The Rise of Tour Intelligence

Two years ago, it seemed clear the leasing agent was headed for the history books alongside video rental clerks and switchboard operators. AI leasing tools like EliseAI were improving fast, outperforming humans at booking tours, while multifamily operators mapped out which roles they could combine or eliminate.

But the human leasing agent appears to be here to stay, at least for now. Axing leasing agents means cutting tour availability, a tough proposition in an oversupplied rental market where operators must compete for scarce leads. And many managers are seeing the benefits of a “human touch” in the leasing process, since even a small vacancy costs far more than a leasing agent’s salary.

Now, interest is shifting to AI’s ability to enhance the human agent rather than replace them. Compared with sales teams in other industries, multifamily leasing remains remarkably under-examined, with little of the sales coaching that’s standard elsewhere. And each asset and market’s uniqueness makes benchmarking (“Is this salesperson doing well?”) a challenge.

But that's about to change.

Today’s letter explores the rapid rise of “tour intelligence” tools, which turn recorded tours into agent coaching and intelligence. We’ll compare the top providers in the space (Rilla, Siro, Grotto), discuss EliseAI’s recent entrance into the market, and make some predictions on how this data will shape the future of multifamily.

Let’s dig in.

Training at Hand

In 2018, Common (the coliving company I founded) tested a new tool on our leasing agents. Gong listened to their conversations with prospective residents and tried to answer questions like these: what did they say that was most likely to lead to a signed lease? What drove a prospect to the building next door?

It generated some genuinely useful insights, and we were a customer for years. But it was clearly a tool built for enterprise software sales, not leasing. It was meant for salespeople sitting behind a desk, not in the field. It was also expensive for leasing work, priced for people moving high-value software contracts, not leasing reps making $50K per year. And, of course, there was no generative AI to automate the analysis and make recommendations.

​The potential, however, was clear. Now, a new generation of tools aims to make good on that potential, combining the best of first-generation sales training apps like Gong with artificial intelligence and a form factor that works for agents on tours.