The Real Estate's A.I Problem: Fragmented Information and Siloed Data

In nearly every major industry, data has become a strategic asset—streamlined, transparent, and readily accessible. Yet in real estate, a sector that remains the world’s biggest store of wealth ($379.7 trillion at the end of 2022, Savills), information often remains scattered, inconsistent, and hard to verify. Even as conversations around artificial intelligence (AI) grow louder, the industry faces a fundamental hurdle: without standardized, trustworthy data, the promise of AI-driven investment decisions and efficient operations remains out of reach.

A Maze of Data Sources

Real estate participants—buyers, sellers, brokers, and investors—often find themselves piecing together property details from multiple channels. Property attributes might appear on one listing platform, while pricing trends sit in a separate database. Verification documents could be locked away with a government registry or buried in a corporate server. In some markets, such as India, incomplete digitization of records exacerbates this fragmentation, making it difficult to confidently evaluate deals. While global transparency efforts are underway, the industry still lacks a centralized source of truth.

The Dubai Example

Not all markets are equally fragmented. Dubai has made significant strides in centralizing real estate information through its government-led initiatives. The Dubai Land Department (DLD) has rolled out digital platforms that consolidate transactional data, property titles, and regulatory requirements, making it easier for buyers, sellers, and investors to trust the information they find. This kind of streamlined data ecosystem demonstrates that progress is possible when clear standards, strong enforcement, and supportive infrastructure come together.

The Challenge in India

In contrast, a market like India faces structural hurdles. Although steps are being taken to digitize and modernize land records, the process is fragmented across states and local authorities. High reliance on cash transactions and the practice of understating property values to reduce taxes further undermine data quality. Even if property details are stored digitally, they may not accurately reflect true market values, limiting the usefulness of any data-driven insights.

When Data Lives Everywhere—And Nowhere

Most of the time, real estate owners do store their property's critical details somewhere—but “somewhere” could be a spreadsheet, a financial management app, a forgotten folder, or even a handwritten note tucked into a desk drawer. Spread across multiple platforms and formats, key records may be offline, incomplete, or locked behind individual staff members’ personal filing systems.

This fragmentation creates blind spots. Without a consolidated, easily accessible repository of information, it’s hard to see the big picture or identify emerging patterns. As a result, stakeholders waste time hunting for documents, verifying property credentials, and cross-referencing numbers that should be at their fingertips. Missed deadlines, overlooked opportunities, and resource-heavy due diligence all stem from this scattered information landscape.

The Impact on Investment and Innovation

Global investors find these data gaps particularly challenging. Unlike stocks or bonds—with centralized, regulated exchanges and near-instant performance metrics—real estate portfolios remain opaque. Investors juggling properties across different geographies must manually compile data from disparate sources, making timely, data-driven decisions difficult. This complexity also impedes the adoption of cutting-edge technologies: in order to effectively implement AI—or any advanced analytics—real estate must first ensure that its underlying data is standardized, reliable, and easily retrievable.

PropTech’s Role, and Its Limitations

A new wave of PropTech companies aims to centralize and standardize real estate data. Some platforms, such as PropertyMonitor in the UAE, aggregate transactional records, while others, like Landeed in India, focus on providing transparent pricing indices or digital tools for verifying property documents.

However, the success of these platforms depends largely on data integrity. If accurate and verified information isn’t consistently fed into these tools, even the most advanced platform becomes just another isolated silo. In places where cash deals and under-reported values distort the market picture, technology alone can’t solve the problem. Policy reforms, enforcement of transparency standards, and cultural shifts away from opaque practices must accompany digital innovation.

Toward a More Unified Future

Addressing data fragmentation isn’t merely a matter of convenience; it’s about building a foundation for growth, innovation, and trust. Centralizing and standardizing information allows every participant—brokers, buyers, sellers, investors, and regulators—to operate more efficiently. In turn, this transparency paves the way for applying AI and advanced analytics, enabling better pricing models, streamlined due diligence, and more informed decision-making.

The journey to a unified data environment requires cooperation among government bodies, industry stakeholders, and technology providers. It may also demand tough policy decisions to discourage off-the-record transactions and ensure that digital records truly represent the value and characteristics of the properties they describe.

Without these measures, the industry will continue to struggle with fragmented data that holds back innovation. With them, real estate could finally align with the digital age, offering seamless, data-driven experiences on par with other major industries—and unlocking the full potential of AI and other transformative technologies.