Meet Your AI Assistant Team: 4 Tips for Smarter CRE Workflows
How a set of specialized AI tools can save hours and sharpen your edge in real estate.
Welcome to a new issue of the Unlocking Real Estate Value newsletter. Each week I will provide you with exclusive advice and professional insights to help you realise long-term value through real estate development.
Generative AI is no longer an experiment. It’s becoming a daily tool for professionals who want to stay ahead in commercial real estate. The winners won’t be those who read about AI from a distance but those who embed it into their workflows.
I like to think of AI tools as a set of personal assistants. Each one is specialized: one for reasoning, one for research, one for presentations, one for writing, one for taking meeting notes. Together, they form a team that frees you from manual work and lets you focus on higher-level decisions.
This piece highlights four tips that show where AI fits best into CRE work right now. From structuring memos to deep research, boardroom-ready decks, and clear communication, here’s how to move from curiosity to real impact.
Now let’s dive in.
1. Use ChatGPT as your multi-tool for structured strategy work
Every CRE professional spends hours drafting memos, reviewing research, and testing scenarios. The old way is slow, manual, and repetitive. Many still think of AI as a chatbot that delivers quick answers. In reality, ChatGPT can run complex, structured workflows that save time, sharpen thinking, and generate options you may not have considered.
Use cases:
Investment memos: Create drafts with a consistent structure that aligns with your firm’s standards.
Lease analysis: Upload abstracts and generate negotiation checklists with red-flag clauses.
Market analysis: Compare rental growth across submarkets, then generate risk matrices.
Scenario planning: Model “what if” assumptions around financing or tenant demand.
A practical entry point is to use ChatGPT for a recurring task like a weekly market update. Over time you can tweak the output to be aligned with your style and to adjust which sources you want to focus on.
Pro-Tip: Save your best prompts in a shared doc so your team develops consistency across workflows.
2. Tap Perplexity Pro and NotebookLM for deep research without the noise
Research has always been central to CRE decisions. The challenge is no longer access to data but the overwhelming volume and uneven quality. Professionals often waste days chasing down sources, compiling notes, and separating facts from noise. The misconception is that AI research tools are unreliable. The truth is, when paired with the right platforms, they can deliver structured, trustworthy insights fast.
Two standouts:
Perplexity Pro with Labs dashboards for navigating markets, demographics, or regulatory updates.
NotebookLM for uploading PDFs, transcripts, or text files — and interrogating them directly with minimal hallucination risk.
Use cases:
Comps & sales data: Quickly surface rental comps across MLS and CRE databases.
Zoning & permitting: Summarize municipal updates and permit requirements for new projects.
Synthesis: Consolidate multiple market reports into a single insight narrative.
Vendor vetting: Compare contractors or property managers, verify licenses, and check reviews.
The benefit is not just speed. More importantly, is the ability to verify the sources from which the AI has obtained the information. Let AI handle the first 80% of research, then focus your expertise on validating and deciding.
Pro-Tip: Upload internal reports into NotebookLM to build a private research assistant that learns from your proprietary data.
3. Turn research into boardroom-ready decks with Gamma AI
The last mile of work often decides how well insights are received. A brilliant analysis that isn’t communicated clearly won’t change anyone’s mind. The misconception is that presentation tools are just about design. In fact, Gamma AI transforms research into compelling, visual narratives that capture attention and drive decisions.
Workflow:
Feed your research and docs into NotebookLM to create a detailed briefing document.
Use ChatGPT to translate the Briefing doc into well-structured slides.
Adjust and tweak to your liking.
Import into Gamma to auto-generate visuals, diagrams, and layouts.
Keep tweaking if required.
Publish.
Use cases:
Investment decks: Convert underwriting models into polished presentations for lenders or ICs.
Marketing materials: Transform property data sheets into sleek brochures and pitch decks.
Variance reports: Present monthly reporting in digestible visuals that highlight key issues.
Finally I waste less hours on formatting slides and focus my time and energy on the building a compelling narrative and working on the content. You still have to put the work in, but you make sure it's focused on where you can add most value.
Pro-Tip: Start with simpler presentation decks in Gamma to learn the workflow and then build-up from there.
4. Use Grammarly as your assistant for clear, confident communication
Emails, investor updates and internal memos are still the daily currency of CRE. Small errors or unclear writing can undermine credibility.
Many assume Grammarly is just a grammar checker. In fact, its AI-powered writing assistant now helps with tone, clarity and even full draft creation.
Use cases:
Email drafting: Generate professional first drafts for investor updates or tenant communication.
Document review: Catch grammar, style, and tone issues before sending critical memos.
Polish presentations: Use Grammarly within PowerPoint or Word to align tone across slides and documents.
Internal comms: Standardise writing across teams, ensuring clarity and professionalism.
The payoff is simple: faster writing, fewer mistakes, and communication that consistently reflects your brand and authority.
Pro-Tip: Use Grammarly’s tone detector to fine-tune communications: formal for investors, approachable for tenants, concise for internal notes.
Conclusion
Focus on learning workflows and how you can rerun these using Generative AI tools available. Bear in mind that these tools change and get upgraded on a weekly or monthly basis. So learn the process more than the tool itself.
Repackage AI into a team of personal AI assistants for: reasoning, research, presentations, communication.
Start small, scale fast. Pick one workflow — a memo, a research scan, a deck, or an email draft — and let AI handle the first pass.
Other tools worth exploring:
Genspark to transform spreadsheets into investor-ready decks.
Quill Meetings + Fathom for AI meeting note taking.
A word of warning: never forget that you are always the Human in the Loop. Generative AI tools can help bring us 80% there, but without our critical thinking and careful attention, the outputs could be worthless.
So as you progress in using it, make sure you tweak the workflows to ensure that you can keep track of validation and facts.
That’s all for today.
See you next week.
— Carlo
Founder and Managing Director Benigni
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This post is sponsored by Benigni a specialist development manager working with international investors to realise long-term value through optimised development strategies.
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