With almost €700 billion under management DWS, the real estate investment arm of is one of the biggest in Europe and the world. They have over 60 years of experience investing in and managing properties all over the world. But even with their size and organizational intelligence they still see the possibility of using even broader data sets to help them make their property decisions.
Yesterday they announced a partnership and partial investment in Israeli startup Skyline AI. Skyline is trying to “establish next-generation investment vehicles augmented by artificial intelligence.” They plan on using high-tech software to identify opportunities by finding correlation with inputs that are not traditionally used by the real estate industry. We reached out to DWS and were told that “The increasing availability of data will continue to impact real estate asset management. The additional data points provide a more holistic and complete view for property assessment, evaluations, future return projections and other aspects of the real estate investment cycle.”
Obviously, DWS is already an expert in finding good opportunities but it is telling that even they think that there are even more sophisticated ways to create value for shareholders. Skyline AI will be used “to source, analyze, acquire, manage and sell institutional-grade investments throughout the U.S.” according to DSW.
This should help Skyline further test their models with real-world feedback. As DWS uses this technology they plan to, “collaborate with Skyline AI’s data scientists to further develop Skyline AI’s proprietary technology.” For artificial intelligence to go from dream to reality in real estate investing it needs to be adopted and used by some of the bigger players. This partnership between the German asset management giant and a young startup with highly sophisticated and experienced technologists is a big step in that direction.
