Over the past few decades, there have been several transformative technology cycles: the proliferation of personal computing, the growth of the internet, the rise of social media, and the mobile revolution. Artificial intelligence (AI) appears to be the next technology with this transformative potential.

While AI has been progressing for decades, OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT in late 2022 brought language-capable artificial intelligence into the mainstream, catalysing a rapid acceleration in investment, with the potential for mass adoption of technology. Generative AI is likely to have wide-ranging applications across the economy, and this technology has the potential to transform sectors across markets, including real estate.

Though still early, AI has strong potential to be a net positive for more than half the investable universe for US REITs, improving operational efficiency for sectors such as healthcare and hotels, while leading to increased demand for data centr