Letting agents have started using AI to deal with increasingly sophisticated tenants’ complaints…generated by AI.

Propertymark says agents are reporting that the technology makes it much easier for tenants to draft lengthy, legally worded - and in many cases inaccurate - complaints, meaning that they need to spend more time responding to them and working out whether the complaints are legitimate.

“We have seen a spike in complex and intricate complaints,” says Greg Tsuman, managing director lettings at Martyn Gerrard, who believes AI can cause people to erroneously believe their complaint has true merit. “We are now having to spend time and effort addressing multi-part points and complaints that are sometimes without grounds,” he adds.

“We have now started using AI to help summarise and analyse the substance of potential correspondence because if you are looking at a document that spans several pages of A4, that quickly becomes a very time-intensive task. We don’t use AI to respond to complaints, but we use it to do the heavy lifting so that we can see the wood from the trees. We then rely on human expertise to make a response.”

Spike

Ben Stokes, president-elect of ARLA Propertymark and a lettings director, has also noticed a spike in AI-generated complaints and reports that it is being used to merge knowledge about previous proposed government bills, such as the Renters’ Reform Bill, and point tenants towards out-of-date information.

“The biggest thing we are finding is that AI tools are empowering people to complain about things and blow small situations out of proportion,” Stokes adds.

Propertymark’s CEO Nathan Emerson (pictured) believes AI should always be used in a way that enhances the consumer experience. “It must always be used with honesty and fairness at the core of its intended use, with full human oversight and ongoing evaluation, review and scrutiny,” he adds.

‍