reAlpha Tech (NASDAQ:AIRE) executives used an “Airtime” session on X Spaces to discuss how the company is applying artificial intelligence in mortgage and real estate operations, emphasizing practical deployment over what they described as surface-level hype.
Paul Cecil, Vice President of Strategy, moderated the event and noted the company is in a quiet period as a public company, limiting discussion of topics such as stock price, valuation, corporate actions, and non-public financial information. Cecil was joined by CEO Mike Logozzo and Chief Technology Officer Vijay Ratnakar, who discussed reAlpha’s approach to embedding AI into workflows and operating systems rather than treating it as a standalone feature.
AI as “systems,” not standalone technology
As examples, Ratnakar said reAlpha’s “Claire” is positioned not as a simple chatbot but as an “AI homebuying concierge.” He also referenced an “AI loan officer assistant tool” that is intended to be integrated into how loan files are built. In his view, AI becomes valuable when embedded where decisions are made and where customers experience the service, rather than existing as a separate layer.
Where AI is working today—and where it’s still “hype”
Ratnakar said AI’s current trajectory resembles earlier technology cycles such as the early days of cloud computing—characterized by experimentation and noise. He argued that AI is already delivering value primarily in the “invisible parts of business,” including workflow automation, processing large volumes of structured and unstructured data, improving customer interactions through more natural conversations and follow-up, and accelerating software development.
He said reAlpha is using AI not only in customer-facing products but also internally, describing it as part of the company’s toolkit to build and deploy software faster and to increase organizational efficiency. Ratnakar connected those gains to productivity and cost structure improvements.
On the other hand, Ratnakar characterized claims that AI will replace entire professions or make human decision-making irrelevant as hype. Instead, he said the most powerful use of AI today is as a “force multiplier” that makes teams and systems more capable while keeping human judgment central.
Why mortgage and real estate are harder use cases
Ratnakar said deploying AI in mortgage and real estate is uniquely complex because transactions intersect identity, money, legal contracts, and regulation. He described a data environment where information comes from “dozens of independent sources,” such as payroll systems, bank statements, tax authorities, credit bureaus, and property records, often in different formats and governed by strict compliance rules.
In this setting, he said AI must go beyond pattern spotting to understand documents, apply regulatory logic, preserve audit trails, and produce decisions that can withstand scrutiny. While this makes implementation harder, he argued it also creates defensibility because building a “highly regulated operating system” is difficult to replicate.
From features to “infrastructure”
Ratnakar said reAlpha views AI as part of the company’s operating system rather than an add-on. He described a workflow in which an engagement bot not only chats but qualifies and routes leads while logging data. He said Claire is intended to understand buyer intent, guide next steps, and provide ongoing information as a “24/7 concierge.” For lending, he said the loan officer assistant is designed to extract data, check rules, and prepare files for underwriting, reflecting a focus on multiple handoffs and touchpoints across teams.
He added that reAlpha’s engineering teams are also using AI to build, test, and deploy faster, embedding AI into the software development cycle and into “every workflow, every handoff, every data flow” to support scale and margins.
How the company evaluates AI initiatives
Asked how teams can avoid “vanity projects,” Ratnakar said reAlpha evaluates AI initiatives against three factors:
- Throughput: whether the system can process more deals in the same or less time with the same team
- Accuracy: whether it reduces errors and rework
- Cost: whether it lowers cost per loan
He said the company also aims to avoid building simple “LLM wrappers,” arguing that differentiation requires core intellectual property that includes selecting the right model, choosing and training on the right data, and designing workflows around the AI. He cautioned that projects can fail if the wrong model is selected, if automation does not generate cost efficiency, or if the underlying architecture is not designed correctly.
On compliance, Ratnakar said mortgage and real estate systems must be able not only to be correct but to show why they are correct. He said reAlpha designs for traceability and explainability, with decisions and flags tied back to underlying data, logic, and human touchpoints, along with attention to data storage, model training, and output review.
Logozzo, responding to investor comments and a question about potential software-as-a-service plans, said the company is “always looking at opportunities” but does not want to pursue distractions that do not align with its vision. He said reAlpha remains focused on a “traditional B2C” approach aimed at the homebuyer, while acknowledging that building a strong product can create opportunities the company may evaluate over time.
About reAlpha Tech (NASDAQ:AIRE)
reAlpha Tech (NASDAQ: AIRE) is a real estate technology company specializing in the acquisition, renovation, and management of single-family rental properties across the United States. The company leverages proprietary data analytics and machine-learning models to identify undervalued houses in high-potential neighborhoods. Once acquired, these properties undergo a standardized renovation process designed to maximize rental value and minimize maintenance expenses, after which they are added to reAlpha’s rental portfolio.
In addition to direct property ownership, reAlpha Tech offers a subscription-based investment platform that enables accredited and non-accredited investors to participate in fractional ownership of residential real estate assets.
