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Alex Abernathy

Executive Vice President, Asset Living
A 15-year industry professional, Alex Abernathy serves as Executive Vice President at Asset Living. His primary responsibility is overseeing global portfolio marketing efforts with both centralized national and specialized regional teams. Asset Living’s Marketing Service is a vital component of their company vision - continuing to serve our industry, communities, and partners as the most trusted partner in real estate. Asset Living employs over 7,000 real estate professionals and operates over 1,600 communities which consists of over 230,000 units. Alex’s experience includes Multifamily, Student, Build-To-Rent, Affordable, Co-Living, and Active Adult, with industry knowledge and experience spanning 200+ real estate markets nationwide and international markets including Canada, Mexico, UK, Bahamas, Colombia, and UAE. Additionally, Alex dedicated two years to transforming a Houston-based software development firm into a full-service digital product / marketing agency, Poetic, specializing in Real Estate MarTech and Marketing Services.
02:30 - 5:30 PM

Wednesday Day 1-February 24

Executive AI Session

AI at Scale: From Pilots to Playbooks, and Who's Accountable for the Results

Session Sponsor: AI has moved past the pilot phase for most multifamily operators. The question this year is not whether to use it but where it is actually paying off, who owns the outcome when it doesn't, and how leadership teams separate real progress from vendor noise. This session picks up where last year left off, but shifts the lens from "what's new" to "what's working, what's standardized, and what still needs a human in the loop." You will leave with an updated framework for evaluating AI investments, a clearer view of where accountability sits inside your organization, and a set of prompts to bring back to your leadership team. Key Takeaways: • Identify which AI use cases have graduated from pilot to standard practice across leasing, resident services, and operations, and which ones stalled and why. • Build an accountability framework that assigns clear ownership for AI outcomes, from procurement through performance review. • Evaluate agentic AI and autonomous workflows against a practical risk and readiness rubric, including where human review remains non-negotiable. • Separate genuine vendor proof points from marketing claims using a short, repeatable diligence checklist. • Walk away with an updated 12-month roadmap that reflects lessons from year one, not a rebuilt plan from scratch. The session will unfold in three segments as follows: 2:30 PM- 3:30 PM  Segment 1: The Scorecard Revisited — What Asset Living Actually Achieved Alex and Dustin open with a results-first look at what AI has actually delivered inside Alex's own portfolio over the past year, not a theoretical exercise but a real accounting of where it moved the needle and where it didn't. The conversation then widens out to how other organizations, inside and outside multifamily, have structured their teams, ownership, and decision rights around AI, giving attendees a broader frame for how to organize their own operations. Structured as a working exchange between the two co-chairs rather than a straight presentation, with room for each to challenge the other's read. Expect a refreshed scorecard attendees can take home and use immediately. 3:45 PM- 4:30 PM Segment 2: Inside an AI Deployment That Scaled A closer look at what it actually takes to move an AI use case from pilot to portfolio-wide standard, presented by an industry partner speaking to broader lessons rather than a single product, covering the procurement realities, the change management, the data readiness, and the guardrails that had to be built along the way. 4:45 PM– 5:30 PM Segment 3: Live AI Maturity Check — PMC Leaders on the Record A panel of PMC leaders and technology operators, built around a live, visible mechanic rather than open-ended Q&A: each panelist scores their own organization's AI maturity across a short set of categories in real time, then defends the score. The panel will surface where they disagree with each other, admit where their own organizations have fallen short, and close on where they believe accountability for AI outcomes should actually sit inside a PMC.