There’s no denying that artificial intelligence is changing the way apartment communities interact with prospective renters.

But while AI-powered apartment chatbots are capable of performing tasks such as answering questions about amenities and floor plans, making apartment tour appointments, and sending rental applications, we don’t yet have the technology to remove humans from the equation if a question is posed that the bot can’t answer.

There are two primary ways that leasing staff and chatbots can work together to give potential renters the kind of smooth and helpful interactions they expect: AI-assisted human interaction and human-assisted AI interaction. What sets these two approaches apart are how the messages are received and how the messages are responded to.

1. AI-Assisted Human Interaction

This service is primarily operated by property managers, leasing agents, or other staff, who are supported by AI. Here’s one way this could work:

• A chatbot is the first point of contact. It uses AI to look for keywords to figure out what the prospective renter is asking. For example, the question, “Are dogs allowed?” might trigger keyword “dogs,” which falls under the bots understanding of the pet category.

• It walks the prospect through a set of pet category questions: “Are you asking if we allow dogs or cats?” The answers and the bot’s replies are received by human customer service agents.

• The bot suggests answers that the agent may use: “Cats are allowed” or “Dogs are not permitted.”

• The agent can approve the bot’s responses, or the agent can take over if the answers aren’t quite right.
  
  

The main benefit of this approach is the bot does not need to be programmed for natural language processing. Instead, it relies on keyword and pattern matching.

The drawbacks are that the bot does not learn and become smarter and more self-reliant as it would if it understood natural language. And, a dedicated leasing agent must be present during every interaction the bot has with a prospect, which results in higher operating costs.

2. Human-Assisted AI

Rather than relying on the human agent, in this scenario the chatbot can handle the interaction pretty much on its own. Here’s how the process works:

• The chatbot receives the prospective renter’s message.

• Relying on programmed data and natural language processing, the bot can determine what the prospect is asking and it can compose an appropriate reply. Going back to our original example question, “Are dogs allowed?” the bot would immediately understand the question was not just about pets, but also about dogs. Even more impressively, it would understand the context of the question itself.

• The bot sends the reply automatically, without any human intervention: “Yes, we allow dogs and we have no breed restrictions.”

• If the prospect asks a question that the bot can’t answer — “Is there a dog park on site?” — a human agent steps in. However, as time goes on, this should happen less frequently because this type of chatbot is always learning. If it’s asked the same question — or even a slightly similar question — in the future, it will be able to provide an accurate reply.
  
  

The primary benefit is that human-assisted AI is that humans have more time to perform more complex tasks — such as leading a tour of the property — that would result in the apartment community running smoother. Because a dedicated leasing  agent doesn’t need to monitor the chatbot, operating costs are lower. Also, the apartment chatbot only needs to be taught how to answer something once and they’ll remember the actions for future use. In other words, it gets more intelligent as time goes on and it will need human help less and less.

The main drawback is simply the result of where we are right now in terms of the functionality of this type of technology. A human touch is still needed for any type of chatbot to perform at its highest level. At the same time, AI technology has advanced so rapidly that some people may still be reluctant to put their trust in a bot.

As exciting as these developments are, we’re just on the cusp of what’s to come.