by Andrew Barber
At MIPIM 2024 and 2025, artificial intelligence was hovering around the edges of the event. A session here, a fringe panel there. This year was different. AI emerged as the defining theme of the four days in Cannes, in the way ESG once was, but with a critical distinction: it is no longer being discussed as an ambition. It is something the industry is actively, if unevenly, having to deal with.
The timing of our own research felt apt. The 2026 AI in Real Estate Survey, produced by Remit Consulting with Antony Slumbers and supported by the UK PropTech Association, launched at the event. Its findings landed with an audience that was already primed for the conversation. Access to AI is now near universal: 93% of respondents said their organisation provides it. But the survey's more telling finding is the gap between access and maturity. Only 7% of firms describe themselves as fully integrated. The majority are using AI for transcription, drafting and summarisation, while deeper capabilities such as governed workflows, knowledge management and agentic automation remain largely untapped. The technology is in the room. Most firms are still deciding what to do with it.
At MIPIM, the physical consequences of AI were hard to ignore. Data centres dominated the investment conversation, with demand for capacity accelerating decisions at a pace the market hasn't seen before. Energy infrastructure and power availability have moved from secondary considerations to primary ones. The footprint of AI is growing faster than the sector's ability to plan for it.
The overall mood was cautious rather than frozen, with some investors still actively acquiring. But the message coming through both the conference and the survey was consistent: the firms best placed for the next cycle will be those moving beyond access and toward governance, data quality and embedded capability. Adoption is high. Maturity is not. That gap is where competitive advantage will be won or lost. And as Lorna Landells argues elsewhere in this newsletter, as those decisions get made, it is worth looking closely at who is in the room making them.
Download a full copy of the AI in Real Estate Survey 2026.