A year ago, what we are doing right now in budgeting season would have been unthinkable.
Not slightly faster. Unthinkable.
Budgeting used to be the most dreaded stretch of the year for every asset and property manager on our team. Weeks of pulling historicals, building assumptions line by line, reconciling against actuals, defending every number before it went to ownership.
This year, AI is doing roughly 90% of that work. Our team's job has shifted almost entirely to judgment calls.
1. The 90% was never the actual job.
Pulling historicals, formatting templates, running the same formula across 40 line items, that was never where the value was created. It was the tax you paid to get to the part that mattered. AI just stopped charging us the tax.
2. The 10% left is harder, not easier.
Now the question in every budget review is not "did you build the model correctly?" It is "do you actually understand this property?" Why did this expense line spike? What does the market actually support for this renewal? Is this vendor quote real? That is a much harder conversation when there is nowhere to hide behind the spreadsheet.
3. This should scare some people, and I do not think we should pretend otherwise.
If 90% of a job can be automated, the honest question is what happens to the people whose job that used to be. I do not think the answer is fewer people. I think the answer is that the same people now spend their time on the 10% that was always the real job, and the ones who were only ever doing the 90% have a real problem.
4. Speed is not the interesting part. What we do with the extra time is.
We are not doing budgeting season faster so we can move on. We are doing it faster so our managers spend more time on the properties, not the templates.
What is the 10% in your job that AI cannot touch, and is that 10% actually the real job?
AI Automated 90% of Budgeting. The Last 10% Is the Real Job
