Gabrielle

What a difference a decade makes. Ten years ago, commercial real estate was a laggard in advanced tech adoption, content to make do with paper-based processes and back-of-the-envelope forecasts and projections. That world is long gone, fortunately, and in its place is a sector that is robust with industry-specific venture capital and an array of offerings ranging from artificial intelligence to 3D virtual tools.

It is worthwhile to occasionally ponder how we got here, if only because such musings facilitate even more advances. Some will say that CRE embraced tech when its people finally felt comfortable giving up the old ways of doing business. We disagree with that notion. Our belief is that CRE took longer to embrace technology than other industries because the technology itself was harder to customize for our space. It was when smart, visionary and entrepreneurial-minded men and women pushed through the complexities to deliver CRE-specific software products and platforms that the disruption began. It didn't take much buy-in on the part of the industry—it was ready to go.