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The $1M Insurance Mistake Real Estate Investors Miss w/ Kristen Nunnery · Real Estate Investing with RealDealCrew

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Two separate claims, both over a million dollars,
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both because one line buried in a certificate of insurance that
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the property team thought had them covered,
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it Kristen Nunnery has spent 16 years in insurance
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and risk management, and she's the founder of Illumend AI,
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a platform built to catch exactly that kind of hidden risk before
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it becomes a lawsuit.
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In this episode, you'll learn why license and insured often means less than
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you think. How AI is turning insurance compliance from a slow manual headache into
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something that actually speeds up your deals and what real estate investors
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and property managers get wrong about third party risk.
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If you want to see what her team is building,
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check out the link at realdealcrew.com.
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Let's get started.
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Kristen Nunnery joins me here today and you can learn what her team
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can help you with by heading over to illumend dot AI.
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I'm gonna have that as a clickable link in the show notes,
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but they are part of my COI. so I think some people might be familiar with that.
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So I really appreciate your time here today,
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Kristen.
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Jack, thanks so much for having me.
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It's wonderful to be here today.
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Well, Kristen, you've built your career around insurance,
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risk management, and compliance.
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What first drew you into this space and what made you want to reinvent it?
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Yeah, I have. I've been in this industry sixteen years now.
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crazy to imagine, but I this is a passion for me.
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I'll give a quick story here. I've I've lived the downside.
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So when I was in high school, we had a house fire and basically lost our home.
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And lived the insurance claim situation.
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And unfortunately, I think my parents were in a you don't know what
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you don't know scenario. The type of insurance policy they had translated
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to a multi-year battle with the insurance carrier.
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And so just a lot of challenges,
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a lot of stresses, a lot of friction in that.
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So very passionate about what we do today because it is to protect people from
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living through that exact scenario.
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You know, you're not the first insurance person who've said something similar.
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I I ha I know a a fella here locally personally that you know,
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you wouldn't think that there would be somebody that would be,
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to be honest, passionate about insurance.
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but he was passionate about life insurance because his father passed away when
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he was a young age. So there's that personal connection in in that world as well.
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Like it's it's interesting where you can find your why.
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Yeah, I mean let's be honest, most people want absolutely nothing
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to do with insurance ever. So it's but for those of us who actually have
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the reason and have the why and have the passion,
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it can run pretty deep and it can actually be a lot of fun and a great industry
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to be in.
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So before Lumend, what did you see in the market that convinced you
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t compliance was still being treated as a back office headache instead
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of a strategic business function?
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Yeah. So what we do,
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just to to give a little context that will then help me answer that question,
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anytime companies, you know, property managers,
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owners, they're hiring third parties,
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they're bringing in tenants, they've got vendors,
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they've got contractors, you know,
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we rely on those third parties to help drive our business forward,
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but we take on risk every single time we're partnering with a third party.
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And when I first came into this compliance world.
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One I would say like there was a tremendous amount of risk being taken
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on by organizations. There was a lot of you don't know what you don't know
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in terms of that risk that's taken on.
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And it also just trying to manage it was a very heavy workload.
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Very manual.
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Very time consuming. It was oftentimes put on property staff's plate
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who could care less about insurance,
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don't want to spend their day thinking about insurance.
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And so it would just really open up the organization to a lot of risk.
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And I get pretty excited about being able to you know,
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see a real problem, think about creative ways to solve that problem,
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and in particular when there's a lot of meaning behind it.
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And while insurance compliance sounds really dry and
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Really boring. It actually is something where it is all about protecting
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the people and supporting the people that are involved in the day-to-day
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and you know being able to help with a process that most people don't want
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to be spending time on and to make that a little bit easier and a little bit better,
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and at the end of the day, keep people away from the major disruption that
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you know I personally have lived through that still impacts our family today,
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is is a lot of fun.
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Mm-hmm. So you've been an entrepreneur and a leader in the industry for years.
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What personal experiences outside of that of the house fire most shaped
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how you think about risk, trust,
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and operations today?
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Mm.
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Got lot looped into one question of risk,
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trust, and operations all all together there.
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You know, I think as an entrepreneur,
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you're I you're continuously focused in on really all of the three:
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risk, trust, and operations. I think any business that you're focused on scaling,
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no matter what industry you are in,
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Businesses can't scale without having effective operations
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and effective processes that support that scale.
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And risk tends to be one of the things that can really like get in the
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way or cause a meaningful speed bump or brake pedal to what you're trying
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to scale and grow.
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And you gotta build trust with every person you work with,
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your customers, your employees,
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your partners. And that, you know,
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it's it's kind of core to growing a business,
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right? I think as a business, we always rely on third-party partners,
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all of us. And you can't really accelerate your business forward without
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the help of the third-party partners.
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And all of those items really sit at the core of being able to
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be successful with that. It's actually one of the things I really you know
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I'm I'm passionate about in what we do today.
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I think.
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For many, many, many years, risk was like the brake pedal to operations.
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It's like there's people who are trying to scale the business,
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they're trying to grow top line,
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they're trying to be efficient,
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they're, you know, move tenants in,
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get the project done, you know,
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focus in on the bottom line as well with that.
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And risk tends to be the thing that's the brake pedal
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all throughout the organization.
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it's important because without it,
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you can end up with
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The major, major problems that cause serious setbacks for an organization.
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But it also historically has been the place where it's like,
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you know, going through the contract negotiations,
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risk is involved, and it it the red lines process slows things down.
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Being able to pre-qualify somebody,
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being able to onboard them, just going through the entire process of
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all the steps that are all about mitigating risk.
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It's all of those things historically have really been brake pedals
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to the organization in terms of being able to really accelerate operations.
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And I am a big believer that AI is actually the opportunity to flip that,
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where AI can create effective risk mitigation,
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effective risk manager management can become the foundation.
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That is no longer a brake pedal,
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but it's actually what can fuel an organization forward.
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It can drive more effective operations,
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processees, shorten cycle times,
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get tenants moved in faster, get subcontractors onboarded faster,
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and really all throughout the organization,
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not just in in the third-party process.
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And so it's a really fun evolution to watch happen right now.
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I think people are able to make smarter decisions that they've never been able
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to make before.
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They're able to cut out cycles and time and processes and really be able
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to look at ways to accelerate a business forward.
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Mm. This is you're just speaking my language.
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When it comes to this, you know,
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I I wrestle with the concept that I I don't know if if we've seen
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a bigger leveling of the playing field than we are right now,
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whether it's functionality that is down brought down to even a small business level
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that was kind of reserved for the big players,
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to having some additional insights or education for that matter.
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You're you're you can you can ramp up so quickly and implement some things that
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actually move the needle. It's it's actually kind of a magical time in in some ways.
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Love the word magical for that.
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It is incredible. I mean, it is the amount that can get done in a short window
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of time that really can transform or accelerate or drive a business forward.
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It just is unbelievable. And your point about it being accessible across the board,
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that is a game changer. I think one of the key factors though is you know
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who who is where is the adoption?
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How are leaders thinking about it?
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Who is taking what feels like a risk to really move thing move the needle forward?
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forward, who is focused on adoption throughout the entire organization.
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And I think that's that's where things will look different and industries start
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to get split is really thinking about the utilization and adoption of of
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how AI can transform.
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Well that kinda leads me into part of the conversation that I I I stopped
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us when we when we first got on this on this call is the you know,
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we gotta we gotta be honest here.
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When it comes to real estate investors,
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realtors, brokers and insurance providers,
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in insurance agents, y we we're frankly we're kind of behind the times,
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to say the least.
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to adopting new technologies and and new things.
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Like so what what made you decide to go all in like
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you have when it comes to adopting these technologies,
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but not only adopting them, but but developing and pushing these technologies
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in kind of a a in industry that's a bit res resistant to that type of change?
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Yeah. You know, I actually, so backstory to this.
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Gosh, has this been almost three years now?
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Unbelievable how time flies. But super early on as AI was progressing forward,
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really before a lot of people are even paying attention to it,
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had an opportunity to really understand and have,
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you know, the vision casted of where we're headed and where we all know we are now.
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but it gave me an opportunity of like come back and
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And really reimagine how to deliver to a customer.
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I think for me, as soon as I had the vision of where we are all headed,
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what I immediately could imagine was a world where friction was removed.
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Insurance compliance is a process that has a lot of friction involved.
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And it's a process where there's a lot of people involved who back to what we said,
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nobody really cares about or wants to be involved in insurance.
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There's a lot of people that are involved in this process that really don't want
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to be involved in this process.
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So, how how do you deliver a solution that
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Is really at the end of the day super simple and easy,
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and it helps people get to compliance and get back to what they actually want
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to be doing as quickly as possible.
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And I could just immediately have this vision of a world where we could have
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a dramatically different product to deliver to customers if we gave ourselves
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the chance to.
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have a clean whiteboard and think about how you would reimagine with what AI can do,
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how would we deliver to the customer?
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And and we did that. And we came back and said,
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this is truly transformative. And we went,
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we went all in and actually made the decision we would build a brand
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new product ground up with that clean whiteboard and do it to disrupt
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and transform our industry. Because at the end of the day,
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It's what the customer needed.
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Right? And if we're putting the customer at the core and at the center
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of how to deliver, which for us means property managers can move tenants in faster.
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They can get, you know, maintenance repairs done faster.
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They can build projects faster.
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They're spending less time throughout their day,
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being able to chase documentation and get tenants and vendors to compliance.
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And instead, they're spending time in more valuable ways.
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And just making it super simple and easy.
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And those processes live throughout the entire industry,
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right? And being able to rethink and reimagine.
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So I back to like, you know, how and why did we jump in?
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There was no turning back as soon as that vision was there because at the
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end of the day, could really see how it transforms for the customer.
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And that's really been the guiding light for us.
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I'd be curious as your thought process as you've been developing this,
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because I I got to be also direct on this.
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It's it seems like a lot of companies,
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AI is the hammer, everything's a nail right now.
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They're jamming it into everything.
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And in some cases they they haven't done what you're suggesting is taking
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a step back and and seeing what the customer actually needs or wants.
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Like so when Illumen.ai was built as a native AI.
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platform why does that matter in practice?
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Mmm, I love this question. It's this is so key because I I see I
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I honestly didn't appreciate this at first.
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And now looking back on it, I see how meaningfully different this becomes.
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It really kind of creates a divide in the industry.
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When you give yourself that chance to step back and reimagine,
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you think about solutions in a very different way.
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You kind of open up your mind to solutioning that you might have been closed
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off to to begin with.
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I think there's a lot of organizations that are looking at,
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hey, where do I apply AI to create an efficiency,
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to support top line, to create acceleration,
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to get rid of friction, all those things are fantastic.
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And there's so much opportunity to do that all throughout the organization.
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and so I'm I'm I'm an advocate for that as well.
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But when you really, if you if you give yourself the opportunity to step back
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and and have that clean
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Creative space, putting the customer at the center to say what is best for them,
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it gives that opportunity to think about things in a different way that
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you might not have ever thought about if you're just trying
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to create efficiencies in an existing process.
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And while that might not make sense for everybody,
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and there might not be, you know,
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some big thing to go do in that way,
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I still think at a micro level,
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that's an exercise every organization should do.
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And it could simply be, you know,
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one motion in the organization,
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one department, one processe, but being able to
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challenge yourself to rethink versus just looking at an efficiency,
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I think can help you really create a competitive differentiator
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and something that can ultimately help fuel your business forward.
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And I think that's true in every industry.
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You know, that's it's really something that I w I wanna everybody to take
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a second and listen to what was just said there because this is really like this
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is why it's also one of the biggest d disruptions in in the technology world.
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Because you have these big players,
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you know, Microsoft, Atlassian,
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all of these big players that are bolting AI into their existing platform because
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they've made such significant investments when you
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You're in a bottle, you can't read the label,
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and they're they're going to they've made this significant investment into these
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product lines. They just can't abandon what that that they've already built,
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what's already been but when you have that situation where sky's the limit,
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you're not restricted to to that level of investment or that that particular you're
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not married to that particular platform.
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It it it's kind of freeing.
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really is freeing and I think in some ways you know it can feel like a
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big leap and a big risk to and a let go of something that's existing today.
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But if you know it even the large
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Even the largest companies in any any industry,
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I think, run risks of the earlier stage organizations who
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are accelerating because the pace of development of things with
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AI is something we've never seen before.
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And so when you have a that level of pace,
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the amount of disruption that can take place is,
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I think, something we've never seen before.
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And so, you know, I think there's times where.
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You gotta be honest and you gotta like really give yourself the hard look internally
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to say, what are we holding on to and what are we not?
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And let's be real about what where this industry is headed,
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whatever industry you're in, and what are those true risks because where
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the larger organizations might have felt like the bigger risk in the past.
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They may not that they're they will still be a risk in some ways,
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but the the pace and acceleration of development levels the playing field.
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And there's a lot that can happen really fast.
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And so I think it's
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You gotta at least give the hard look to say,
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what is it we're willing to change?
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What are the risks we need to take?
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what are we okay letting go of versus what do what makes sense for us to hold on to?
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Mm-hmm. Just to remind everybody,
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we're talking to Kristen Kristen Nun I'm gonna have to edit this out.
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We're just to remind everybody we're talking to Kristen Nunnery.
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You can learn more at Illuminant I'm gonna have to try again.
17:25
Just remind everybody we're talking to Kristen Nunnery.
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You can learn more at illumend.ai.
17:30
That's going to be a clickable link in the show notes.
17:32
If you found some value in what we're chatting about so far,
17:34
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17:38
give us a like and subscribe subscribe.
17:41
So Chris Kristen, one of the things that I'd be really interested
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in is regarding I'm gonna actually let's
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Back up a little bit and give people a little clarity on what you're talking about
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when you're talking about insurance compliance.
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And you've already kind of given us some examples around speed to some things,
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whether it's onboarding a new contractor or or bringing in new tenants
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or what have you. Can you kind of like break things down in the simplest terms
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so real estate investors just like so they clearly understand what we're talking
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about here?
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Yeah, you bet. You bet. You know,
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as a real estate investor, real estate owner,
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operator manager, you you own an asset and you're running a business
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and you are relying on either tenants who are producing income for you,
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vendors or contractors who are doing maintenance,
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building projects, et cetera, allowing you to be able to do the things that then
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get you the tenants to bring income.
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Anytime you're working with those third parties,
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you're taking on risk. Somebody might have an accident,
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they might cause a leak in the building,
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they might cause a fire, somebody might fall.
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And it's really important. Risk rolls upstream.
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So if one of those third parties has some kind of accident and they don't have
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the insurance that you think they're going to have,
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it can come up to you. So you really don't want to let that roll upstream.
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It can become a big disruption that costs the claim,
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it costs legal costs.
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It it can cause have reputational harm,
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it can slow down income, et cetera,
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et cetera, et cetera. So what we do is we help to ensure that any
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of those third parties have the insurance they need to have,
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so that when those accidents happen,
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because that's life, it will happen,
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that that
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owners are protected and do that in a way where it can help accelerate
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the business forward versus being a a friction point and a slowdown
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to operations for the organization to be able to drive the income that they're
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building.
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I appreciate you providing that clarity because i I can imagine,
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you know, everybody and you'll even see it on people's websites that they're
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licensed and insured, but you it's probably pretty important to keep track
19:53
of those s certifications and and a few other things,
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especially when you're dealing with large projects.
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It is so important. Large projects,
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small projects, it really one accident can become a million dollar claim really
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fast. And I think most people most people are in the same spot that was kind
20:09
of the genesis of of why Illumin exists,
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where you don't know what you don't know,
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and property staff who are operating different properties are they're doing their
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best. They're doing what they know how to do to collect insurance,
20:21
collect the COI, but
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What they don't oftentimes don't realize is there's language buried
20:27
in that insurance policy that's going to give the carrier a reason
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to deny the claim, which is when problems happen.
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And so accidents happen, claims happen,
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it's being prepared for it so it doesn't have a large financial impact.
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And you've you've already demonstrated this.
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AI is like perfectly equipped for some of this because if you're talking about
20:47
a a insurance plan of of any kind,
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you know, you're you can be buried in legalese and and information to find
20:56
the min minute information in in some of these policies is going to
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be next to impossible for us as as humans sometimes.
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And I think it's deliberate.
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I think it it absolutely is deliberate.
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I I have to laugh. We have a slogan we've used at trade shows,
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insurance isn't your friend. But the reality is the insurance industry
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has kind been built on you know
21:16
knowing the ins and outs and what language is in the policy.
21:19
And there's i i there's more than a thousand different additional insured
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endorsements out there and th they don't all read the same.
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And for anybody who has a part of their day that's collecting a COI,
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they know that term. What they don't know oftentimes is the impact of
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one versus the other and what happens when that accident does occur.
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And you're right, the insurance industry is just spilt that way.
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And I will say like back to
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In real estate particular, I think property staff have a lot of responsibilities.
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And this is tough to spend a whole bunch of hours every week chasing COIs.
21:53
And it's really not where they can bring the most value,
21:56
and it's not where they tend to enjoy spending their time either.
22:00
Yet it's really critical for the organization.
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So it's one example of many where
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AI can reduce a tremendous amount of friction.
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It can uncover buried things in deep in language of an insurance policy
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or contracts or something else,
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to uncover hidden risks,
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to take a process that could take days or weeks and turn it into minutes.
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and accelerate a business forward.
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It's a perfect use case for AI and there's so many of them in real estate.
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So many.
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Mm-hmm. Well, could you possibly give us an example of like a maybe
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you a project that stood out or something that maybe you saved somebody
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a significant amount of money because of this new this process?
22:49
my goodness, we we hear it all day,
22:51
every day. It's you know, most organizations come to us because they're doing this
22:55
manually in-house. And so it literally is a team of people or or depending
23:01
on if they've centralized it, somebody who is spending a whole bunch of time
23:04
tracking something in a spreadsheet,
23:06
doing lots of emails, lots of phone calls,
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chasing people down, and you know,
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we can chop the hours, like cut that by 80,
23:15
90%. on top of that though, the hours is only a component of it because like
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I mentioned, it's a you don't know what you don't know.
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One of my favorite stories actually is from a a customer of ours who
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had two claims right before they hired us.
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Both became over a million dollar claims,
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both related to the additional insured endorsement that was behind the COI itself.
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So the team did what they thought they knew how,
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like did what they were trained to do.
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They collected the COI, they saw their name as an additional insurance on the COI,
23:44
and they thought they were good to go until things went wrong.
23:47
And it became a claim, it became you know a battle,
23:50
and ultimately they didn't have the coverage they thought they had.
23:53
those are
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The types of things we protect organizations from.
23:57
There's so much hidden risk in this process.
24:00
Anytime it's done internally, there's a tremendous amount of hidden risk.
24:03
And it's not because they don't have smart,
24:04
they always have very smart, capable people doing it.
24:07
You just they're not insurance experts,
24:09
they don't know what they don't know.
24:10
And so being able to use AI to take a very complex topic like insurance
24:17
and be able to build a product that is meant for people who
24:21
are not insurance experts to make that.
24:23
That complex product simple is really like the key to success for us.
24:29
I sort of equate it to you know taxes.
24:32
Nobody wants to know about taxes,
24:34
nobody wants to understand all the laws around it.
24:36
Yet you do want to figure out the easy,
24:38
simple way to make sure you you get your taxes filed,
24:41
right? It's kind of a similar
24:42
Mm-hmm.
24:43
concept. And if you can really build a product that makes it easy
24:46
and simple for people, it's a game changer.
24:48
You just said you don't know what you don't know a couple times through this inter
24:53
interview. I'm curious before you started building this app out
24:58
or building this platform out,
25:00
what surprised you along the way?
25:02
What what ended up what what was blank in your world bef before the whole process?
25:08
my gosh, so many things. I'm an entrepreneur.
25:10
You're learning things every day,
25:11
right? ~ but
25:12
Mm-hmm.
25:13
I guess I'll say answering that one towards the insurance side of it.
25:17
I lived the downside. I didn't come from being an insurance expert.
25:21
So I knew the problem. And but I was not I did not know the ins
25:24
and outs of insurance 16 years ago.
25:27
And so man, did I learn a lot.
25:30
And I will say what really surprised me is
25:33
Is how gray and how complex and how many different use cases there
25:37
are in the insurance world. It's like one of those things you assume and you know,
25:42
but until you actually start to peel layers back,
25:44
you don't really fully comprehend.
25:46
It is it's a it is a tremendously complex industry.
25:53
And it makes it a lot of fun to solve because to do it well is very challenging.
25:59
but that's you know, that's what makes it a lot of fun to go do and get makes
26:02
it a a great opportunity. And for the entrepreneur in me who likes to be
26:05
a who's a visionary and a creator and an executor,
26:08
I love I love having the challenge to go solve.
26:11
Was there ever a point where you went,
26:13
What the hell am I doing? w this this is just gonna this is just destroying me?
26:19
Welcome to entrepreneurship, right?
26:22
I mean, I think as business
26:22
Yeah.
26:23
owners, you always have these moments.
26:25
there's some crazy gene that we're all born with that,
26:28
you know, I don't know if it's good or bad that we were born with it,
26:31
but of course, you know, I think you have you have s some of the really
26:35
fun and energizing and exciting moments.
26:37
And then I think there's also the
26:40
clo I like to call it a closet crying moment where you just want to
26:43
go curling a ball. and and you just sort of like,
26:45
gosh, what in the world? And so that's part of owning a business.
26:50
Every single owner of a business and every entrepreneur has those
26:55
ups and downs. And I think that just comes with leadership.
26:58
And I think it's how you manage through that and what your leadership style
27:02
is through that I think is a big factor in being able to be successful
27:07
as a business owner, as
27:08
Mm-hmm.
27:08
an entrepreneur. But man, but I say I'll say I because I do like hard challenges,
27:14
I think I would be bored if I were doing the same thing day in and day out.
27:18
It fits well for me to be able to be,
27:20
you know, a an entrepreneur and a CEO because there's always a
27:24
new challenge to face. And I think especially for leaders in the last five,
27:29
six years, we've been through a lot of twists and turns as an entire group that,
27:34
you know, we've all just had to figure out how to adapt,
27:36
how to adjust. Think about, you know,
27:39
w
27:39
work three steps ahead, make sure we're going where the industry
27:43
is going because things are changing rapidly.
27:45
And for me I think that's really energizing and a lot of fun.
27:48
It's a great time to be able to be an entrepreneur.
27:51
You we've kind of brushed on this as well,
27:53
you know, because AI is such the biggest leveling of the playing field,
27:57
but I've actually found it difficult and distracting in some ways because
28:01
all these ideas can now come to life relatively easily in comparison to what
28:07
it used to be. What do you do to avoid those level of distractions?
28:11
You know, I think one of the things if you're thinking about how to adopt
28:17
and how to apply within the organization,
28:20
I'm I'm gonna weave this into this question because it goes together.
28:24
I think when
28:25
While I shared a story, you know,
28:27
we as a business made a very big move in building a new product
28:31
and really transforming it's what we felt like was the right thing to do
28:34
for us and wanting to really truly transform our our entire industry.
28:38
But I think that that is there's so many opportunities to apply
28:42
AI throughout the entire organization.
28:44
And to do it in a practical way versus a distracted way,
28:49
I think is all about the use case.
28:51
And I
28:51
I
28:51
think an organization sometimes what is the easiest way to kind of move down that
28:55
path is just start small. What's that one use case?
28:59
What is that one real thing we want to go?
29:02
experiment with and explore with and maybe we get a win,
29:06
maybe we don't. But you at least just start to get comfortable using
29:10
the tools that we have and understanding how to deploy them.
29:14
And I think as soon as you can start to look at the practicality of
29:17
the use cases and you can start to
29:20
Adopt and utilize the world of opportunity starts to unfold.
29:25
Now it's like, I could utilize it in this way.
29:29
And the next thing you're trying to solve comes up,
29:32
and it's like, let me go try this approach.
29:35
and it just sort of shifts the thinking.
29:38
And I I would rather, I personally don't actually worry about distraction
29:42
as much because I would rather.
29:43
People be experimenting with practical use cases they're facing
29:48
in the day-to-day than you know being cautious on a distraction.
29:52
Because I think that is the best way to start to really truly
29:55
get comfortable and understand how to utilize it,
29:58
how to adopt it, and make it very meaningful.
30:00
And I think really we're head as a society,
30:03
like we're headed in a direction where we as employees can bring
30:07
the highest value to an organization when we are.
30:11
We're owning systems rather than owning tasks.
30:14
And I think that's a shift that AI brings,
30:16
right? It's no longer
30:17
Mm-hmm.
30:18
I'm doing these things, but it's I'm owning the system that does these things.
30:22
And a lot of that's where AI is coming into play,
30:24
right? And so the more people that can go through the learning curve
30:30
and get comfortable and get confident and start to think broader,
30:34
the better.
30:35
Yeah, I I I get what you're saying there.
30:37
I you know, one of the things that I've been struggling with is that,
30:41
you know, I got a notebook that has like all of my past ideas that I've always just
30:46
kind of jotted down and now I can actually pursue some of these,
30:50
but I gotta nail the things that I'm actually working on first.
30:54
You know, it's just like i it can't catch multiple rabbits,
30:59
right?
30:59
I I'd
30:59
Mm-hmm.
31:00
be curious though, what are leaders getting wrong right now when they think about
31:05
AI adoption and highly regulated or high trust industries?
31:10
This is an interesting one because I think we're we are all still in
31:13
a process of continuing to learn,
31:15
continuing to adjust, continuing to kind of figure out where is the where
31:20
are the norms going to fall as we get a little bit further along
31:24
in this journey that we're all on right now.
31:26
But I I think there is I'm seeing a much greater
31:33
Adoption of AI in industries and organizations who historically have been.
31:39
more risk adverse, who have been cautious from a security perspective.
31:45
And I think a big and it's wonderful to see because it's opening up
31:49
the doors for the adoption and acceleration of things we've talked about.
31:53
But I think a big part of this is we just are starting to move past
31:58
the fear into adoption and figuring out what are the questions we need to ask?
32:03
What are the things we need to evaluate?
32:05
How do we make sure our data stays safe so that we can go utilize and
32:11
go apply and bring in partners who are on the forefront in how they're utilizing AI?
32:18
And it's actually really encouraging to see,
32:20
and especially when it's coming from the industries who were very resistant
32:25
at first, right? For because of being very cautious for good reasons that they need
32:29
to be very cautious.
32:30
I just think that there is a there's a thoughtful
32:36
way to buy AI, and we are better off finding that thoughtful approach
32:41
and what's right for our organization versus being resistant to it.
32:44
And so, as leaders, I think it is looking for solutions versus looking
32:51
for the why nots, right?
32:54
And that's a difference in a mindset for leaders.
32:56
Some leaders that kind of look for all the reasons not to do something versus look
33:00
for the solution for how to do something.
33:03
So I guess it I would I would say applying that thought process
33:07
of having the solution-oriented leader who can then be able to take
33:12
an organization forward.
33:13
So how do you balance automation and accountability,
33:17
especially in industries where mistakes can create real financial
33:20
and legal consequences?
33:22
Yes. This is so important for us because especially because of what just what we do,
33:26
right? It's higher stakes and accuracy and getting it right.
33:31
So we we create a lot of checks and balances.
33:33
And so we're very thoughtful about our approach for checks and balances.
33:37
And we have a lot of monitoring,
33:39
we have good understanding of you know where where is AI performing
33:44
in a highly accurate way, where do we want to partner AI with
33:48
with experts as it's as we're continuing to train and continuing to make
33:52
it better and better and better.
33:53
And so I think just having the processes in place that makes it
33:59
a responsible use of AI and being very thoughtful in the development approach.
34:05
Is what can build trusted AI. And I think that takes some flexibility too.
34:11
Cause I think you know it might look one way in the beginning and different
34:14
in the middle, and different again as you as it matures further along the way.
34:18
But the end of the day, it's creating the framework and
34:21
the structure for transparency,
34:24
for accountability,
34:26
And a lot of that comes into just monitoring data and making sure
34:31
the processes are in place to support being able to deliver a product that
34:35
can be highly trusted.
34:37
Yeah, I've you know, I help a lot of businesses implement some
34:40
of these solutions and I've told them that I still need that individual in place.
34:46
You know, we can get you eighty percent of the way there if not more.
34:48
But you know, we're building your Iron Man suit.
34:51
I can in augment what you're doing today,
34:54
but I still need you in the middle of it all.
34:56
As I think many people have said along the way,
34:58
it's like AI is the tool, but it needs people to be able to deploy
35:03
the tool and utilize the tool and to be able to turn it into what brings
35:06
the value to an organization. And I think that kind of applies to that.
35:10
There's places where that that needs to be a part of the process.
35:14
So where do you think things are going here?
35:16
Whether it's y your business or AI in general.
35:19
Like I'd like to s hear your outlook.
35:22
I mean, we just recently they Claude Anthropic released Fable and we they
35:28
had to pull it back at least temporarily.
35:30
Mythos is still on the horizon.
35:33
Like where do you see things going?
35:35
I wish you know, I
35:37
I wish I could be sitting in the the rooms where some of the real discussions
35:41
on this topic are taking place.
35:42
be a lot of fun to really be out be inside the walls of those conversations.
35:47
but hey, I look at the end of the day,
35:49
I think there's no turning back from where we've where we've gone.
35:53
We are going to have continuous steps along the way where we learn and
35:57
we pivot and we have to figure out where to set the guardrails and
36:01
and where these norms are gonna fall,
36:03
right? And I
36:04
We don't know what that's gonna look like yet.
36:05
But the tool and the technology itself,
36:09
it's not going anywhere at this point,
36:10
right? And so I think it is what's really important for all of
36:15
us is the adaptability.
36:17
Things are gonna shift along the
36:17
Well Kristen this
36:18
way.
36:19
Yeah, yeah. It you know, I've I've heard multiple people say the phrase you're
36:25
not gonna be replaced by AI. You're gonna be replaced or beaten by somebody
36:29
who is using AI. Do you do you agree with that statement?
36:32
Yeah, I I do think that's a very wise comment.
36:36
And it's back to kind of the comment of like I think the people can bring value
36:41
to organizations in owning the systems and understanding how to use
36:46
AI and being able to bring the highest value they can bring by having AI as a tool.
36:53
And so I think that very much makes sense.
36:56
I am not a believer that
36:58
You know, AI is about to replace all of us.
37:00
but I do think a lot of the tasks being done on the day-to-day
37:04
are going to meaningfully change and AI makes that difference.
37:08
So being thoughtful of then how how to use AI in different ways to bring
37:12
the highest value to the organization is what matters.
37:15
Well, Kristen, this has been a great conversation.
37:18
in fact I think we could go for yet another forty five minutes or an hour more,
37:23
but b we better start closing out this episode.
37:26
But before we do, is there anything else that we might not have hit
37:29
on that you would have liked to to broach?
37:32
Cash, I I would just, you know,
37:34
encourage for for the real estate industry in general,
37:38
as you mentioned, one that's usually not on the forefront of of
37:42
any new technology or kind of leading the way,
37:44
it tends to be more of a laggard in general.
37:47
Gosh, now is the time to actually think about how to create
37:50
the differentiators by the opportunities that are out there.
37:52
It's a highly competitive industry that you know operational efficiencies
37:57
is really key in so many ways.
37:59
And there's just so many opportunities for acceleration,
38:02
differentiation, and being a you know,
38:06
allowing AI to be a game changer.
38:08
And so my parting words are really nothing more than encouragement of
38:15
Go explore. Go explore and look how you can make it in the the highest value party
38:20
organization.
38:21
Well, Kristen, I really appreciate the insight and and the great conversation.
38:26
Just remind everybody again, it is Lumend dot AI.
38:30
I'm gonna have that as a clickable link in the show notes.
38:33
But if you're already, Kristen,
38:34
we'll jump into the rapid fire and close out this episode.
38:37
Let's do it.
38:39
What lie do entrepreneurs often tell themselves?
38:42
We know it, we got it. We know what we're doing.
38:46
We have no idea what we're doing.
38:48
Every day's a new day.
38:50
Fake it till you make it. What are you talking about?
38:54
That's right, that's right.
38:56
If you could go back in time and give your younger self a piece of advice,
38:59
what would it be?
39:00
Go easy on yourself. Way too critical of myself.
39:04
Go easy on yourself. Life works out.
39:07
Is there anything in your business currently that keeps you up at night?
39:11
my main thing is I have a a vision of where we wanna go and
39:17
I always want it to be done faster and faster and faster.
39:20
It's part of the entrepreneur in me.
39:21
And man, I am so eager to get there.
39:24
So for me, it is all the steps along the way for us to go from where we
39:29
are today to the product vision that we're working towards in the in
39:31
the near term here that keeps me up at night because I want to make sure everything
39:36
is executing on point to get there and deliver.
39:38
And I'm pretty excited about the path we're on.
39:41
And finally, what single tool or process have you implemented that
39:44
has had the biggest time saving impact?
39:46
Hmm, for me personally,
39:50
I mean I Claude's my best friend,
39:52
so all sorts of things in the Claude world utilize and just gosh,
39:58
I don't even think I could say it's one thing.
40:00
It is more looking at like all the things that happen on the day-to-day
40:04
and where I would spend minutes here or minutes here that can be spun
40:09
up for me automatically.
40:10
Mm-hmm. Well, I really appreciate your time again.
40:14
One more time, it is illumend.ai.
40:17
I'm gonna have that as a clickable link in the show notes.
40:19
Hope you'll consider coming back again.
40:21
It was great to chat with you.
40:22
It was great to meet you.
40:23
Wonderful to meet you. Thank you for having me today.
40:26
A lot of fun to be here.