𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻’𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗔𝗽𝗽 𝗗𝗶𝗱 𝗦𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗠𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗦𝗮𝘆 “𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗼𝗹”? Target quietly rolled out AI features in their app that made me rethink what’s possible for multifamily. You can photograph a handwritten grocery list. The app reads your handwriting, matches each item to products, and builds a digital cart. One photo. Twenty items. Done. Their “Buy It Again” tab tracks your purchase history, flags when you’re probably running low, and surfaces active discounts on stuff you already buy. It learns your patterns and feeds them back to you. Then there’s Store Mode. When you walk into a Target, the app detects your location and rewires what it does. Every item on your list shows up as a pin on the store map. It routes you through the aisles so you’re not doubling back. Target’s chief guest experience officer said in-store app users’ baskets run nearly 50% higher. Now look at your apartment community. Your resident app is a maintenance ticket portal and a rent payment screen. When a resident walks into the fitness center, nothing happens. When their lease renewal window opens, they get a generic email. When they reserved the clubhouse for a party last year, nobody remembers. What if it worked like Target’s? Walk into the fitness center and today’s class schedule appears. Pull into the garage and the app shows open spots on level 2. Your air filter was replaced 90 days ago, and the app asks if you want to schedule the next one. You booked the rooftop in June for your daughter’s birthday. In May, it asks: “Reserve it again this year?” Starbucks calls personalization the single biggest driver of improved spend per customer. Their rewards members spend 3x more per visit than non-members. Disney invested over $1 billion in MagicBand so they could greet you by name and adjust your experience based on where you are at Walt Disney World. They run 76 million visitors a year through one connected system. An apartment community has 300 residents. The technology costs a fraction of what Disney paid. The imagination isn’t there yet. Companies like Mappedin, SmartRent, and Livly are building pieces of this. Indoor mapping for self-guided tours. Smart thermostats and locks. Community event platforms. The parts exist. But they’re built for the property manager, not the resident. They solve operational problems, not experience problems. Target didn’t build Store Mode to help employees stock shelves faster. They built it to make shopping feel effortless for the person walking the aisles. A $50 billion retailer treats its buildings like tech platforms. A $3.5 trillion asset class treats its buildings like rent collection machines. Who builds the MagicBand for apartments? https://lnkd.in/eCQT5kFb