word. Do we really know what it means and what it encompasses? Luckily, tech guru Antony Slumbers is here to help
I am not sure that “love is all around”, but tech certainly is. From the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep, your life is shaped by technology.
You tend to only notice the new things – smartphones, robots, Siri, Cortana, self-driving cars – but that is simply because they are shiny and new. All technology moves through the stages of genesis, custom build, product, and commodity. You can Google “Wardley mapping” for a detailed description of these stages, but it is essentially the journey from exciting to boring.
DeepMind’s AlphaGo AI machine beating professional Go player Lee Sedol was exciting (and a decade ahead of what was thought possible), but electricity is boring.
Not much changes year to year, but everything changes over a decade. And it is now nearly a decade since the launch of the iPhone – the smartphone that launched an industry that has transformed the world.
Never before has a technology market been so large. PC sales average 200m a year, whereas smartphones sell 1.4bn and have done for several years. And beyond that, most people update their phone every two years, meaning new functionality is spreading faster than ever.
Combined with this ubiquity of a “supercomputer in every pocket” we have high-speed connectivity, cloud computing, the internet of things, and artificial intelligence advancing at breakneck speed towards becoming productised.
All of which has led to us being extremely blasé about incredibly sophisticated services such as CityMapper, Slack, WhatsApp, Spotify, Office 365, Google Docs, Facebook etc.
Even though your Oyster card is based on very old technology, the layer of services on top of the data it creates is quite extraordinary. And every time you do a Google search or type a predictive text message, you are invoking cutting-edge machine learning.
As visionary science fiction writer William Gibson said: “The future is already here.”
The subtle point though, is that besides moving from an analogue to a digital world, we are moving from a world of products to one of services. Increasingly we value access over ownership and want to dip in and out of experiences. We want on-demand everything: taxis, pizzas, films, music, information. Why own anything when you can just use it when you want it?
All around us companies are offering us what we want, when we want it. We might pay more for something pro rata, but we don’t care as we are only buying what we need.
And will property remain aloof from all this? Long leases, upwards-only rent reviews, fixed space? Not a chance is the answer. And therein lies the biggest change to the real estate market since the first skyscraper was made possible by the invention of the elevator.
“Tech is all around us” has consequences.
According to Google’s recent Workplace 2020 survey and report: “Flexible working will be the defining characteristic of the future workplace, rising from 4% today to 32% of organisations polled by 2018.” Among larger companies, the change is even more dramatic, with organisations employing more than 6,000 people predicted to increase their flexible workspace from 10% today to 66% in 2018.
The same report says that 48% of respondents are today unable to access all the information they need via mobile devices. Which means that today 52% can. In other words, more than half the workforce can work where they like, as they have all the information they need to do their job.
Where then does that leave the office? As a place to do all the things only humans can.
This boils down to three areas. First, anything that is non-routine, that does not involve repeatable steps. Second, problems that require social intelligence to resolve. And third, anything where perception and manipulation are important in complex and unstructured environments.
Which is why, again from the Google report: “The rise of the new generation of connected workers, empowered by collaborative and mobile solutions, will radically alter the shape of the future workforce and workplace.” And by doing this, will have second order consequences for every property type. What is an asset today may become a liability tomorrow.
So, what is tech? Well, it is what is going to transform real estate from being a business that provides a product to one that provides a service. It is what will lead to the real estate business no longer being about real estate. It is what will see the high street turn from being just about retail to being about mixed-use live/work/play. Industrial sheds to super high-tech, vertical, urban phenomena. It will take farming underground and offices to imaginariums where humans are augmented by machines.
Tech will fundamentally change our behaviour and allow us not to do more with less, but more with more. There has never been a more exciting time to be in the real estate business.
Interact with Slumbers on Twitter using @antonyslumbers
