In May, Gus Waite and myself ran a webinar for business owners on the premise of the article “You can’t fix a structural issue with another software subscription.” that was published in Property Industry Eye.

Gus is an experienced real estate professional from the USA who, in the last three years has worked with over 100 agent businesses on developing blueprints for using AI in their businesses successfully.

AI can deliver efficiency but it is vital that it also delivers effectiveness and doesn’t just add to a growing tech stack and additional costs and frustrations.

Research shows that business owners feel alone, behind and overwhelmed and this was confirmed by those attending our webinar last week.

Literally every week there are new products being brought to the market with the promise of making estate agent’s lives better and at only a small increase in their current subscription! Many of these products are perfectly decent but are they really what the agent needs? Will they really solve their major “pain points”?

Using AI for the things you hate doing – not the things you love – isn’t just a productivity hack. It’s a philosophy. And it’s one that more leaders, creators, and business owners need to embrace if they want to stay sane, stay sharp, and stay focused on the work that actually matters.

At its core, AI is a force multiplier. But too many people are pointing that multiplier at the wrong things. They’re using AI to write the articles they enjoy crafting, to design the strategies they’re already good at, or to generate the ideas they want to think about. In other words, they’re outsourcing the joy and keeping the drudgery. It’s backwards.

The real power of AI lies in clearing the undergrowth – the repetitive, often low‑value, mentally draining tasks that clog up your day and dilute your attention. Admin. scheduling. Data entry. Drafting the fifteenth version of the same client email. Database farming (although a human element is also important here). Reconciling numbers. Formatting documents. All the things that quietly siphon energy away from the work that gives you purpose.

When you hand those tasks to AI, you’re not being lazy. You’re being strategic. You’re protecting your finite cognitive bandwidth for the things that genuinely require your judgment, creativity, and emotional intelligence. You’re giving yourself permission to spend more time in the zone where you do your best work.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth: many people cling to the grind because it feels like proof of effort. They equate suffering with value. But suffering isn’t a business model. Nor is it a creative strategy. The future belongs to those who can separate the meaningful from the mechanical – and automate the mechanical without guilt.

Using AI for the things you dislike doesn’t diminish your craft. It defends it. It keeps your mind clear enough to think deeply, your calendar open enough to act decisively, and your energy high enough to lead with intent rather than exhaustion.

The question isn’t whether AI will replace you. It’s whether you’ll allow it to replace the parts of your workload that were never worthy of your time in the first place.

If you let AI take the drudgery, you get to keep the joy. And that’s a trade any rational person should make.

In the USA, Gus has created the Independent Broker Collective and developed systems that analyse key data in real time in order to have the foundations on which businesses can build and operate.

He has also launched a group called the Independent Broker Collective (IBC) which is a peer to peer group where non-competing agents meet twice a month and, sharing agreed experiences on the key “pain points” of their businesses, create a “roadmap” for AI development that they then put into practice in an informed DIY approach.

This is done for a fraction of the cost of the “off the shelf” solutions being sold currently to businesses, many of which don’t actually tackle the real needs of the business.

The Independent Broker Collective operates on three levels with the aforementioned peer group (DIY), a more individual Co-CEO basis which operates on a one to one basis and provides input and plans for the business to develop the required AI tools and processes (a “Done With” approach) and a full turnkey approach where the IBC takes on all aspects of a businesses AI plans and processes. Full tech support is part of the model. This is the “Done For” approach.

As I write we are finalising our plans to launch a UK version of the Independent Broker Collective and we will be introducing this to a select group of estate agency business owners this autumn.

If you’d like to discuss, please contact me in confidence.

Michael S Day is managing director of Integra Property Services. 

OPINION: You can’t fix a structural problem with another software subscription