🔪 PropTech’s AI Boom: Too Many Tools, Not Enough Moats Remember when TV had three channels?(For us older folks) Easy. Then cable gave us 1,000. Now we’re drowning in infinite options—and it’s harder than ever to decide what’s worth watching. That’s PropTech in 2025. At Apartmentalize, every vendor had its version of "agentic leasing," "autonomous maintenance," and "AI-powered everything." Flashy demos, fast-talking founders, and promises of streamlined operations. It looked like progress. But look closer—it’s mostly wrappers. Same models (GPT, Gemini, Claude), slightly different flavors. Few of them own the foundation. They’re renting power from someone else’s engine. When OpenAI or Google decides they want to own the leasing stack, what’s stopping them? Not much. And if they don’t? Well, RealPage, Yardi, AppFolio, and Entrata already sit on the data, the workflows, and the distribution. They don’t have to build—they can buy, integrate, or outright crush. So where are the moats? Because it’s not in the interface. Switching costs? Weak. Most plug into the same systems. Network effects? Anemic. No dominant flywheel. Sticky workflows? Easily cloned. Proprietary data? Mostly borrowed. Brand trust or embedded contracts? Rare. Loyalty is transactional. Meanwhile, Owner’s G&A costs keep climbing. We’ve layered on new platforms, added headcount to manage them, and spent months retraining teams. We’re told the payoff is labor savings and operational lift. Still waiting to see it. Question for my fellow owners: Have you seen you looked at your historic G&A expense over the last few years? I have and it’s not pretty. Until AI truly reduces payroll and or boosts NOI, this is just more expensive software. The real threat to all these PropTech companies isn’t just the big guys. It’s that any AI-savvy Owner with access to tools like Cursor, Windsurf, or Lovely can now build leaner, smarter tools themselves. No VC funding. No bloated roadmaps. Just a custom leasing or maintenance platform at a fraction of the cost. It’s not here yet, but at the rate it’s progressing, it’s months not years away. As an owner, if that means cutting bloated tech stacks and reclaiming control? That’s real savings. And believe me—many of us are watching, waiting, and ready to do exactly that. We’re in the paradox of choice now. Infinite tools. Zero clarity. And a reckoning is coming https://lnkd.in/eP6fTC3C