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16th September 2026
AI, cybersecurity, and a changing mood: PropTech 2026
The great and the good of the property industry came together once again at this year’s highly successful PropTech Connect conference on the 9th and 10h September at the O2 Intercontinental in London. Trace Solutions staff were proud to play a small part in the event.
Our MD, Louise Dawson, joined a standing-room-only panel discussion on how to optimise property management when faced with the competing concerns of cost, compliance and value.
Across the wider event, Trace staff met with existing clients and talked with experts across the property sector. Discussions were wide-ranging, but as ever, one theme in particular came through above all others: Artificial Intelligence.
What interested us most was how the tenor of the conversation seems to have changed.
Last year, the prevailing attitude seemed to be: “We need Al, and we need it now”. This year, things felt different. Increasingly, speakers were questioning how Al should be introduced: where it could genuinely add value, but also what risks it might introduce, and how human judgement must still remain paramount.
"Speakers were questioning how Al should be introduced: where it could genuinely add value, but also what risks it might introduce, and how human judgement must still remain paramount."
Trace Solutions
This chimed very much with our own approach. Al can solve real problems and make people’s working lives easier. But if it introduces errors or unreliability, or leads to a diminishing of human skills, then it is a danger to your business. As it is to our own reputation at Trace Solutions, as a software supplier with impeccable credentials for reliability.
And yet, and yet…. While the above seemed generally encouraging, there was one discussion that gave us considerable cause for concern.
Of all the sessions at PropTech 2026, only one was focused on cybersecurity. In an age where Al is increasingly employed by bad actors, security is arguably the most important topic of all. And yet the room was almost empty.
Property businesses hold significant amounts of sensitive information. They manage financial data, personal information, client records; and they exist in an increasingly interconnected digital world. As Marks & Spencer and the Co-Op both discovered last year, the financial, operational and reputational consequences of a breach to your systems can be vast.
Cybersecurity may not have the same excitement factor as Al. It doesn’t promise to transtorm the way we work. But arguably, it is even more important. Because the future of property tech shouldn’t simply be about what’s new and what’s cool. It has to be about choosing the right technology, for the right reasons, to keep your business safe.
"The future of property tech shouldn't simply be about what's new and what's cool. It has to be about choosing the right technology, for the right reasons, to keep your business safe."
Trace Solutions
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