Jacob Kosior
VP of Client Strategy, EliseAI
Jacob Kosior is VP of Client Strategy at EliseAI, the leading AI platform purpose-built for property management. With over a decade of experience in property management operations, Jacob partners with multifamily leaders to implement AI solutions that drive efficiency, improve ROI, and elevate the resident experience. At EliseAI, he works directly with property management companies deploying AI across their leasing funnels, giving him a front-row seat to how AI is reshaping renter expectations in real time.
Jacob is passionate about bridging real estate operations and emerging technology, helping teams move from awareness to action. He specializes in translating complex technology into practical strategy for marketing and operations leaders.
12:00 - 12:30 PM
Thursday Day 2-February 25
The Expectation Gap: How AI Has Raised the Bar That Multifamily Marketing Hasn't Cleared Yet
Every major consumer industry has been redesigned around speed. You don't wait for a cab - Uber tells you the driver is 3 minutes out. You don't visit the bank - you deposit a check from your couch. Even TSA now gets you through security with a scan of your face. Each shift was built on the same principle: remove friction, compress the time between a need and a resolution, and limit how long your customers have to wait.
Multifamily has repeatedly been the last industry to catch up: ledgers to digital accounting, print guides to Apartments.com, guest cards to CRM. AI is the latest wave. But this time, the industry's response has introduced a new problem: human touch-points inserted back into an otherwise fast process, slowing it down at every step. But the data is unambiguous. Each AI-to-human handoff adds 37% to lead-to-lease time, and every additional handoff costs another full day. Zillow research shows a 391% conversion lift when responding within one minute, but 46% of all inquiries arrive after the office closes, and even Class A buildings answer only about half of inquiry mystery shops.
Which raises the question this session is built around: are the human touchpoints we're designing into the leasing process there for the customer's benefit - or our own?
Key Takeaways
- A cross-industry lens on how speed became the new consumer standard & a benchmark for where multifamily marketing currently stands against it, grounded in data: late-night leads engaged in early back-and-forth convert to tours at 2.5x the rate of those left waiting, and conversations reaching 5+ messages represent only 14% of inquiries but produce 39% of signed leases.
- A clear-eyed look at the cost of human touchpoints in the leasing funnel: each AI-to-human handoff adds 37% to lead-to-lease time, and every additional handoff adds roughly one more day. In the near future, this will force teams to ask which handoffs genuinely benefit the renter and which exist for internal comfort.
- A practical audit framework for identifying where your marketing and leasing process creates unnecessary friction & what to prioritize to close the expectation gap before a competitor does.