Heimstaden Transforms Real Estate Management With OpenAI
European residential real estate operator Heimstaden is utilizing OpenAI technologies to transform property management operations, reduce costs, and empower employees across its portfolio.
Radwan AbdulhadiEditor and technology writer
Accelerating an AI Strategy in Real Estate
The fundamentals of residential real estate management have remained largely consistent over the past century, focusing on tenant placement, rent collection, and property maintenance. However, European residential real estate operator Heimstaden (opens in a new window) is shifting how that work is executed by integrating artificial intelligence into its daily operations.
In June 2025, leadership decided to accelerate the company's bet on AI by evaluating platforms and choosing OpenAI. The primary goals were to empower employees and rethink the core processes that drive the business, moving toward self-operating buildings where AI helps anticipate needs, coordinate tasks, and support decisions throughout the property lifecycle.
Helge Krogsbøl, Co-CEO at Heimstaden, noted that while the purpose of their buildings remains focused on providing homes, the operational approach continues to evolve through the adoption of new technology. He emphasized that the company views artificial intelligence as a major opportunity to accelerate that ongoing transformation.
Reinventing the Letting Process
When a property becomes vacant, bringing it back to the rental market traditionally demands considerable time, coordination, and specialist input across rental value assessment, photography, advertising, and demand response. Heimstaden now uses AI tools to support these key letting stages.
Pricing intelligence and recommendations are generated using tools built in ChatGPT Sites, while AI handles image styling and apartment descriptions. Human agents continue to review all live advertisements against internal quality standards, and AI-generated market feedback enables letting teams to take corrective actions for dynamic pricing.
The financial impact is substantial. In the Netherlands, the cost to produce a virtually staged property image dropped from approximately €50 to less than €0.10, representing a reduction of over 99%. Heimstaden estimates annual savings of €130,000 in that single market.
Chief Digital Officer Nikolaj Brammer outlined the company's three pillars for AI adoption: empowering employees with training and tools, driving larger initiatives through a central transformation office and network of AI champions, and preparing property management systems and data models for AI integration.
Streamlining Environmental Risk Assessments with Codex
Beyond customer-facing letting processes, AI is reshaping internal analytical workflows. Assessing environmental risks across the company's portfolio previously required extensive manual work to clean, standardise, and discover data scattered across public sources and various formats.
Julia Erlandsen, an environmental sustainability analyst at Heimstaden without a software development background, used Codex to build an automated approach. Codex assisted with data discovery, cleaning, standardisation, quality checks, and the development of repeatable processing pipelines while Erlandsen maintained control over the methodology.
The project successfully assessed 20,112 assets, generated over six million rows of useful data, and cut estimated delivery requirements from five people working for a year down to two people working for two months. Furthermore, the company avoided hiring external consultants to solve the complex analytical problem.
Employee Adoption and Broader Workplace Integration
Heimstaden's adoption of ChatGPT Enterprise following its September 2025 launch was rapid, with half of all employees utilizing the platform within two to three months. A central AI transformation office maintains a library of real-world use cases so colleagues can learn from successful examples across different business segments.
While employees remain responsible for reviewing AI-generated content and approving final decisions under strict data security guidelines, adoption has even reached real estate caretakers. For instance, a caretaker in Norway used ChatGPT to evaluate a neglected apartment and draft a prioritised refurbishment plan.
Next Steps in Workflow Automation
Looking ahead, Heimstaden is preparing for the next frontier of artificial intelligence: systems capable of coordinating multi-step processes across platforms. The company is currently rolling out its Procurement Intelligence Platform, which combines workflow automation with OpenAI models accessed via APIs.
Designed to function across Outlook, SharePoint, and Teams, the platform assists with contract analysis, negotiation preparation, and contract lifecycle management while ensuring employees maintain full responsibility for commercial decisions and approvals.
For companies seeking similar enterprise AI implementations, more information can be found by choosing to Contact sales (opens in a new window) to explore tailored deployment options.
Sources
- OpenAI NewsHeimstaden is changing residential real estate management with AI
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