Why AI Makes Experience More Valuable, Not Less
The case for AI adoption is usually made on speed: quicker document reviews, faster memos, fewer hours on routine analysis. But speed only helps once someone knows which questions are worth answering, and that knowledge usually comes from experience. The more we use AI tools at Slatt Capital, the more convinced we become of one thing: the growing adoption and capability of these technologies will make internal proprietary experience more valuable, not less.
Why Experience Gains Value
In commercial real estate finance, the questions worth answering are rarely the obvious ones: whether a lender’s appetite has shifted since its last quote, whether a sponsor’s balance sheet will satisfy a credit committee, whether a structure that worked last year still holds up. Advisors learn to ask them from deals that succeeded and deals that fell short, and those lessons give a firm a starting point for a new situation, even when the earlier solution would no longer work.
Answering those questions well takes real analysis, and on a live transaction the time needed to investigate a question has to be weighed against the time available to act on the answer. AI reduces the effort that analysis requires, making it practical to answer more of them while the answers still matter.
Case in point: One of our Slatt Capital advisors recently put his experience and AI analytics expertise to work on a single-tenant net lease financing using a permanent loan for a retail fast food property in the Southeast U.S. for a borrower facing a firm closing deadline. Late in the process, with the loan awaiting formal approval, the lender ran its own global cash flow analysis and reported that the borrower’s global debt service coverage had come in well under 1.0x, without sharing its calculation.
Knowing the borrower needed an answer quickly, the Slatt Capital advisor used AI to build an independent global cash flow analysis, directing it to pick out the smaller sources of income, taxes and expenses that can move a coverage ratio. That gave the borrower a clear view of where the deal stood, so when the original loan could not move forward, the two of them moved straight to another loan option: bridge financing. His experience told him where to look, and AI got him the answer fast enough to act on it.
The opportunity widens when colleagues bring different experience to the same question. If one has seen an approach succeed where another saw it fail, their conflicting outcomes can expose a condition neither would have questioned alone – for example, a lender’s apparent preference for a property type that really reflected the rate environment at the time. Examining that difference can reveal which part of an earlier lesson remains useful and which should be reconsidered. With AI assisting in the comparison, colleagues can build a more nuanced response informed by several transactions rather than the closest precedent.
What This Means for Clients
For borrowers, lenders and others choosing a firm to work with, a track record matters for more than the transactions it documents. It also represents experience the firm can draw on when familiar approaches no longer fit. As markets change, the ability to adapt becomes part of the value a client is choosing. A long history alone does not demonstrate that ability, and adopting AI does not establish it either. What matters is how a firm brings the two together to respond to the client’s circumstances. That combination shows most when a deal stalls, and it offers a clearer standard for choosing an advisor: when an unexpected number arrives, can they test it, explain what it means and help the client act on it, rather than simply pass it along?
We believe firms that develop their technology and business understanding concurrently will be better positioned for what comes next. Speed is a real benefit, but the opportunity extends beyond completing familiar work faster. It includes pursuing ideas that once demanded too much time, reconsidering approaches as conditions change and developing responses that draw on more of the firm’s collective experience. That is why AI’s progress gives us greater conviction in the value of experience. Speed matters most in the hands of people who know which questions are worth answering, and AI expands what they can accomplish with everything they have learned.