I'm just back from PropTech Symposium 2026 in Copenhagen, hosted by PropTech Denmark. A few things have stayed with me since.
AI was everywhere, of course. But the part that interested me most wasn't really AI as a technology. It was what happens around it, and what the social impact could end up being.
What is the value of being human when more and more work can be automated? What is the purpose of labour when AI changes the labour landscape this fast? We already see it happening, in more areas than we'd like to admit. These are questions worth sitting with, because they shape both the direction we choose and the direction we're able to choose.
The dragon isn't AI. It's complexity.
In the talk I gave at the symposium, I used the image of a dragon. Not because AI is something to slay, but because the real challenge isn't one technology - it's the way everything is connected. Data. Climate. Work. Regulation. Capital. Trust. Pull on one thread and the others move too. Who gets the gains? Who carries the risk? Who loses agency, and who gets new room to act? AI isn't only a technological question. It's a societal one, and it plays out differently at every level you look at.
We need more speculative design, not just better optimisation
This is also why I keep coming back to speculative design. Not as abstract future-talk, but as a concrete way to test concepts and scenarios for an uncertain future. Because the point isn't only to optimise what already exists. We need spaces where we can try out other ways of living, building and organising society - for a future that's moving fast, possibly faster than we Europeans are used to.
OBOS Living Lab: a place to test the future, not just describe it
One of the clearest examples of this came from OBOS and their Living Lab. As someone with a design background, I found it genuinely inspiring: 34 homes, 60 residents, and a model that runs hypothesis, prototype, residents, learning, new model - and back again. The future home shouldn't only be drawn. It should be lived in, tested and adjusted, without being too limited by all the assumptions, habits and regulations of the present. That's a different posture than most of the industry takes, and a useful reminder that innovation tends to start exactly where the existing frameworks stop working.
"Buildings are not just assets. They're social infrastructure. We need places where the future can be tried out, not just optimised."
PropTech's future is not only digital
A theme that ran through several talks - including DroneTjek/AssetEye and Birdsview - is that PropTech's future isn't only digital. It's also physical: concrete, facades, materials, damage and maintenance. The shift many are working towards is from guesswork to insight, from reactive maintenance to proactive upkeep, from gut feeling to evidence, and from isolated decisions to portfolio-level ones. Tomorrow's PropTech needs to help us understand what buildings actually need - before the problems become acute and expensive.
Where this leaves me
The future is moving quickly. Possibly more quickly than our systems, institutions, markets and regulation can keep up with. That's not a reason to slow down on experimentation - quite the opposite. I think we, in Europe, need to dare to experiment responsibly, with a clear focus on the kind of future we actually want, rather than mainly trying to catch up with the US or China.
Maybe that's the real question behind all the AI talk: not only what AI can do, but what kind of human life, work and community we want to build around it.