Artificial intelligence has arrived in the real estate industry, and some real estate professionals are having a hard time accepting it.
A Las Vegas-based commercial real estate professional, the founder and CEO of AI-powered platform Agrippa, learned that the hard way when he received a bloodied pig’s head in the mail in late July, along with a handwritten letter in response to a local news story that highlighted the CEO’s recent use of AI to complete a real estate transaction, KLAS 8 News Now reported.
Blake Owens, Agrippa founder and CEO | Credit: LinkedIn
“Perhaps this person watched too much of The Godfather,” Agrippa founder Blake Owens told the news outlet. “Needless to say, I still take it very seriously, but don’t feel like I’m being truly threatened. It was a message.”
Owens told Inman that after news had been published about the transaction he conducted with AI, there were a few trolling comments on KLAS 8 New Now’s website and elsewhere, but things really escalated with the package he received.
“It’s one thing to see little troll comments like that, [and] totally different to actually get a package,” Owens said. “So it’s all new to me.”
The letter seems to have been written by someone who feels threatened by the rise of AI — and suggests the author is a real estate broker.
“‘AI’ is not going to replace brokers,” the letter reads. “Clearly you don’t understand real estate wasn’t built by developers or investors.
“And it sure as hell wasn’t built by tech guys in Lulu Lemon,” the letter continues. “It was built by brokers. We did it the hard way. No shortcuts, no tech, just people. So enjoy your moment while it lasts. And don’t get greedy because pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.”
The letter also addresses Owens as a “Clark Kent Knockoff” and signed off simply as “M.”
Agrippa, the company Owens founded, is a “broker-free, AI-powered platform where CRE sponsors, developers, institutional investors, and family offices connect directly,” according to a website where interested parties can sign up to join the network’s waitlist.
Owens told KLAS 8 News Now that his goal in developing the platform was to empower humans with technology, not replace them with it.
“[Winston Churchill] said to be perfect is to change often,” Owens told KLAS 8 News Now. “I think a lot of people are afraid of change and what’s coming with AI, because it really is a tsunami of change that people are trying to resist. But the more you embrace it, the better you’ll do, the more skills that you’ll accumulate [and the] more value you’ll bring to the table.”
Owens also pointed out that a handful of Las Vegas companies are embracing AI, including the newly launched Otonumus Hotel, which bills itself as “the world’s first fully AI-powered resort, where luxury meets next-gen technology.”
Owens told Inman that he doesn’t harbor hard feelings against the individual who mailed him the pig’s head, and suggested they may be struggling with the evolving state of technology.
“The reason why I shared the story is because I think it represents perhaps something larger than me,” Owens told Inman. “This incident, as disturbing as it is, it’s just a symptom of a deeper issue that I think is quietly brewing across many industries, not just commercial real estate. People are scared. They feel displaced. And, you know, there’s a lot of fear over AI, and when disruption moves faster than AI education, fear kind of fills that gap. So I’m merely just sharing it, not to promote my company, it doesn’t help us — but I want to kind of put forward a different type of response, and one rooted in empathy and not retaliation.”
If he knew who the person was who sent him the package and had a chance to respond, Owens said he’d tell the individual that he’d be happy to help him understand AI better.
“I’d say that, ‘Hey, I understand the frustrations. I know what it’s like to take hit after hit and not have things go as you’d like,'” he told Inman. “But, intimidation is not the the preferred path. If I knew who this person was, I’d say, ‘Hey, feel free to reach out to me — maybe not with a package, just send me an email — I’m happy to share whatever education I can on keeping up with AI.'”
The animal head and letter are under investigation by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
Update: This story was updated after publishing with additional comments from Blake Owens.
