Nikki Greenberg, a futurist and thought leader in the real estate industry, was the keynote speaker at the recent Iowa Commercial Real Estate Association Expo in Des Moines.

Greenberg, who started his career as an architect and urban designer, spoke about four topics during a presentation Sept. 28 at the Iowa Event Center: future customers, real estate in the metaverse, artificial intelligence and humans, and visions for the future. I took up.

Some of the highlights of her presentation are below.

future customers
Greenberg said if companies want to be attractive to Gen Z employees and customers, they need to act like Gen Z.

He said generations before baby boomers and Gen Z will leave the workforce, meaning Gen Z and Millennials will make up 75% of the workforce.

“So they are a force to be reckoned with, and you can never ignore them…so you have to understand them well,” Greenberg said.

Gen Z people spend an average of 10 hours a day on their devices, and 85% say they rely on social media to make purchasing decisions. According to Greenberg, half of Gen Z watches YouTube to teach themselves something. She also said their attention span is 8 seconds and they use her TikTok more than Google.

“If you want to think like Gen Zed, you need to act like Gen Zed. Spend more time using your devices and going where they want you to go,” Greenberg said. said.

Gen Zers will change jobs 10 times, she says. Of these, 41% are entrepreneurs, 42% prioritize benefits over pay, and 75% prefer a hybrid or remote work environment.

“This is going to continue,” she said. “When we’re talking about the future of the workplace, we’re talking about a very transient workforce with different values.”

Greenberg said if companies want to welcome Gen Z employees into the office, they need to create a more welcoming and comfortable place, often more comfortable than home.

One interesting statistic that Greenberg shared is that 90% of Gen Z workers want to come to the office because it improves their productivity. However, only 8% of people like open office plans and say they are not a productive place to work.

Greenberg said a clean office increases productivity by 11%, and a well-ventilated office improves cognitive performance by 50%.

“Let’s make it part of the marketing of space to say, ‘Yes, we have good quality air here.'” [and] It’s worth coming,” she said.

Metaverse real estate
Greenberg said companies such as L’Oréal, Gucci and Nike have already developed technology to conduct transactions within the Metaverse. She said the technology could enable large-scale transactions and auctions and become a tool used in real estate.

“Metaverse mortgages already exist,” she said.

The first Metaverse mortgages will arrive in 2022, Greenberg said. It was a $50,000 loan for two to three years.

“They don’t even have a real headquarters,” she said. “They just have this virtual building and no one knows who’s behind it. It’s just a virtual version of themselves.”

He said some properties in the Metaverse are recording monthly rents of $60,000 at a 70% profit margin.

“So, yes, it makes money,” Greenberg said. “While not a competitor to commercial real estate, the Metaverse is talked about in the language of real estate. So if you’re an innovator, you might want to think about how you can become a Metaverse landlord, mortgage broker, etc. .There are opportunities for those who are willing.”

Metaverse also hosts events such as fashion week and Christmas markets, she said. The virtual New Year’s Eve party reportedly attracted more than 3 million guests.

“So when something like this happens, you need space and you need people to build it,” Greenberg said. “So just as we interact in the physical world, this interaction is happening in the virtual world as well.”

AI and humans
Greenberg likened the development of AI to an infant.

“You’re young. You’re clumsy,” she said. “What does that mean? That means we need to provide proper nutrition and quality data. We need to supervise that. Because we need to teach them the difference between right and wrong. , we need to eliminate prejudice. We need to teach things.”

Greenberg said the good news about AI is that it “loves repetitive, monotonous, and dangerous work.” It’s the same job we don’t want to do, and that’s great. ”

In commercial real estate, AI can talk about a property’s size, attributes, and description, but it can also add or omit information.

“In terms of speed, we were able to do things so quickly that someone could come in and tweak things very easily,” Greenberg said. “There’s good room for it in terms of speed and fine-tuning, but they’re young and clumsy and learning, and they don’t have all the information.”

AI can also be trained to do simple tasks of answering questions, which could be useful in real estate management, she said.

Greenberg also said AI can be used to enhance customer relationship management, off-site construction, and improve building efficiency.

“Advances in AI are game-changing,” she said. “With the advent of AI, the world is about to change dramatically again. What we need is the understanding that the world is changing around us and that by changing with it, we have opportunities.” That’s the thing.”

future vision
Greenberg said cities around the world have plans for what they will look like in the future, and many of them revolve around connectivity and technology.

This includes investing in theater and entertainment to grow the nighttime economy and making business districts 24/7 destinations. Investing in public transport to ensure people can get to work. It also improves communication between agencies so that when one utility company is operating in one location, another utility company knows.

“There are many different visions of where the city wants to go,” Greenberg said.

She said it’s important to talk about “what we don’t have and what could be coming.”

Although technology like smart watches, smart TVs, robot vacuums and other gadgets already exists, “we still have a ways to go as a society. There’s still room for innovation,” she said. .

“We have an obligation to make sure the world we are creating today is sustainable for generations to come, and that means putting even more emphasis on technology,” Greenberg said. said.