AI Is Changing Investment Management — and Boise Commercial Real Estate Could Be Next
Artificial intelligence can analyze enormous amounts of information in seconds.
But what happens when the information feeding it is wrong?
That’s becoming one of the biggest questions facing professional investment managers, and it has direct relevance to commercial real estate. As investors, lenders, brokers and developers increasingly use AI to evaluate properties and markets, the quality of the underlying data may become just as important as the technology itself.
According to reporting from Idaho Business Review staff, Boise-based Clearwater Analytics recently surveyed senior investment executives about their use of artificial intelligence. The results showed widespread interest in AI alongside significant concerns about data reliability, regulation and organizational readiness.
The original Idaho Business Review article can be found here: https://idahobusinessreview.com/2026/08/12/clearwater-analytics-asset-managers-ai-data-trust-concerns/
For Boise commercial real estate, there’s a simple lesson worth remembering:
AI can make analysis faster. It doesn’t automatically make it right.
Investment Managers Want AI, But They Don’t Completely Trust It
Clearwater Analytics’ research included 178 senior executives from investment organizations across the United States, Europe and Asia.
Participants represented insurance asset managers, hedge funds, private credit firms and other investment managers.
The survey highlights an interesting contradiction.
Investment firms clearly see value in AI, but many don’t believe their organizations are fully prepared to use it.
About 62% expressed concern about whether their firms have enough AI knowledge and experience. More than half also worried that internal resistance and company culture could slow adoption.
But the biggest issue comes down to data.
Roughly two-thirds of respondents raised concerns about governance, reliability and integrity of the information used by AI systems.
About 64% were concerned about transparency, bias and the ability to understand how AI models reach conclusions.
Implementation costs were another concern.
And 62% specifically identified AI hallucinations—the possibility that a system generates information that sounds convincing but isn’t actually true—as a risk.
For investment managers making decisions involving millions or billions of dollars, that’s not a small problem.
Why This Matters for Commercial Real Estate
Commercial real estate is an obvious candidate for AI.
Think about how much information goes into evaluating a single property:
Rent rolls.
Lease expiration dates.
Comparable sales.
Asking rents.
Vacancy.
Operating expenses.
Demographics.
Traffic counts.
Construction costs.
Interest rates.
Zoning.
Population growth.
Tenant credit.
Market absorption.
Development pipelines.
Now imagine AI analyzing thousands of those data points almost instantly.
That’s powerful.
An investor evaluating Boise investment property could potentially compare dozens of opportunities quickly. A developer could analyze population growth, household income and competing projects. A landlord could examine leasing activity across a portfolio.
But there’s a catch.
Commercial real estate data isn’t always clean.
Two databases can report different building sizes.
A lease comp may be outdated.
A listing might remain online after a property has sold.
Operating expenses may be entered incorrectly.
Traffic counts can come from different years.
A tenant might have renewed its lease without the information appearing in a database.
And sometimes the best market intelligence isn’t in a database at all.
It’s known by the brokers, owners, tenants and developers actually working in the market.
If inaccurate information goes into an AI model, sophisticated technology can simply produce a sophisticated-looking wrong answer.
Local Market Knowledge May Become More Valuable, Not Less
There’s a popular idea that AI will eventually replace large portions of professional services.
In commercial real estate, I think the more interesting possibility is that AI makes good local knowledge even more valuable.
Consider two retail centers in Boise.
On paper, they might look nearly identical.
Similar square footage.
Similar occupancy.
Similar rents.
Similar traffic counts.
An algorithm could easily value them similarly.
But a local broker might know that one intersection is becoming significantly stronger because of new residential development.
Maybe a major tenant is quietly planning to leave one property.
Maybe road construction is about to change access.
Maybe a competing project has just been approved nearby.
Maybe one landlord has historically struggled to maintain the property.
Those details can dramatically change the investment decision.
They also illustrate why 93% of the investment executives surveyed by Clearwater supported combining AI with human expertise rather than treating the technology as a replacement for people.
That approach makes sense for Boise commercial real estate too.
AI Could Change How Boise Properties Are Underwritten
The potential applications are significant.
Commercial real estate investors could use AI to review offering memorandums, summarize leases, compare sales and identify unusual operating expenses.
Landlords could analyze tenant performance and identify upcoming lease risks.
Developers could compare Boise development corridors using demographic, housing and infrastructure data.
Brokers could analyze hundreds of potential tenant locations much faster than traditional methods allow.
Lenders could identify risk patterns across portfolios.
That should make portions of the commercial real estate process faster and potentially more efficient.
But faster analysis can also create false confidence.
Suppose an AI system tells an investor that market rent for a Boise retail property is $32 per square foot.
Where did that number come from?
Were those comparable leases actually signed?
Were they asking rents?
Did they include tenant improvement allowances?
Were they NNN or gross leases?
Were they from Boise, Meridian or another submarket?
Were they signed three months ago or three years ago?
The answer matters.
In commercial real estate, context can completely change the meaning of a number.
Data Quality Could Become a Competitive Advantage
One of the most important conclusions from Clearwater’s research is that the AI challenge isn’t simply about having better technology.
It’s about having better information.
That could become increasingly important for Boise commercial real estate companies.
Brokerages, developers, property owners and investors that maintain accurate internal databases may have a significant advantage.
Imagine having years of verified information on:
- Actual Boise lease transactions
- Tenant concessions
- Sales comparables
- Construction costs
- Property operating expenses
- Tenant expansion activity
- Development pipelines
- Land transactions
- Market rents by submarket
AI becomes much more useful when it can work with reliable proprietary information instead of simply searching whatever happens to be available publicly.
That creates an interesting shift.
Historically, real estate companies accumulated information primarily so people could analyze it.
Going forward, companies may increasingly organize information so both people and AI systems can analyze it.
The quality of that database could become part of the company’s competitive advantage.
Compliance and Financial Risk Still Matter
Clearwater’s research also found significant concern about regulation and financial exposure.
About 55% of respondents identified regulatory risk associated with AI, while 58% expressed concern about financial risks such as fraud, market exposure and credit.
Commercial real estate firms will face similar questions.
Can confidential lease information be entered into an AI platform?
What happens to tenant financial statements?
How should personally identifiable information be handled?
Can an AI-generated analysis be relied upon when advising an investor?
Who verifies the numbers?
Those questions will become increasingly important as AI moves from simple administrative tasks into investment analysis and transaction work.
Technology may accelerate decision-making, but responsibility for those decisions doesn’t disappear.
Local Insight: AI Won’t Replace Knowing the Market
I’m excited about what AI can do for commercial real estate.
There are tasks that once took hours that can now take minutes.
Analyzing documents, organizing property information, comparing scenarios and researching markets can all become faster.
But I wouldn’t buy a Boise commercial property because an AI model told me it was a good investment.
I’d use AI to help me understand the opportunity.
Then I’d verify the information.
I’d look at the property.
I’d understand the tenants.
I’d check the leases.
I’d study the surrounding development.
I’d talk to people in the market.
And I’d make sure the assumptions actually make sense.
That distinction is important.
The future of Boise commercial real estate probably isn’t humans versus artificial intelligence.
It’s professionals who know how to use AI effectively competing against professionals who don’t.
The best operators will combine technology with experience, reliable data and local market knowledge.
Clearwater Analytics’ research suggests some of the world’s sophisticated investment managers are reaching a similar conclusion.
AI is powerful.
But when you’re making investment decisions, trusting the data behind it may matter even more.
Mike Gioioso (joy-OH-so) has for 16+ years been helping companies of all sizes buy, build, and lease perfect places for business in greater Boise, Idaho and beyond.
www.streetsmartidaho.com mike@streetsmartidaho.com 208-209-9166
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