As the saying goes, it's difficult to make predictions, especially about the future. But through a new acquisition, commercial brokerage JLL thinks it's found a way for clients to see where property values are headed -- and what tenants will be willing to pay down the road. JLL is set to close on the purchase of artificial intelligence startup Skyline AI, the Wall Street Journal reported. The firm aims to use Skyline's technology to help clients estimate future property values and pick new investment opportunities. Other purported benefits include data that can inform when to adjust rents or opportune times to renovate or sell.

Artificial intelligence, in its many forms, will likely continue to redefine how individuals think about government, school, work, and daily life. And startups that are not leveraging AI are beginning to fall behind the rest of the pack. "AI will be a true differentiator for companies in the future. The companies that have mastered it will take off, those who haven't will dwindle (just like companies choosing to embrace software and the internet early on)," Scott Stephenson, founder and CEO of Deepgram, an automatic speech recognition company, told Crunchbase News in an email. And in a world where supergiant rounds are now quite common, AI startups have brought in some significant capital.

The $18 million Series A round investment in Skyline AI this week continues to raise the profile of the burgeoning proptech sector as startups invent new digital applications to finance, develop, lease, manage and monitor real estate, to name just a few solutions. One of the latest entrants in the field, Skyline AI is introducing an artificial intelligence and machine-learning platform to enhance the entire commercial property acquisition and ownership process. By utilizing the largest data pool in the industry, the company claims, the technology will be able to predict the value and future behavior of any institutional-grade asset in the U.S. That kind of insight will empower investors to spot and take advantage of disconnections in the market and identify the best opportunities, it adds. Sequoia Capital and TLV Partners led the round.

Traces of automation can be found throughout the residential real estate market: listings, price estimates and home loans are available at the press of a button. In China, buyers can even consult robot Realtors. Commercial real estate, on the other hand, with its higher stakes and more complex deals, has been less susceptible to digital disruption. However, firms are still turning to artificial intelligence for a tech edge. Greystone is the latest real estate firm to dive into computer automation, partnering with Skyline AI, a New York- and Tel Aviv-based startup that specializes in data aggregation and benchmarking in the commercial investment market. With Skyline AI's assessment system and Greystone's financial records as well as the machine learning software of Greystone Labs -- the lender's in-house tech department -- the partnership aims to underwrite loans as much as 10 times faster and with more accuracy.