Summary
- AI is in every conversation. Partners expect fast, accurate answers in IC meetings, LPs judge the operating model, and teams already use AI on copies of firm files.
- Most firms have started; few trust the results. Only about half say AI saves time once its output is checked.
- The problem is the data, not the AI. Nine in ten say data quality or fragmentation limits what AI can do.
- The leaders fix the foundation first. The small group pulling ahead runs AI as an enterprise-wide program rather than a collection of tools.
In this paper, labeled boxes separate independent research findings from our view, Reapfolio's interpretation.
AI is in every conversation, but value lags
A few years ago, AI was a topic for the IT team. Today it comes up wherever decisions are made: in IC meetings, where partners expect fast and accurate answers on every deal; with investors, where LPs judge the operating model and the data behind reporting; and inside the firm, where teams already use ChatGPT, Claude and other AI tools on copies of firm files.
Most firms have responded with licences, pilots and assistants. The results have not kept pace: answers differ from one person to the next, output is checked by hand, and AI rarely reaches the decisions that matter.
97% → 51%
say AI is integrated into the investment process → say it saves time after verification
84% → 18%
GPs past the AI exploration phase → consider AI a strategic driver
66% → 5%
use AI weekly or daily → fully trust AI to influence CRE decisions
Dealpath, 103 institutional CRE investors (Jul 2026); MSCI, 130 private-markets GPs (Jun 2026); First American and DealGround, 255 CRE professionals (May 2026)
Why: the data underneath isn't ready
A firm's own history, its underwriting assumptions, loan terms, lease rolls and reforecasts, is what sets its analysis apart. In most firms that data sits in:
- Excel models, with a new version at every turn: one workbook per investment, each structured a little differently.
- PDF agreements, with terms locked in documents and re-keyed by hand.
- Siloed systems, where CRM, accounting and property management each hold part of the picture.
- Knowledge that leaves when people do.
83% of CRE investment professionals rate their data as mostly or fully AI-ready, yet 90% say data quality or fragmentation has limited AI's impact.
Dealpath, The 2026 State of AI in CRE Investing (Jul 2026)
AI models are now widely available to every firm. An AI tool pointed at raw files guesses at their structure and can give different answers to the same question, so someone checks every answer, which erases much of the time AI was meant to save. The gap between "AI-ready" and "limited by data" is the cost of that checking.
What separates the leaders
A small group of firms is pulling ahead, and what they share is less about which AI tool they chose than about what sits underneath it.
Only 7.5% of companies are what BCG classifies as future-built on AI, and they deliver 2.8x the EBITDA growth of laggards. They run AI as a dedicated, multiyear program and reshape processes end to end.
BCG, The Applied AI Index 2026, 1,330 executives across industries (Sep 2026)
In real estate, the leaders build one enterprise-wide data foundation rather than disconnected point solutions, have the people who know the investments review what AI relies on, and partner for the foundation while building what is distinctive to the firm on top.
The same shift is visible inside the industry. At NAREIM's October 2026 Data & Information Management Meeting, AI dominated the agenda, and data leaders described how it is finally giving data governance the executive attention it has long needed. As one attendee put it, "AI did not create data quality problems; AI simply started charging us for them."
What changes when the foundation is in place
When every level of the firm draws on the same reviewed data, analysts spend their time analyzing instead of assembling, answers line up across the firm, maturities and exposure are visible before the IC asks, and knowledge stays when people move on.
With AI, asset managers could cut costs by 25–35% over the next three to five years.
BCG, Global Asset Management Report 2026 (Apr 2026)
Build, buy or partner
Every firm faces the same choice: build a data foundation in-house, buy point solutions for individual workflows, or partner for the foundation and build on top of it.
76% of asset management and private equity leaders are looking to deploy AI agents developed by trusted tech providers to manage AI risk.
KPMG, 100+ U.S. AM and PE executives (Jan 2026)
Building in-house needs a data and engineering team and moves key-person risk to developers. Point solutions give a fast start on one workflow but add silos AI can't see across. A hybrid, partnering for the foundation and building what differentiates the firm on top, avoids both.
Where Reapfolio fits
Reapfolio is the AI foundation for real estate investing: your investment data, structured in a pre-built real estate database, reviewed by your team and ready for the AI tools you already use.
Research appendix
| Theme | What the research shows | Source |
|---|---|---|
| AI is in every conversation | 67% of CRE executives rank AI and data fluency as the top capability for rising leaders. | Deloitte, Sep 2026 |
| Adoption is wide; value lags | 92% of CRE executives say their firms are still researching or piloting AI; 8% have integrated it. 41% of AM and PE leaders say low trust in the accuracy and fairness of outputs is the biggest challenge to demonstrating AI ROI. | Deloitte, Sep 2026; KPMG, Jan 2026 |
| The problem is the data | 43% of CRE investment professionals name fragmented data as the most common reason AI falls short, ahead of hallucinated outputs or model limitations. | Dealpath, Jul 2026 |
| Poor data has a cost | 64% of real estate investment professionals say poor data quality forced them to abandon a strategy or restricted capital raising. | Vistra, Oct 2025 |
| Few see results yet | 37% of respondents attribute some EBIT impact to AI; about 6% are high performers (5%+ of EBIT from AI). Cross-industry. | McKinsey, Aug 2026 |
| Partner for the foundation | 76% of asset management and private equity leaders are looking to deploy AI agents developed by trusted tech providers to manage AI risk. | KPMG, Jan 2026 |
Figures are as reported by each publication. Populations differ: some studies cover CRE investors, others private markets or all industries, as noted. Where a full report is gated, we link to the publisher's summary or press coverage.
Sources
- Dealpath, The 2026 State of AI in CRE Investing: Adoption Without Impact, July 2026. 103 institutional CRE investors.
- MSCI, The 2026 General Partner Survey: The Scaling Imperative, June 2026. 130 private-markets GPs, surveyed April 2026.
- First American Data & Analytics and DealGround, CRE Industry Pulse Check, May 2026. 255 CRE professionals.
- Deloitte, 2027 Commercial Real Estate Outlook, September 2026 (summary coverage).
- NAREIM, AI Adoption: Balancing Business Value, Costs & Risks, Data & Information Management Meeting 2026, October 9, 2026.
- Vistra and Funds Global Intelligence, Data at the Crossroads, October 2025. 166 real estate investment professionals.
- BCG, The Applied AI Index 2026, September 2026. 1,330 executives across industries.
- BCG, Global Asset Management Report 2026: An Imperative for Growth, April 2026.
- McKinsey, The State of AI in 2026: On the Road to ROI, August 2026. 1,719 respondents across industries.
- KPMG, AI Quarterly Pulse Survey Q4 2025: Asset Management and Private Equity, January 2026. 100+ U.S. executives, fielded Nov–Dec 2025.