In 1998, a former British paratrooper named Karl Bushby stepped off a roadside in Chile and started walking home to England. No plane tickets, no trains, no “I’ll skip this part and come back later.”
He gave himself two rules:
- No mechanical transport.
- He would not go home until he got there on foot.
Twenty seven years later, he is on the final stretch. Roughly 30,000 miles behind him, about 2,000 miles to go. He has crossed war zones, jungles, the Bering Strait, and even swum nearly 200 miles across the Caspian Sea when geopolitics blocked his path.
I watched that story and could not stop thinking about the parallels between his long-game journey, and the AI transformation in commercial real estate.
Not because most of us are going to fight off polar bears on the way to automating leasing reports or financial underwriting, but because serious careers and serious firms in CRE transform the same way: one uncompromising step at a time, over a very long period of time.
AI Transformation In CRE Is A 30,000 Mile Journey
Most conversations about AI in CRE still sound like a short-term plan:
- 3 months to test a tool
- 6 months to “roll it out”
- Another or two and “we’re there”
Then the market moves, budgets get cut, a key sponsor leaves, or a vendor disappears, and suddenly the plan is off course.
Karl’s journey is a reminder that the real game, especially with something as foundational as AI, is measured in years, not months.
Over 27 years he has:
- Crossed continents and climates he never could have fully planned for at the beginning
- Lived through multiple wars, financial crises, and technological revolutions
- Lost loved ones he knew he would not see again before they passed
- Adapted from total isolation (no smartphone) to a world where 350,000 plus people follow his journey on TikTok
The destination never changed. The route changed constantly.
That is exactly what becoming an AI native firm will look like.
- The models and vendors will change
- The interfaces will change
- The language we use will change
The direction, if you choose it, does not change:
“We are building a firm where professional work alongside digital coworkers, and where human judgment and relationships are augmented by machines that understand CRE work end to end.”
The Rules You Choose Matter More Than the Route
Karl chose two rules at the beginning that made everything harder in the short run and more meaningful in the long run:
- No mechanical transport
- No going home until he walked there
In CRE, we quietly choose similar rules for ourselves and our firms.
On the investment and operating side, rules like:
- “We underwrite what we own, with real rigor.”
- “We do not take reputational shortcuts, even if it costs us a fee.”
On the AI side, rules like:
- “We will become an AI native firm, where every team member understands AI’s role in the firm”
- “We will not outsource thinking to a black box. AI will explain itself and be checkable, with final decisions made by people.”
- “We will give every person on the team the AI tools and training necessary to succeed long-term.”
Those rules increase friction today. They demand more thought, more testing, and more discipline.
They also define who you become over 2, 5, 10 years.
Once you choose those rules, the route is allowed to change:
- You may start with one tool and end with another
- You may begin with point solutions and consolidate to a platform
- You may pilot in one group and then roll out across the firm
The long game is not about getting every step exactly right. It is about refusing to abandon the rules that keep you pointed at the right destination.
You Cannot Skip Your Miles, But You Can Share The Load
Karl could have flown over the Darién Gap, taken a ferry across the Bering Strait, or booked a short flight when visas fell through.
Instead, when one path closed (Russia, Iran), he found another that still honored his rules. In one case, that meant swimming 200 miles across the Caspian Sea.
In our world:
- You cannot skip the work of understanding your own data, models, and risk.
- You cannot skip the time it takes to redesign processes around AI instead of just stapling tools on top.
- You cannot skip the conversations with teams who are understandably skeptical or tired of buzzwords.
But you can decide whether you are carrying everything on your own back, or using the tools available to you.
That is how I think about AI and digital coworkers in CRE.
You still have to:
- Decide which markets and strategies you believe in
- Choose which risks you are willing to take as a firm
- Stand behind the deals and asset decisions that come out of your shop
AI will not walk those miles for you.
What it can do is carry some of the weight:
- First pass underwriting, data gathering, and comp pulls
- Drafts of IC memos, leasing reports, and investor updates
- Routine asset management reports, checks, and workflows
You still walk the 30,000 miles. You just do it with a better pack, better shoes, and someone next to you who never sleeps.
Human Kindness, Trust, And Long Transformations
One of the most striking parts of Karl’s story is not the distance or the danger. It is what he says about people:
“Since those first days on the road in Chile, I’ve found nothing but the best in people these 27 years.”
Think about how real change might happen inside CRE firms as they adapt AI:
- The senior partner who takes a risk on a young analyst’ newly built AI-first process
- The asset manager who patiently walks the team through a new way of reporting
- The broker who shares data and context so you can underwrite a deal the right way, not just the fast way
Those moments of trust and generosity are what let individuals, and firms, stay in the game long enough to see compounding kick in.
They are also the reason technology, including AI, has to be deployed in a way that supports relationships, not replaces them.
AI is not here to remove the human element from CRE. It is here to remove the busy work that keeps humans from doing what only they can do.
- Building trust
- Exercising judgment
- Negotiating, creating, and leading
Playing The Long Game with AI at CRE Agents
At CRE Agents, we are very intentionally choosing the long game in AI.
We are not trying to be the trendy point solution that spikes and disappears with the next funding cycle. We are trying to do something harder and slower:
- Build digital coworkers that understand CRE workflows end to end
- Integrate with the tools, files, and processes you already run your business on
- Help teams compound their time and talent over years, not just save a few hours this quarter
That means:
- Saying “no” to shortcuts that make a demo flashy but outputs unreliable
- Spending real time with operators, analysts, and principals to encode how they actually work
- Accepting that implementation is not a weekend project, it is a multi year journey where both the humans and the AI get better together
Like Karl’s walk, that is not the fastest path in the short term. I believe it is the only path that will matter a decade from now.
An Invitation to Take the First Step
Karl’s advice, standing 2,000 miles from home after 27 years, is simple:
“Don’t be afraid. Get off the couch. Get out of bed. Make it happen. That first step will open a world of possibilities and opportunities.”
If you are a CRE professional or firm who knows you cannot ignore AI, but you are not sure where to start, that is the spirit I would invite you to bring to this moment.
You do not have to:
- Rebuild your tech stack from scratch
- Fire half your team and “replace” them with bots
- Bet the firm on a single vendor or platform
You just have to take one serious step:
- Identify one process where a digital coworker could give your team back real time
- Pilot it in a controlled way
- Learn from it, improve it, and move to the next process
We built CRE Agents for people who want to walk that path with intention, not chase every shiny object.
If that is you, I would love for you to join us.
- Join the CRE Agents waitlist (we’re actively onboarding Waitlist members every week)
Take the first step. The long game in CRE, and the long game in AI, will belong to the firms willing to keep walking when the route gets complicated.
