AI × CRE
Built by practitioners

A monthly community of practice for commercial real estate professionals navigating AI adoption — grounded in real workflows, real concerns, and real results.

Monthly Sessions Practitioner-Led No Sales Pitches
Guide
Set up your AI agent

A step-by-step walkthrough: pick a model, give it persistent context and instructions, feed it the right data safely, and let it take action when you're ready.

Open the guide
01 / About

Why this
group exists.

The Premise

is a monthly community of practice for commercial real estate professionals navigating AI adoption. We meet to share what's working, learn from each other's experience, and ask the harder questions about where this technology is taking our industry and our profession.

We are not here to sell tools or declare winners. We're here to build a practitioner-led knowledge base that's specific to CRE.

"Grounded in real workflows, real concerns, and real results — not vendor pitches or hype cycles."
How we started

It started almost by accident. An unplanned meeting grew out of a CREWBiz post for women who wanted to learn — quickly — how to actually use AI in their work. That first conversation took on a life of its own. We came together through CREW Network, the commercial real estate industry's premier organization advancing women through connection to opportunities, information, and each other.

Today we're a small group of women building the plane while flying it: assembling practical resources, prompts, and playbooks for using AI in the commercial real estate market, and sharing what we learn as we go.

Help shape the agenda

What topic in AI would you like to learn about?

02 / Resources

What you can
actually use.

03 / Sessions

What we talked
about.

Notes, slides, and takeaways from each monthly session. Third Friday of every month · 10–11am EST · Microsoft Teams.

Session 01 Mar 19, 2026

Introductions & Landscape

Who's in the room, what we're each wrestling with, and where this is heading.

The kickoff. We mapped who's adopting AI in their CRE workflows, which tools show up most, and what concerns members bring to the table — from data security to client comms to the hype-vs-reality gap.

Session 02 Apr 17, 2026

Foundations of AI for CRE Professionals

The conceptual grounding — what these models actually do, and don't.

Karan walked the group through how large language models work, what they're good at, and where the failure modes show up in CRE workflows specifically. Heavy on examples, light on hype.

Session 03 May 15, 2026

The AI Advantage in CRE: What Smart Leaders Are Learning

Leadership patterns — who's actually moving, and what they're doing differently.

A look at the firms and individuals quietly building a real edge with AI — what their adoption playbooks look like, where they're focusing first, and the cultural shifts that separate experimentation from operational change.

Session 04 Jun 19, 2026

Stop Copying & Pasting Your Way Through the Day — Here's How to Automate It

Where your time actually goes, and how to get it back with automation + AI.

Kaitlyn Study (South Street & Co.) on cutting the small, repetitive work that eats your day — building a digital assistant before you hire, plus real automation examples you can copy.

Session 05 Jul 17, 2026

You Already Have Copilot: Let's Make It Earn Its Keep

Practical AI for the way CRE actually works.

Ashley Pyle (GadellNet) on getting real hours back from Microsoft 365 Copilot — Basic vs Premium, the "racetrack not race car" mindset, Frame · Focus · Finish in Copilot, and a live lease workflow across Word, Excel, and Teams. Leave-behind: the prompt pack, demo kits, and the AI Opportunity Worksheet.

Session 06 · Up Next Aug 21, 2026 · 10:00 AM ET

Build Your Own AI Chief of Staff

What would change if you started every day with your priorities organized, your meetings prepared, your follow-ups identified, and your next steps already in motion?

In this engaging one-hour session, you'll learn how to begin building a personalized AI Chief of Staff — using Claude or ChatGPT — to support either your professional responsibilities or your home life. Through a practical demonstration and guided activation, you'll see how a carefully instructed AI assistant can reduce mental load, improve preparation, and help manage the constant flow of work, family, and personal commitments — while keeping privacy, permissions, and human oversight firmly in place.

  • One clearly defined use case — your own AI Chief of Staff, scoped to real work or home life.
  • A practical framework for setting roles, boundaries, and permissions.
  • A downloadable step-by-step guide to keep building your assistant after the session.
Presenter
Michelle Hamilton
AI Adoption Practice Lead · AnswerRocket
04 / Tools & Resources

Pick the right tool.
Protect the right data.

A working reference for the AI platforms most likely to show up in CRE workflows — with the questions to ask before you commit. This market moves quickly; verify current terms at vendor sites.

— Before You Commit · Three Questions
01

What's in my input?

If your prompt contains confidential client data, deal terms, financial projections, or personal information — you need enterprise-grade data protection. Consumer-tier tools aren't appropriate for this content.

02

What does my firm allow?

Many firms have IT policies that restrict or prohibit certain tools. Find out before using. If there's no policy, that's a conversation to have with IT — not permission to proceed.

03

What's the task?

Match the tool to the job. Research with citations → Perplexity. Long document analysis → Claude. Excel automation → Copilot. Social content → ChatGPT. Don't default to one tool for everything.

— Platform Reference

ChatGPT

Free · Plus / Team · Enterprise
OpenAI
Best for in CRE

Drafting, research, ideation, summaries. Plus/Team add image generation, web search, custom GPTs, and data analysis.

Watch out for

Free tier trains on your inputs by default — turn off in settings. Team adds privacy controls. Enterprise required for full data isolation.

Learn ChatGPT — OpenAI Academy

Claude

Free · Pro · Teams · Enterprise
Anthropic
Best for in CRE

Long documents, contract review, research synthesis, nuanced writing. Cowork (beta) extends to desktop file workflows.

Watch out for

Free has usage limits. Pro ($20/mo) adds larger context and priority access. Teams/Enterprise don't train on your inputs.

Learn Claude — Anthropic Academy

Microsoft Copilot

Embedded across M365
Microsoft
Best for in CRE

Word, Excel, Outlook, Teams, PowerPoint — context-aware AI inside the tools you already use every day.

Watch out for

Quality varies significantly by app. Requires M365 Business or Enterprise license. Not a substitute for standalone chat tools.

Learn Copilot — Microsoft Learn

Gemini

Workspace integration
Google
Best for in CRE

Docs, Sheets, Gmail, real-time web search, Workspace-native context. Strong on data-heavy tasks in Sheets.

Watch out for

Advanced tier needed for full Workspace integration. Less useful if your firm isn't already on Google Workspace.

Learn Gemini — Google Skills

Perplexity

Research-focused
Perplexity AI
Best for in CRE

Research with live citations, market data, news aggregation, competitive scans. Strong "where did this fact come from" trail.

Watch out for

Not a writing tool — optimized for retrieval, not drafting. Use it for the facts, take them somewhere else for the prose.

Proprietary LLMs

Firm-built or deployed
In-house
Best for in CRE

Maximum data security, firm-specific workflows and institutional knowledge. The endgame for firms with mature AI strategy.

Watch out for

Requires significant technical investment and ongoing maintenance. Not realistic for most smaller CRE firms today.

05 / The People

Who's running
the room.

Ivy Marguerite
Founder
Senior Territory Manager
EyeQ Monitoring
Jodi L. Tagessen
Escrow Supervisor and Underwriting Counsel
Stewart Title
Melody Montgomery
COO
One More Deal
Michelle Hamilton
AI Adoption Practice Lead
AnswerRocket
Sarah Gudeman
Founder
VP / Principal
BranchPattern