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The current global crisis due to rising Omicron and Covid cases is also pushing both developers and customers to go for online booking of retail and residential spaces.

This would eventually compel the arrival of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) in the Indian real-estate sector. As of now, the real-estate sector remains in the early stages of deploying AI or ML in retail as well as residential sector.

Pankaj Bansal, Director of M3M India, is an aggressive new age real-estate developer in India. M3M India itself is the largest developer of retail space in North India by delivering over 4 million square feet of retail space and 20 million square feet of overall space in one of the most promising growth areas of Gurugram.

M3M India is aggressively looking forward to the advent of AI and ML in realty in India, beginning 2022.

"Speaking from a developer's point of view, we expect an extremely intelligent technology that addresses all the concerns and needs of developers and consumers. It should be able to suggest hundreds and thousands of designs and construction options. As a developer, we would like to know sun light, Vastu, wind direction, carpet area etc. before we conceive or design a project for customers. Once the projects are of the liking of customers, selling will never be an issue.

"We are also looking forward to a technology, be it is AI or ML, which can do multiple micro checks in design and construction both. It should be able to analyse, evaluate and suggest doable solutions. And we see this without any human intervention, Bansal said.

"Few well-known developers in some parts of the developed world have used AI to give an extremely unexpected look, feel and experience in select private houses. AI in these houses has virtually eliminated human intervention and has taken over the complete control of all the amenities and facilities" he added.

Research reports suggest that AI is also able to support the analysis by studying market preferences. A very important advantage that comes with the use of AI algorithms is that it can be adapted to reflect special market segments and it can also be automatically retrained and adjusted to include new information.

"It is true. As M3M India is also expanding the business, we would want our customers and investors to have smart information about our projects and deeper knowledge of overall real-estate sector, and most importantly, how the assets they have purchased or likely to purchase, are expected to give returns in near future and in the long run," Bansal said.

Most of the individuals and institutions also take loans to buy an asset and timely possession becomes a critical factor.

"When you have history, reputation and structural information of the project developer at your access, and if you are convinced about the real-timeline of the delivery of the projects; you would certainly try to look into many easy loan repayment options," Bansal said.

Looking from the real-estate developer perspective, AI and ML will become prominent tools for lead generation for a developer. AI-enabled programmes would capture consumer information for e-commerce business development and in addition help improve leadership and marketing strategies through machine learning environments.

Adoption of AI and ML in real-estate sector will also help government housing projects, particularly the 100 smart city projects across India.

When the real-estate sector is looking forward to contribute 13 per cent to India's GDP by 2025 and reach a market size of $1 trillion by 2030, how AI and ML will be aligned in this vision is yet to seen.