FREMONT, CA: Going by the funding scenario, it is easy to see that proptech companies have had the attention of investors throughout 2019. In 2020, there will be a chance for proptech players to continue the profitable run. How CIOs strategize the adoption of technology will determine the course their companies will take in 2020. To ensure meaningful decision-making, proptech CIOs have to consistently update themselves with industry information that can drive critical insights. When CIOs are equipped with contextual data regarding the market, the industry, customer expectations, and overall trends, they can serve valuable leadership and supervise strategies that enrich technology deployment and utilization.

"PropTech AI won't be able to immediately fill the shoes of an estate agent." PropTech is hardly a new industry; estate agents and other businesses in the property industry have been digitally transforming for decades. Search portals, such as Rightmove in the UK, started amalgamating available properties and recommending homes over 18 years ago when Amazon was just expanding from being a book reseller to a full-blown reseller site for third-party consumer goods. In 2019, it's not surprising that some PropTech companies have already been touting claims of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning so sophisticated it can replace a real estate agent outright. This is stretching the truth. While many PropTech companies might possess highly sophisticated automation software with some AI elements, none so far have established meaningful AI that can replace the human component.