Rukus Esi, Senior Vice President and Chief Digital Officer, AvalonBay Communities
Rukus Esi
What emerging technologies are having the biggest impact on the multifamily industry today?
At AvalonBay, we’re seeing transformative impact from emerging technologies, particularly in the realm of AI and automation. We’re focused on leveraging these tools to enhance the prospect and resident experience and streamline our operations. Specifically, we’re deploying AI-powered solutions to address customer inquiries instantly. This isn’t just about providing quick answers; it’s about driving process standardization and simplification across our portfolio.
In today’s fast-paced world, residents expect immediate responses. Why should they wait minutes, hours, or even days for an answer when technology allows for solutions in seconds? We’re moving away from traditional, often fragmented communication channels and embracing AI-driven platforms that can provide consistent, accurate information in real time. This not only improves resident satisfaction but also allows our on-site teams to focus on more complex, value-added tasks.
By automating these interactions, we ensure every resident receives a consistent and efficient experience, regardless of location or time of day.
This standardization is crucial for a large portfolio of 300-plus communities like ours.
Ultimately, we believe that the future of multifamily lies in seamless, technology-enabled experiences. By prioritizing AI and automation, we’re not just keeping pace with industry trends; we’re actively shaping the future of how residents interact with their homes and communities.
What are some of the most promising proptech solutions you’ve recently adopted or are considering?
AvalonBay is focused on strategic proptech solutions that drive tangible improvements in both customer experience and operational efficiency. We’re particularly excited about the potential of AI-powered communication and robust customer relationship management systems.
We’ve partnered with the AI platform EliseAI for the past four years to proactively engage potential and current prospects and streamline the leasing process. Its ability to handle a high volume of queries 24/7 is invaluable, ensuring consistent and efficient communication. This technology significantly improves our responsiveness and frees up our on-site teams to focus on more complex tasks.
In addition, we continue to leverage and expand the capabilities of customer relationship management (CRM) systems to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the resident journey. By integrating our CRM with other key systems, we can anticipate resident needs, personalize communications, and ultimately enhance satisfaction. This data-driven approach allows us to optimize processes and make informed decisions, ensuring we deliver exceptional customer experiences.
These technologies represent our commitment to staying at the forefront of innovation, ensuring AvalonBay remains a leader in resident-centric multifamily living.
How do you ensure seamless technology integration across a diverse portfolio of properties?
At AvalonBay, we are fortunate to own all the properties we operate, which provides us with significant flexibility to implement scalable solutions and standardize their deployment across our portfolio. Our approach begins with identifying the key stakeholders and personas involved, as well as thoroughly understanding the business processes we aim to improve. By leveraging best practices from product management and Agile software development, we can pinpoint challenges early and iterate frequently to refine our solutions. This iterative approach enables us to address issues proactively and ensure we achieve seamless, effective outcomes.
What strategies do you use to future-proof your tech stack in a rapidly evolving digital landscape?
Our core strategy is focused on owning key competencies in-house, product management and UX design, software architecture and engineering leadership, and data science. As a result, we’ve built a platform that prioritizes minimizing our technology switching costs and reducing our long-term maintenance costs. It enables us to own our destiny, providing us with the flexibility to build differentiated capabilities, buy and integrate off the shelf solutions, or rent solutions that fit our overall business needs.
What are the biggest barriers to technology adoption in multifamily, and how do you overcome them?
The biggest barriers to technology adoption in multifamily are costs and complexity. There are high upfront costs and complexity involved with integrating new vendors and systems and training associates. In order to overcome these barriers, there must be a clear approach to showing return on investment, simplified integrations, and strong partnerships with vendors that solve problems holistically.
With increasing cyber threats, what best practices are you implementing to ensure data security and protect resident information?
AvalonBay prioritizes stringent data privacy and security protocols to protect resident information in the face of increasing cyber threats. We implement multilayered security measures, including robust encryption of data in transit and at rest, strong access controls, regular security audits, and penetration testing. We also conduct ongoing employee training on data security best practices.
