As artificial intelligence (AI) reshapes the real estate profession, today’s operations staffs are navigating a once-in-a-generation shift in how they lead AI adoption efforts and serve their companies -large or small firms.
The past year marked a turning point, with more than half of in-house professional teams now using generative AI (GenAI), more than double the 23% who reported using it in 2024. 2026 show continue to see AI adoption grow.
According to research by the Thomson Reuters Institute, 81% of professionals believe that GenAI can be applied to their work, and 76% of in-house operations teams expect it to help achieve their goals and enhance efficiency.
Amid this rapid evolution, general counsel are facing both the challenge and the opportunity to shape the future of their organizations around AI adoption.
Corporate AI adoption: The method of AI adoption varies depending upon the organization type, such as a public or private company, an established or mid-level organization, or a nascent startup.
For public companies, it is critical to think about a company-wide policy regarding AI adoption and governance. It is key to ensure the AI policy closely dovetails with the company’s interests, ensuring protection of both corporate intellectual property and reputation. For regulated industries such as real estate, banking or healthcare, the security and compliance of AI programs is especially paramount, ensuring responsible usage.
For smaller companies that do not have the public reporting duties and may not have the same mandates around regulatory compliance, operations should still look to develop a template policy for corporate AI usage.
In developing AI policies, operations should look to collaborate with inter-departmental stakeholders such as IT and security.
AI represents a critical business opportunity, and corporate leadership and boards are increasingly raising their expectations around AI adoption, making leadership essential. Staff cannot and should not have their head in the proverbial sand when it comes to leading on AI. The reality is that the firms will be utilizing AI technologies, whether in departments such as marketing, sales, or compliance and employees will look to the operations and their team (whether directly or implicitly) to define and articulate an appropriate policy.
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