Trends in Technology
Using AI on Your Next CRE Deal A practical look at where artificial intelligence tools work + what still needs a lawyer By Hunter Benson Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis
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rtificial intelligence (AI) tools have become part of how commercial real estate professionals in Northeast Ohio work. Brokers use them to summarize leases before a call. Investors use them to get comfortable with unfamiliar terms before a Cleveland deal. Used well, AI is a genuine productivity gain, not a threat to be managed. Here’s where it works best, and where it’s worth knowing its limits.
Where AI genuinely helps
AI is well suited to explaining an agreement you already have: how an assignment clause works, what a renewal option requires or when a CAM adjustment kicks in. It’s useful for building fluency with unfamiliar terms like cap rate, easement or estoppel certificate before a negotiation. And it’s a good way to prepare sharper questions before a call with counsel, or to get a fast first read on a long environmental report or due diligence stack before a human reviews the specifics.
What AI still gets wrong
Three things are worth understanding about how these tools actually work.
First, AI will build you a case whether or not one exists. Ask “can I get out of this lease?” and it will generate reasons you can, even if Ohio law and the lease language say otherwise. That’s not a
bug you can prompt around. It’s simply how the tool responds to what’s asked. Treat its output as a starting point, not a conclusion. Second, knowing what to ask is its own skill. Non-lawyers often don’t realize how open-ended their own question is, or that a related clause elsewhere in the document changes the answer entirely. Part of what an attorney does is recognize which facts actually matter, including the ones a client didn’t think to mention. AI only answers the question as posed. Third, your conversation may not be private. If a deal ends up in a dispute, whether a boundary disagreement, a construction defect claim or a landlord-tenant fight, anything typed into an AI tool during that transaction could become relevant evidence. Conversations with your attorney are
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Bryan J. Dardis, Managing Partner Chair, Real Estate Group Contact a member of our team today: Hunter W. Benson Leigh A. Hellner Elizabeth S. McCrea Aditya Ghatpande Alexander M. Stewart Angela Hare
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