Concrete Analysis | Technology trends and their impact on real estate

Over the past few years, the world has witnessed significant progress in technological development, especially in areas such as artificial intelligence, big data and robotics.

Further progress on technology is likely to converge into “the fourth industrial revolution”, with a range of new technologies fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, and impacting all disciplines, economies and industries.

Technological advances are leading to disruptive changes to society at large, especially on the issue of employment. Increased automation, advanced robotics and artificial intelligence put large numbers of job categories under pressure of disappearance, going from lower skill jobs such as drivers, secretarial and office administration to middle skill jobs such as legal, insurance and financial services.

Such disruption will affect not only the lower working class but also the middle class that have lived under the tenet that higher education and confirmation to social norms would lead to personal prosperity. Reactions against such disruptions may lead to significant changes against the expected path of technological advances driving social advances, with examples such as Brexit and the ascendency of Donald Trump to the US presidency.

We may see government attempts to counter such development with different government policies, e.g. trade protection, tax policy, etc to defend against technological trends and affect the real estate market in the process.