The new role of knowledge in an AI era

Property management and maintenance has always been a discipline characterized by experience, artisanal knowledge and intuition. But with artificial intelligence entering the engine room, the industry is facing a shift: how we understand, use and share knowledge is changing.

Artificial intelligence enables employees with less experience to deliver work of a quality that previously required years of practice. This in itself may sound like a threat to experience-based professionalism, but in fact it is precisely here that experience takes on a new and even more important role. Because when AI generates suggestions, analyses and recommendations, it is still the experienced professionals who can qualify, nuance and translate the output into real decisions.

AI lifts the entire level of knowledge

In this way, AI creates a new dynamic: it raises the general level of knowledge in the organization, while making the deep experience even more valuable. Experience becomes the filter that ensures AI delivers not just data, but actionable insights.

We see an example in some housing organizations where proprty.ai is rolled out to all property officials, even those without a building engineering background. Here, employees can use AI carry out condition assessments and prepare proposals for maintenance operations; for which they would not otherwise have had the prerequisites. At the same time, a central function with a technical/economic background has been established, which qualifies the proposals and prioritises the efforts in order to improve the quality of maintenance plans. The result is a model in which knowledge becomes available to many, while experience continues to ensure that the right decisions are made.

Experience as the Crucial Filter

At the same time, AI breaks down the barriers that previously silenced or isolated knowledge in individual individuals. When experiences are translated into data, they can be made available across teams and organizations. Thus, knowledge can be democratized and scaled. New employees can be brought up to a high level more quickly and organizations can make more consistent and transparent decisions.

But precisely because AI has this power to disseminate and amplify knowledge, how the technology is put to use becomes crucial. It requires training, awareness and responsibility. New employees not only need to learn how to use AI as a tool, they also need to learn how to develop their own skills so that they can challenge and strengthen the insights that technology provides.

AI can thus be seen as an effective method of scaling knowledge, but only when we as an industry actively work with the balance between technology and experience.

The balance between technology and people

AI is changing the operation of property, but it is not changing the need for knowledge. On the contrary: experience and judgment become the foundations that determine whether AI becomes a shortcut to better decisions or just another computer system.

👉 How do you work in your organization with the balance between AI and experience? Feel free to share your thoughts. Dialogue is part of the solution.