How does a three-person surveying practice compete with companies that employ hundreds or even thousands?
Lucy Quibell MRICS has co-run Holt Property, the Warwickshire strategic land agency, since 2008. With a staff of three, she is using artificial intelligence to give clients the reach and depth of much larger firms.
For Quibell’s SME business, which continues the nearly 90-year legacy of the Holt name in Midlands property, AI is about focusing on the work technology cannot do. “AI takes on some of the heavy lifting, the research and the analysis, always to the standard we set,” she says. “That frees us up to spend our time where we add most value: with our clients, on their land, applying the judgement that only comes with experience.”
In London, a 25-strong consultancy called GCW, is seeing similar benefits. AI has given the company “the ability, flexibility and opportunity to compete against bigger global businesses, or to provide services that might not have been obvious before,” says Simon Morris MRICS, managing partner at GCW.
That is AI’s promise for SMEs competing with giants such as JLL, which has more than 113,000 employees across 80 countries, and CBRE, whose 155,000 staff, including Turner & Townsend, operate in more than 100 countries. Large firms are typically weighed down by heavier governance, longer procurement cycles, and more complex change management.
But for SMEs, AI can be an extra pair of hands, taking on work that was never chargeable. In the race for efficiency, agility can matter more than scale: with the shackles of red tape gone, smaller firms can adopt tools faster and save time.
Even playing field
This evidence debunks any myth that AI only belongs only to international consultancies with in-house data teams and seven-figure technology budgets.
The tech is “the great leveller” in the industry, says Tom Storey MRICS, senior specialist in data and technology at RICS, who plays a key role in shaping RICS’s member-facing data, technology and AI initiatives.
A five to ten partner practice can decide on a Monday what they are going to do, and within a matter of days they will be working differently, says Storey, who adds: “SMEs have the agility, the quicker procurement cycle. But they need to follow the new RICS standard on responsible use of AI (effective since March) to balance innovation with risk and governance.” He urges SMEs to keep a record of what AI is used for, retain the human touch and be transparent with clients.
Once SMEs start stacking the benefits of innovation, such as productivity, data analytics, and insights, from their work, and building standard operating procedures involving AI, “it can be the tide that lifts all boats,” says Storey.
With AI taking on more routine work (such as consistency checking, formatting and summarising lengthy documents), SME surveyors can focus on the skills technology cannot replace, such as professional judgement, informed scepticism, and stakeholder management. “Those will not change, no matter how much technology interacts with our profession. It will simply give us more time to deliver better standards and service to clients,” says Storey.
Start-up advice
To get off the ground, Morris believes SMEs should start with a clear plan for how they want to use AI. “You can ask AI anything, but just because you can doesn’t mean that’s useful, or the results will be reliable,” he says.
A good first step is to map the business and its services to identify where the tech could add value, which processes feel cumbersome, and where stronger insight or additional advice could make a real difference for clients.
Then, says Morris, build your AI agents and tools around that. “If you just get a ChatGPT subscription and start pumping it full of questions you will end up with more confusion.”
AI offers SMEs clear benefits, but it also brings challenges. One of the biggest is the speed of change. “Once you start on this journey, you have to be prepared to keep up,” says James Garner FRICS, head of AI and data at Gleeds. “It is not a one-off job. Almost every few months, you are going to have to update it.”
Larger firms will have that structured learning provided for them, says Storey, but SMEs will need to engage with training providers to stay up-to-date as the technology evolves. RICS runs the online course Global Harnessing of Data and AI in the Built Environment, and the majority of attendees are from SMEs.
Another challenge is the rise of what Garner calls “snake oil salesmen,” selling AI products: “There are people telling you what you should do. Unfortunately, many persuade you to spend significant money when you do not need to.”
“AI takes on some of the heavy lifting, the research and the analysis, always to the standard we set” Lucy Quibell MRICS, Holt Property
Ultimately, the experiences of SMEs like Holt and GCW show that broad AI capability can be a winning formula, a view supported by the Dublin-based AI Institute.
Last year, it carried out research into AI adoption in the built environment. Results showed that mid-size firms were at the forefront of using the tech, but the AI Institute’s co-founder, Maryrose Lyons, says: “When we carry out the research again, I expect it's the SMEs that have taken off this year because they have less complexity and levels of sign-off to get going. It's a great time to be an SME using AI.”
