How AI and immersive tech are redefining Dubai real estate

10/11/2025 02:07 AST

Dubai's real estate sector is entering a structural shift as artificial intelligence, immersive experience tools and blockchain-led ownership models start to reshape everything from search behaviour and diligence to pricing, maintenance and long-term investment decisions. Startups, regulators and developers share the same goal: a faster, more transparent and fully digital property ecosystem built for global scale.

From months to minutes
The speed of decision-making has become the most visible change. Buyers who would previously spend five to six months searching, verifying documents, checking comparable data and working with multiple intermediaries are now completing the same journey in minutes. Mohamed Mohamed, Founder of Smart Bricks, said buyers are accelerating their entire decision cycle because AI has removed the manual friction that once dominated every step.

"Proptech is rewriting the rules of Dubai's real estate market, delivering measurable efficiencies across the developer, broker, and buyer ecosystem," he said. Mohamed attributes this to what he calls an agentic AI infrastructure, which automates discovery, underwriting and diligence. The platform surfaces assets with the highest relevance, evaluates risk instantly, and matches properties with buyer intent in real-time. He added that "proptech is not just digitising workflows, it is compressing what used to be a six-month cycle into a matter of minutes."

The gains are also quantifiable. In a survey conducted by Smart Bricks among more than 4,000 Dubai buyers, timelines compressed by up to 80% and due diligence costs dropped by as much as 70%, delivering institutional-grade analytics without large data teams.

The rise of experience-first buying
While AI accelerates analysis, immersive technologies are reshaping what buyers expect before committing to a purchase. Lifesize Plans Dubai, which projects full-scale layouts of properties before construction, reported a marked shift in how foreign investors now make decisions.

Georges Calas, CEO of Lifesize Plans Dubai, said buyers have moved from imagining a space to experiencing it. "We are seeing a shift from 'imagine and assume' to 'experience before committing'. Foreign investors walk through full-scale projections of their future property before it is built. This removes uncertainty around layouts, circulation, furniture fit, views and usability."

Calas said this realism gives overseas buyers the confidence to transact sooner, without multiple site visits or early-stage guesswork. The company earns revenue through its large-scale projection sessions, VR and AR upgrades, and experiential add-ons such as movable walls and dummy furniture that help investors visualise space at a granular level.

Developers, he added, are not building these immersive environments in-house. Most prefer partnerships that give them quick access to technology without long development cycles. This collaboration is expanding more widely as developers and brokers integrate experiential tools into their sales strategies.

AI-driven diligence
Within Dubai's regulatory infrastructure, due diligence has seen some of the strongest digitisation gains over the past 18 months. Smart Bricks reported that its Automated Valuation Model reaches 95% valuation accuracy, while predictive ROI models identify outperforming units and emerging communities earlier than traditional assessments.

Proptech platforms say the Dubai Land Department's open-data leadership has been central to this progress. Mohamed highlighted that "this progress has been fuelled by the Dubai Land Department's commitment to open data and AI integration," enabling innovators to build transparent and intelligent systems.

The evolution is not limited to the transaction. Post-sale engagement is emerging as a new frontier. Smart Bricks uses agentic AI to transform one-time buyers into long-term investors by offering ongoing portfolio optimisation and predictive guidance. This is generating continuous engagement between platforms and asset owners, creating a more active, data-driven ecosystem.

Predictive analytics in pricing and maintenance
Developers are also turning to predictive analytics to guide pricing, sales cycles and asset planning. According to Milad Monshipour, CEO and Founder of AIR, pricing strategies are increasingly shaped by real-time models rather than static assumptions. These models analyse demand shifts, supply imbalances, competitor launches, seasonality and buyer sentiment to determine optimal pricing at every phase.

"Predictive analytics is becoming central to how developers make commercial and operational decisions," Monshipour said. Forecasting tools are used to estimate absorption rates and align sales timelines, helping teams prioritise leads with higher conversion probabilities. Over time, the same predictive tools extend to maintenance planning by anticipating upcoming operational needs, reducing downtime and improving asset longevity.

The future of ownership
Property tokenisation is gaining momentum as blockchain introduces new forms of ownership. Monshipour said tokenisation is "transforming the way real estate assets are owned and traded in Dubai" by enabling fractional participation and automating profit distribution through smart contracts.

While adoption is still gradual, tokenisation aligns with the UAE's broader policy direction of financial inclusion and technology-driven investment access. To scale the model, Monshipour said clear ownership and revenue-sharing frameworks will be essential, along with robust data integrity standards and market-wide transparency.

Smart contracts and compliance
Smart contracts are gaining acceptance, although the transition remains uneven. Legacy systems used by developers and agencies often lack compatibility with blockchain-led workflows, slowing adoption. Ensuring authenticity of title records is another area that market participants say needs continual validation.

Market comfort is rising, however, as many stakeholders combine automated processes with human verification for added assurance. The direction of travel is that execution layers of real estate transactions are expected to become increasingly automated as frameworks mature.

The next phase of proptech growth
Industry experts believe Dubai is poised to set new global benchmarks. Unified property data, digital real-estate identities and increasing interoperability across government entities will accelerate progress. Mohamed highlighted the impact of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Innovation Fund, describing it as a connector that links startups with policymakers and industry players to support regulatory navigation and pilot deployment.

Across the ecosystem, investment is moving toward tools that improve decision confidence, reduce redesign costs and cut friction in the buyer journey. AI-driven analysis, immersive viewing technologies, predictive pricing models and blockchain-based ownership structures are coming together to shape a real estate market that operates faster and more transparently than at any point in its history.

Gulfnews