As 2025 begins, Housing Technology interviewed seasoned technologists from 8×8, Access Paysuite, FLS – Fast Lean Smart, Infinity Group, NEC Software Solutions and Plentific about which technologies housing providers should be considering for their future business plans.
Which technologies should housing providers be looking at?
Sue Michaelwaite, housing manager, 8×8, said, “One area that will gain considerable traction in housing this year is ‘agentic’ AI because it could revolutionise tenant services. Not only will you have AI-powered chatbots taking on tenants’ enquiries, booking service visits and providing out-of-hours support, but it will also help property maintenance by using video for remote assessments, leading to faster and more accurate repairs.”
Jeremy Squire, UK managing director, FLS – Fast Lean Smart, said, “Housing providers will be harnessing the power of AI in 2025. Some housing providers are already on their second or third generation of AI, moving beyond chatbots and automated messages to use sentiment analysis to prioritise their most complex calls. Other are piloting transformational AI use-cases to automate a myriad of time-consuming, manual processes. Furthermore, AI’s potential to make emerging data volumes manageable will be exploited. For example, in dynamic scheduling, this will enable more accurate predictions for appointment durations and arrival times.”
Sarah McRow, head of housing sales, Infinity Group, said, “Without doubt, housing providers should be looking at expanding their ‘digital workforce’ through the focused use of AI to automate processes that typically are carried out by staff.
Trevor Hampton, director of housing solutions, NEC Software Solutions UK, said, “Self-service portals currently give basic answers about enquiries such as rent payments. An explosion of generative AI in housing will develop this into a more sophisticated ‘concierge’ service. For example, a customer will be able to explain the reasons for a problem with a rent payment and if they are worried about money, the portal will then present options specific to their situation. It will give a higher quality of personalised, proactive support to tenants.”
Emily Shaw, director and product lead, Plentific, said, “Platforms that can centralise and optimise property operations present the most promising opportunity, largely because the data captured will be in a single place and will be well-structured; you can then apply AI and machine-learning technologies to that data to give you actionable insights.
“Another exciting area is repair diagnostics. It’s well-evidenced that an effective diagnostic journey for residents can reduce the number of inbound queries and increase the number of first-time fixes. The interesting technologies for this part of the repair journey include video diagnostics and augmented reality (AR) tools as well as multi-modal AI which can ingest text and image-based data to intelligently diagnose and contextualise a problem.”
Rob Fleetwood, public sector payment specialist, Access PaySuite, said, “One of the most significant areas for innovation is robust, automated payment systems. These can really ease housing managers’ workloads while providing tenants with convenient and flexible ways to pay their rent. Modern payment technologies can streamline financial processes, reducing administrative workloads and human errors. These systems allow tenants to pay via multiple methods such as credit cards, bank transfers, or digital wallets, offering more options and greater convenience than traditional legacy systems.”
Better than the status quo?
Infinity Group’s McRow said, “Most ‘traditional’ housing management systems simply have no capacity to automate manual processes. Imagine receiving an email from a contractor with a gas safety certificate attached; the AI-powered autonomous agent can identify the type of email, validate the certificate, extract the relevant information, update the property and compliance records, log the observations, generate the purchase order and notify the contractor of the billing status. That entire process can now be automated with no manual interventions, and that’s just one example; think of all the other manual repetitive tasks that housing staff do every day.”
NEC’s Hampton said, “Customer service will become much richer and more personalised. We’ll see tailored options, each suited to different types of residents, such as self-service for busy professionals and in-person visits for the elderly or vulnerable. Customer satisfaction will increase through improved repairs and maintenance services. For example, tenants will be able to hold their phone’s camera over a leaking sink and AR technology will diagnose the problem. It might suggest that the waste fitting has come loose and needs tightening by turning clockwise, or if the repair is more complex, it will identify the parts and tradesman needed for the job.”
8×8’s Michaelwaite said, “The other development that’s really going to pick up in 2025 is the use of video for the remote fixing of problems. This has multiple benefits; customers don’t need to wait for repairs or advice for minor problems because they can often be solved over a call, and this frees staff to respond quicker to larger, more complex jobs needing an in-person visit.”
FLS’s Squire said, “Customer service, asset management and security are just some of the areas that could benefit from AI. Residents can be updated in real time on maintenance requests and the progress of jobs; service delivery can be improved by allocating resources more efficiently; and AI algorithms can be used to make housing allocations more accurate and fairer.”
Access PaySuite’s Fleetwood said, “The benefits of these new payment technologies extend across housing providers, tenants and contractors. Housing providers will have better financial stability through improved cash flow and reduced administrative costs; tenants will benefit from faster repairs and flexible payment options; and contractors will benefit from more reliable payments, in turn minimising delays and enabling them to focus on delivering quality services.”
Fitting with existing technology estates
Infinity Group’s McRow said, “Autonomous agents can be used tactically or as part of a wider migration to a platform solution. Most housing providers use Microsoft and therefore can take advantage of its tools, such as Azure AI and Copilot, to incrementally build their ‘digital workforces’, starting with small deployments in areas of immediate need and then growing over time.”
NEC’s Hampton said, “The most important consideration when implementing a new technology is the data that will feed it. Customer data must be accurate and all the property information such as housing type, associated assets and repairs and maintenance history needs to be joined-up for the full potential of new technology to be realised.”
FLS’s Squire said, “Further empowering residents with self-service tools such as portals will continue to be a strong theme in 2025, but an over-reliance on chatbots could lead residents to prefer human interactions for complicated issues. The next year will intensify housing providers’ need for value creation, with AI helping with business intelligence and data-driven decision making.”
8×8’s Michaelwaite said, “Agentic AI is a game-changer because its ability to learn and adapt over time ensures that it can continuously improve its performance.”
Barriers to new tools
Plentific’s Shaw said, “Existing digital transformation programmes can often hinder the adoption of new or alternative technologies, as can technology teams working in a siloed manner from, say, the repairs team. Another challenge can be existing technologies and architecture choices, including being stuck with incumbent systems that don’t integrate openly through APIs. However, given the rate of change in the broader technology landscape, it’s imperative that long-running transformation programmes don’t come at the expense of innovation.”
FLS’s Squire said, “Housing providers part way through a digital transformation strategy must still retain the flexibility to pivot to AI and other dynamic technologies. Housing providers must recognise that the inclusion of new tools within a technology stack doesn’t necessarily involve dismantling the solutions that are working well. An openness to at least pilot some of these new solutions, as well as an ambition to move away from legacy systems, can take their operations to the next level.”
Access PaySuite’s Fleetwood said, “Upfront capital costs, especially for smaller housing providers, can be a problem, while training staff to use these tools properly requires time and money. At the same time, making sure that all tenants, particularly those less comfortable with the digital world, can adapt to new payment systems is vital for a smooth transition and continued engagement.”
Infinity Group’s McRow said, “Sometimes it’s hard to understand which processes are suitable for automation. I was recently on a customer site talking to a housing officer who told me that she struggled to prepare the ‘core’ reports (for government reporting). The process was manual and required extensive use of spreadsheets. When I explained that the process could be automated, she was completely surprised. She explained that she had become so used to producing the figures manually that she had never considered there might be an automated alternative.”
Real-life examples in housing
NEC’s Hampton said, “One of the most exciting pilots we are working on is with Hull City Council to use IoT technology to activate fire suppression systems. The IoT sensors are placed across whole housing blocks to sense changes in temperature and atmosphere to detect a fire and then activate sprinklers. This will have a huge impact for tenant safety because it will ensure fires are caught early, with safety systems activated and emergency assistance called immediately.”
Plentific’s Shaw said, “Our solution is digitalising Anchor’s operations, serving as the central hub for Anchor’s 180,000 work orders per year, integrating seamlessly with all of Anchor’s third-party housing management, contractors and accounting software. Plentific is providing a single real-time platform which connects Anchor colleagues and residents with contractors, digitalises the supply chain and adds value via a frictionless and more responsive solution to managing property operations.”
Infinity Group’s McRow said, “With our help, North Star Housing has replaced its legacy HMS with a Microsoft-based solution and started reaping immediate benefits in terms of time savings, the automation of manual processes such as compliance certificate scanning, automated letter and email generation, and automating the DWP landlord submissions.”
Housing Technology would like to thank Sue Michaelwaite (8×8), Rob Fleetwood (Access PaySuite), Jeremy Squire (FLS – Fast Lean Smart), Sarah McRow (Infinity Group), Trevor Hampton (NEC Software Solutions UK) and Emily Shaw (Plentific) for their editorial contributions to this article.
