At this year’s JLL Property Conference, our Managing Partner Sive Buckley joined Kara Collins (JLL) and Alvaro Rodas Fernandez (RecycleSmart), with James Peterson (JLL) moderating. The room was packed with leaders from retail, office, and large-scale property management. The brief was simple. What does it take to be future ready when customer behaviour, technology, and expectations all keep shifting?

Before diving into Sive’s view, the panel framed the challenge around three levers: people, product, and pace.
People: capability building, culture, and the role of EQ in service.

Product: data-led decision making, smarter formats, and measurable proof of value.

Pace: faster iteration, shorter feedback loops, and how to ship improvements without breaking trust.
Across the board, the thread was clear. Digital is the engine, but the outcome lives or dies on the human experience.

Sive’s position on AI was direct. Use it to streamline work, surface insights, and speed decisions. Do not outsource judgement, empathy, or originality. “You cannot be replaced by AI if you are interested and interesting.”
To make the point, Sive asked the audience to open ChatGPT and request a number between 0 and 10 and predicted the answer three times. Everyone got the same answer. It was a live reminder that AI is powerful at patterning, but it does not create taste, intent, or context on its own. Use AI for input and acceleration. Keep people in charge of meaning, ethics, and creative direction.

Retail leaders wanted clearer proof that digital content and store activation can move footfall and basket size, not just impressions.

Office leaders focused on tenant experience and leasing velocity.

Large-scale property management teams prioritised service design, automation without losing personal touch, and communications that lift NPS while reducing inbound friction.

Discovery and decision now span multiple channels. A buyer, tenant, or investor might watch a short video, scan a marketplace listing, read a LinkedIn post, click a comparison page, and then take a next step. Journeys often need several quality interactions before action. The goal is not a magic number of touchpoints. The goal is continuity, proof, and ease at every step.

• Be obsessed with your customer journeys. Map the journey end to end for your main segments.
• Decide what proof to show at each stage.
• Track hand-offs between channels and teams.
• Judge success on qualified actions, not vanity stats.

Gen Z habits already shape how brands are discovered, jobs are chosen, and communities are formed. They expect clarity, speed, and evidence. They also expect mobile-first experiences. If your message is not useful in under ten seconds, it will be ignored. For B2B, LinkedIn credibility still matters, but it wins when it is backed by real artefacts like case results, ratings, or operational metrics.

TikTok is maturing. While it remains a youth-led platform, its audience now includes a growing 25–44 cohort. That makes it relevant for retail, careers, and even complex categories like property and finance. Treat it as a top-of-funnel engine for discovery and trust building. Lead with short, clear explainers, on-site experiences, and behind-the-scenes proof. Then retarget with deeper offers and calls to action.

Digital attention in Australia: more than three quarters of the population uses social media, and mobile is now Australia’s primary screen.

Time spent: Australians spend meaningful monthly hours on short-form video, placing TikTok among the top attention platforms.

Journey complexity: B2C paths often require 6 to 20 interactions. Complex B2B cycles can take many more across longer timeframes.

Omnichannel value: customers who engage across several channels convert more often and spend more than single-channel users.

AI adoption: most leading firms report using AI in some part of their workflow. The advantage appears when human oversight and unique IP guide the output.

Human-in-the-loop AI
Use AI for drafting, analysis, tagging, and alerts. Put people in charge of truth, tone, and compliance.

Design the full journey
Pick your top three audience journeys. Define the content, proof, and next step at each stage. Remove friction.

Omnichannel consistency
Keep your story, offers, and data layer consistent across website, portals, socials, email, and on-site experience. Measure the whole path, not isolated posts.

Proof over promises
Show evidence that reduces perceived risk. Think baseline vs actuals, tenant satisfaction, ESG performance, defect close-outs, service SLAs, and build quality artefacts.

Mobile-first creative
Prioritise vertical video and concise explainers for discovery. Follow with deeper assets for comparison and decision.

Future-ready leadership blends digital sophistication with human connection. Build the stack, but champion people. Use AI, but protect creativity. Optimise channels, but obsess over usefulness and proof. Do that and you will not just keep up with change. You will set the pace for your market.