“We’ve seen incredible innovation across the residential and commercial landscape over the past decade, and it’s been exciting to be a part of those success stories. But there’s one area of the built environment that still feels underbuilt. Earth. …
… In many ways, the world feels like the final frontier for PropTech. And I think there’s a huge opportunity to rethink how land is managed in the US, how it’s sold, how it’s financed, and how it moves through the economy. – Brandon Wallace, CEO and CIO, The Fifth Wall
In a LinkedIn post, The Fifth Wall CEO and CIO Brandon Wallace says the world remains the “final frontier” for real estate innovation — an environment characterized by fragmented data, opaque price signals, and slow, manual decision-making.
This week’s launch is from Acres.com it may be one of the first credible attempts to close that gap.
The world intelligence base in Fayetteville, Ark. introduces traditional AI search and location intelligence that compresses what would normally take weeks or months of global analysis into minutes or seconds.
For productive homebuilders navigating one of the most critical acquisition zones in years, the release comes at a smartly urgent time. Their question is always, “Are we paying too much?” Now, that’s like a challenge.
But its long-term implications for housing and residential development — an area driven by the remaining wagers on land value — may be even more important.
Natural language search meets spatial planning intelligence
Acres’ new capabilities enable acquisition teams to search for real-world opportunities with simple language commands – replacing rigid filters and disparate data sets with AI-driven analytics integrated directly into mapping tools.
According to the company, business customers can define acquisition criteria such as parcel size, floodplain exposure, infrastructure access, or design status and quickly identify viable opportunities.
“The world’s decisions have been driven by fragmented data, complex rules, and manual research,” Acres founder and CEO Carter Malloy said in the release. “With our new AI capabilities, we’re changing the way teams interact with the world’s own intelligence.”
The program is designed to determine zoning requirements, timelines, costs, and redesign capabilities in real time — a process that often relies on extensive local research and consultant input.
“Now you can search for opportunities with your own words, understand design constraints quickly, and verify feasibility on a map,” says Malloy. “It’s an unprecedented change in speed, clarity, and confidence for anyone exploring the world.”
Cut to the chase
The launch comes amid a cycle characterized by increasing global risk.
High borrowing costs, slow absorption, eligibility conflicts, and volatile consumer sentiment have made acquisition accuracy more critical than at any time since the post-Great Recession reset.
Malloy framed the product evolution around the workflow challenges that manufacturers face.
“There are three axes to delivering value to customers,” he said during a preview interview. “We help you make more money, save you time, and eliminate risk.”
New tools aim to accelerate the reduction of the most expensive hidden costs in land acquisition: finding out what I won’t work.
“A big part of our job is to help them slow down and speed up so they can spend their time on things that matter,” Malloy said. “Essentially, that means you help them get better value, better opportunities, and do more.”
For acquisition teams covering multiple potential deals in multiple locations, that speed can translate directly into lower overhead and fewer redundant tasks.
From a data platform to an AI-centric workflow engine
Acres has long positioned itself as a global data center. The new release shows a deep strategic pivot – towards embedding AI in every decision line.
“Our obsession from day one… has been the details,” Malloy said. “We’ve invested… an extraordinary amount of our time and money in finding things, cleaning up, and finally showing the data that’s readily available… focusing only on the world.”
He said the company’s strategy is guided by the belief that AI only works when it’s built on high-quality proprietary datasets.
“Show me bad data and good AI, and I’ll tell you which one wins,” he said. “That really influenced our AI strategies.”
The new system creates custom AI pipelines over more than 150 million parcel records and thousands of geospatial datasets – from design codes to satellite imagery.
The result is what Malloy described as “a truly AI-centric user experience … where the most powerful technology feels invisible.”
Why Time Matters in Today’s Market
The release comes at a time when global risk is no longer theoretical.
In an increasingly expensive environment where the margin of error is shrinking, accuracy at the risk of fit, community feeling, and feasibility of redesign has become a priority.
“This market doesn’t allow for speculation,” Malloy said. “The cost of wrongdoing is unacceptable.”
The platform’s spatial design intelligence tools aim to reveal information that appears too late in the development cycle – such as counter-trends in the area or changes in the regulatory environment.
“When we talk about broken deals and cancellations, it often comes down to ‘I bought something that I thought I would be able to do… and later… public opposition or… legal change… doesn’t allow me to fulfill those original project goals,'” he said.
By combining public meeting data, rezoning precedents, and sentiment signals, Acres tries to give developers early visibility into those risks.
Asset-right versus asset-light
Perhaps the most important impact of Acres’ new capabilities is how it can reframe the long-standing debate between asset-light and global-heavy strategies.
As builders reassess capital exposure, the ability to assess pipelines of potential locations with greater accuracy could redefine how companies pursue growth.
“Today we’re between $40 and $50 billion in global decisions… using Acres,” Malloy said, suggesting the platform is already influencing industry capitalization.
Rather than simply enabling faster acquisitions, the tools can help builders pursue what Malloy described as “property right” – to more accurately manage land exposure and operating capacity and market conditions.
Earth as the next frontier for proptech
The broad significance of the release proves Wallace’s theory that real estate – not just selling, building, buying or marketing – is the least digitized layer of the real estate value chain.
Historically, global strategy has relied heavily on local relationships, hands-on research, and institutional memory.
Malloy acknowledged that dynamic isn’t going away.
“There will always be a relationship component,” she said. “Our mission is to provide those people with high-quality data and tools to save time and money and eliminate risk.”
But the company believes AI can fundamentally change how teams move from discovery to feasibility.
“This is not … an easy online job for GPT,” he said. “This is a very specific wisdom about design rights.”
Bringing home
For senior housing leaders, Acres’ release signals the possibility of a renaissance in the early – and often consequential – phase of the residential development cycle.
If the technology works as advertised, acquisition teams can move from active analysis to predictive strategy, narrowing the universe of potential deals from thousands of packages to a select set of viable opportunities in minutes.
In a market where one wrong global decision can change within years of margins, that change can reshape the way money flows through the housing pipeline.
As Malloy puts it, the goal is simple and ambitious:
“We have removed the tension of traditional land acquisition… This is the first major mass eviction program.”
