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Software company Lessen has launched an artificial intelligence interface to further augment operations for its customers in the property management space, according to a June 25 press release.
Lessen specializes in solutions that address operations for owners and managers of all rental asset classes, from single-family to large multifamily communities. The new AI is called Copilot, the release said, and allows “property managers and their teams across all asset classes and geographies to seamlessly manage the work order lifecycle through an intuitive conversational interface.”
Copilot will focus on expediting work orders with a chat interface that asks for simple project input, such as, “A window needs to be replaced in unit five on the second floor of building No. 10.” The AI will generate the work order and trigger tasks to initiate its completion. Lessen trained it using its 15+ years of maintenance request data and “millions of work orders.”
“We are constantly improving our tech stack to eliminate friction and improve our customer’s experience,” said Jay McKee, CEO at Lessen, in the press release. “The launch of Copilot takes things to the next level by providing a virtual assistant whose entire job is to make it easier to manage services for a distributed real estate portfolio.”
Interfaces in this capacity offer an array of benefits; reducing manual error is merely the start. It centers input in a central administrative experience, maintains consistency in work order input and output, streamlines the linking of document content to internal databases and in turn, ensures financial records are more easily tracked. Copilot is also multilingual, able to process input in Spanish.
Artificial intelligence has been sweeping across the rental industry, making headway into automated rent collection, tenant screening, lease analysis, delinquent payments and vacancy marketing, among other lines of business.
Lessen’s colleague Entrata acquired Colleen AI, an artificial intelligence-based tenant communication tool, Inman reported on June 21, Entrata’s second acquisition in the past 12 months. The company plans to roll out what it calls “Autonomous Property Management,” which will make “workflows increasingly automated and portfolios more efficient while simultaneously delivering an elevated resident experience.”
Lessen’s Copilot product has been in beta for a number of months, receiving what the company calls “overwhelmingly positive” feedback.
“Initial customers have seen a 20 percent reduction in the time it takes to produce a work order, with only 1 percent of conversations requiring human processing,” the release stated. “In the coming months, the company also plans to expand Copilot to help streamline various processes for its network of over 30,000 vendors.”
Lessen reached “unicorn” status in 2021 after a $170 million Series B round of funding, its second major haul that year. Its Series A netted $35 million and was led by Fifth Wall.
In January 2023, Lessen acquired SMS Assist, a facilities maintenance technology company with automation that reaches into retail and commercial office facilities.
