Closing the AI readiness gap in your CRE portfolio

This session brings together three leaders who work with CRE organizations like yours every day, navigating the gap between AI recognition and portfolio transformation:

Flore Pradère, Research Director, Global Research at JLL, leads our Future of Work research across 21 markets, tracking how workforce strategies, portfolio decisions and AI adoption are shifting globally. Flore shares what the 2026 survey data tells us about where organizations are getting stuck — and what the 15% actively transforming their portfolios are doing differently.

Reeves Davis, President of Technology Services at JLL, connects AI tools and technology strategy to CRE operations. Reeves covers the technology risk landscape, how to build a CRE tech stack that supports your workforce strategy and what it means to move from AI aspiration to operational execution.

DeJeana Kilgore, Head of Consulting, Americas at JLL, works with occupiers on portfolio strategy and organizational transformation across the Americas. DeJeana addresses the capability gap directly — what it takes to build the skills, change management and cross-functional alignment needed to move from AI awareness to real portfolio action.

Together, they answer your questions about AI readiness, capability building, technology risk and how to close the gap between where your portfolio is today and where your business needs it to be.

Your C-suite already expects AI-driven transformation. The pressure is real: 78% of CRE leaders recognize AI will significantly impact their portfolio strategy in the next three to five years. But recognition and action are not the same thing.

Only 15% of organizations have progressed beyond pilots to actually using AI to transform operations. The rest are watching, evaluating and waiting for clarity that hasn't arrived.

What's holding most teams back is not budget. For the first time in the 15-year history of our Future of Work research, skills gaps in AI, analytics and emerging technology have overtaken cost as the primary constraint on CRE value creation — cited by 36% of organizations versus 30% for budget. At the same time, 67% of CRE leaders say they would prioritize long-term transformation over short-term cost management. The intention is there. The capability to act on it often is not.

Three of the top four risks threatening CRE portfolios over the next three to five years are technology-related: cybersecurity and data privacy (47%), technology and AI disruption (41%) and uncertainty around AI's impact on space requirements (40%). These are not future concerns. They are decisions your organization needs to be prepared for now.

This session addresses the core challenge: what does it take to move from awareness to action, and what can your team do to start building that capacity today.

What separates the leaders from everyone else
Most AI-optimizing organizations (94%) report effective cross-functional collaboration, compared to 77% overall. The organizations actively transforming their portfolios share four characteristics: 

1. Expect workforce growth rather than shrink
2. Embed resilience and flexibility from the start 
3. Take a long-term view on portfolio decisions 
4. Develop strong cross-functional collaboration between CRE, HR, IT and Finance

How to close capability gaps without overextending your team
Skills gaps are the #1 barrier, but that does not mean you need to hire your way out. We’ll walk through three approaches to building capability: partnering for immediate access to skilled people, building systematically for long-term advantage and phasing investment based on where your organization is today. Each approach comes with a different risk profile and timeline.

Managing technology risk while keeping transformation moving
AI creates opportunity and risk simultaneously. We’ll address how to manage cybersecurity, prove technology ROI to a skeptical C-suite and build measurement infrastructure that helps you demonstrate CRE's value in terms leadership responds to.

Your action framework for building adaptive capacity
You do not need certainty about the future to start acting. Our panelists will offer concrete actions — from closing skills gaps and preparing for multiple workforce futures to building sensing mechanisms that tell you when to pivot — that you can apply to your own organization regardless of where you are in the transformation journey or what your budget looks like today.