The evolution of corporate real estate management: How technology is reshaping the industry
The evolution of corporate real estate management: How technology is reshaping the industry
Corporate real estate management, encompassing the oversight of an enterprise’s physical locations worldwide, is undergoing a major shift. The pressure to manage real estate portfolios and workplaces in a more agile and cost-effective manner, without sacrificing user experience, is driving this change. Ever since the outbreak of COVID-19, leaders in the sector face the challenge of balancing these opposing demands, as offices are pressured more than ever to become centers of value creation, supporting growth, revenue, and talent acquisition. Technology plays a critical role in enabling this new paradigm.
JLL’s Work Dynamics division covers a broad spectrum of corporate real estate management activities, including portfolio management (lease admin, transactions, location strategy), workplace management (facilities management, engineering, space and occupancy planning), and project management (design, construction, fit-out, and renovation projects).
For corporate real estate professionals, technological innovation is about managing portfolios and workplaces more dynamically through data-driven decision-making and automation. Technology should also support employee well-being and productivity while delivering more sustainable environments and operations.
Technology solutions are reshaping the market across three key areas:
- Workplace management: Leveraging AI-powered platforms for data integration, smart building automation, energy monitoring, dynamic occupancy planning, and predictive maintenance.
- Portfolio management: Utilizing advanced technologies for lease administration (such as automated lease abstraction), data driven transaction management, and portfolio-wide occupancy data monitoring to optimize leasing and location decisions.
- Project management: Implementing tools for construction schedule optimization, real-time site monitoring, and cloud-based collaboration platforms to enhance cost control and stakeholder communication.
Together, these innovations are driving efficiency, sustainability, and improved decision-making throughout the corporate real estate lifecycle.
JLL has been leading the way in harnessing these technologies for corporate users, as demonstrated in 2024 with the launch of JLL Falcon: a pioneering AI platform for commercial real estate, that combines vast proprietary data with cutting-edge AI models to power a suite of applications enabling data-based decision making and generating efficiencies. This platform includes industry-leading tools such as JLL GPT (a proprietary large language model) and JLL Azara, an AI-powered dashboard for corporate real estate management that leverages an enterprise’s complete workplace and portfolio data sets.
“At JLL, we’re not just adapting to the AI revolution – we’re leading it. Our significant investments in AI and data have positioned us at the forefront of the CRE industry. With products like JLL Falcon and Azara AI, we are unlocking the potential of the world’s buildings and its people, turning data into a competitive advantage for our clients. Our AI-powered solutions are designed to augment, not replace, as we shape the future of real estate for a better world.”
– Sharad Rastogi, CEO, Work Dynamics Technology, JLL Technologies
JLL Spark has made several strategic investments to enhance JLL’s technology stack in this sector:
- VergeSense: A data occupancy platform that collects detailed information on space usage to inform portfolio and workplace rightsizing, and allow dynamic operations and service delivery
- Desana: An application that makes the global coworking space market bookable via one partner, enabling seamless integration of on demand workspace in Corporate RE strategies
- INGENIOUS.BUILD: A project management platform that enables better and swifter execution of projects
- qbiq: An AI-powered floor plan automation tool that reduces the time needed for test fits to less than 24 hours, at a fraction of the cost
In the near future, we expect to see more solutions emerge to further automate workplace management and data collection (predictive maintenance, robotics, resource allocation optimization), support sustainability (waste management automation) and employee experience (next generation tenant apps, and technologies supporting productivity such as workflow optimization, indoor navigation and automated meeting rooms management).
For corporate real estate leaders, forming key partnerships and adopting technology at the right pace is crucial to satisfy business and employee needs. To stay informed about the latest innovations in the field and learn more about what the global startup ecosystem has to offer, contact us at contact.spark@jll.com.
Written by Arnaud Bouzinac, Growth Principal EMEA
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