Unlocking billions in operational value with agentic AI: McKinsey on the future of real estate

New research explores how domain-level redesigns, technical governance, and automated workflows could yield up to USD 550 billion in annual global gains

May 14, 2026Real Estate

Executive Summary

According to a recent report from McKinsey & Company titled "How agentic AI can reshape real estate's operating model", the next wave of artificial intelligence (AI) is already here, and its strategic implications are vital for industry leaders.

In real estate, this shift is less about generating better answers and more about software taking safe, next steps within real workflows.

The GRI Institute is pleased to share this insightful and compelling article from McKinsey, the renowned global management consulting firm, which paints a vivid picture of a future where AI does more than just answer questions - it actively executes the work.

Key Takeaways

Agentic AI is accelerating beyond previous applications of generative AI by automating multistep workflows inside core business systems, shifting the paradigm from "help me understand" to "help me get it done".
As AI capabilities rapidly advance, the real issue for real estate players is not whether the models are capable, but whether workflows are designed to allow technology to do the work.
Integrating robust human oversight with AI agents will be critical for preserving brand trust, ensuring compliance, and handling the complex relationships that define the built environment.

From Reactive Assistance to Proactive Execution

Most real estate executives have already overseen experiments with generative AI, using it for summarising leases, drafting memos, or accelerating reporting. While helpful, these tools rarely transform how work is fundamentally executed within core business systems.

Agentic AI represents a critical leap from reactive assistance to proactive, goal-driven execution.

Based on a labour productivity analysis across 48 countries, the McKinsey Global Institute reveals that this level of automation could unlock between USD 430 billion and USD 550 billion in annual value globally across real estate, construction, and development.

Furthermore, early implementations have demonstrated significant potential gains, including time savings exceeding 30% on maintenance tasks, improvements in renewal rates of between 3% and 7%, and lead response times that are more than 90% faster.

The Power of the Domain

To capture this immense value, McKinsey advises organisations to rethink their approaches to AI implementation. Instead of asking which isolated use cases they can pilot, leaders should ask which entire workflows they should redesign.

To achieve this, the report introduces the concept of the "domain" - a coherent slice of the business with clear owners, a measurable outcome, and connected workflows that can be redesigned from end to end.

By focusing on domain-level redesigns, companies are encouraged to develop the necessary permissions, technical integrations, and governance frameworks that enable AI agents to execute vital tasks.

This approach shifts the business from running disjointed pilots to achieving compounding, week-over-week operational improvements.

McKinsey identifies four high-value domains ripe for this transformation, where high volume, complex handoffs, and real performance consequences intersect:

Maintenance and facilities
Leasing and renewals
Investing and asset management
Construction and capital expenditures

Rather than detailing every specific application, the report provides a strategic roadmap for how agentic systems can automate routine steps, streamline dispatching, and eliminate friction across these critical functions, freeing human workers to handle exceptions and build relationships.

Technical Foundations and Brand Trust

Crucially, decision-makers are urged to consider that an impressive demonstration does not always translate to a scalable enterprise solution.

A successful agentic AI deployment relies on a robust technology architecture comprising five essential layers that move the technology from a simple demo to a scalable enterprise solution:

Factual: Organises clean data as a reliable source of truth.
Orchestration: Plans workflows, routes work, and manages escalation triggers.
Action: Executes tasks by integrating directly into core systems.
Control: Provides governance, audit trails, and financial transaction permissions.
Building-block: Provides reusable routines for scaling capabilities across the business.

Alongside the technical infrastructure, protecting trust and human judgement remains paramount. Real estate is fundamentally a business of relationships.

In this light, the report warns of a subtle risk: if every owner deploys the same agent speaking in the same generic tone, brands will become diluted. The objective must be to automate the friction surrounding an interaction - not the emotion.

Envisioning the Future Operating Model

Looking ahead, McKinsey outlines three plausible, overlapping futures for the real estate operating model to explore how new operating systems may emerge at the portfolio level, how traditional middle-management coordination layers could quietly disappear, and how value creation will inevitably become harder as basic execution improves across global markets.

The winners in this new era will not necessarily be the firms with the flashiest technology, but the ones that own their data learning loops and utilise agentic systems to quietly get the work moving - allowing their human workforce to focus on judgement, negotiation, and the moments that truly matter.

For a thorough breakdown of the five technical layers, detailed domain blueprints, and strategic considerations for deploying agentic AI, this report offers comprehensive guidance for the decision-makers navigating this seismic shift in real estate.

► Read “How agentic AI can reshape real estate's operating model” from McKinsey & Company in full HERE.