Practical takeaways for agents
AI should not just make tenancy conclusions faster. It should make the outcome better.
Better proposals lead to better negotiations.
Property managers need support with law, evidence, contract and tone, not just admin.
The real win is reducing mental load for frontline teams.
The best tech frees people up to be more human where it counts.
The unglamorous bit of agency that really matters
End of tenancy has never been the glamorous end of lettings. It is rarely the bit anyone puts on a recruitment poster. It is messy, emotional, evidence-heavy and often thankless.
That is exactly why The Depositary exists.
In this conversation with Kristjan Byfield, we looked at how The Depositary is now using AI not as a gimmick, but as a practical layer inside one of the most difficult parts of the lettings process: proposing deductions, negotiating with tenants and ultimately concluding tenancies more quickly and professionally.
AI with a purpose, not a sticker
Kristjan was clear that The Depositary resisted the temptation to bolt AI onto the product just because everyone else was shouting about it.
Instead, they spent time identifying where AI could genuinely improve the process. They landed on three areas: proposals, negotiations and data.
The first two are already live.
The smart proposal tools take information from checkout reports, pull together potentially tenant-liable dilapidations, allow the agent to remove anything irrelevant, then help merge and present deductions in a cleaner, more persuasive way.
That matters because a badly presented claim can inflame a tenant before the negotiation has even started.
Better proposals, better outcomes
The really clever bit is not just speed.
Yes, the platform can take dozens of dilapidations and group them into clear categories in seconds. But the greater value is in how those claims are framed.
The Depositary is using AI to turn raw checkout information, photos, notes and contract references into a more professional proposal. The agent still controls it. They can add human context, CRM notes, inspection history or contractual detail. But the AI helps present it in a way that is clearer, calmer and more compelling.
That is where this becomes more than admin automation.
Helping property managers negotiate
The negotiation assistant is perhaps even more interesting.
Property managers are often brilliant organisers and problem solvers, but they are not always trained negotiators. End of tenancy disputes can become emotional very quickly. Tenants feel aggrieved. Landlords feel short-changed. Property managers get stuck in the middle.
The Depositary’s assistant helps anchor the conversation back to what actually matters: the landlord’s minimum acceptable figure, the contract, the law and the evidence.
That is powerful because it stops people getting dragged into the fight. It reminds the agent what the actual commercial objective is.
Reducing the mental load
One of the strongest themes in the conversation was the mental load of estate agency.
End of tenancy work follows people home. It sits in their inbox. It waits for them on a Monday morning. It creates anxiety, tension and emotional drag.
Kristjan explained that The Depositary was originally built because his own team said end of tenancy was the part of the job they wanted fixed. Not because they were lazy, but because so much of it was repetitive, low-value and emotionally draining.
That is where good technology should sit. Not replacing people, but removing the sludge that stops them doing their best work.
The human bit still matters
This was not a conversation about making agents robotic.
In fact, the opposite.
If AI can handle 80, 90 or 95 percent of the standard process more efficiently, then the agent has more time and energy for the 5 percent that genuinely needs a phone call, a sensitive conversation or proper human judgement.
That is the future agents should be thinking about.
Not “will AI replace me?”
But “what does AI free me up to do better?”
The next frontier: proof
The next area for The Depositary is data.
That could be huge. Agents already have plenty of data, but most do not have the time or resource to turn it into usable proof.
Imagine being able to say, backed by verified platform data, that your agency returns deposits in a certain number of days, or secures a certain percentage of proposed deductions for landlords.
That is not marketing fluff. That is evidence.
And in a market where every agent says they offer great service, evidence is the difference.
Final thought
The Depositary’s AI work is a good example of where estate agency technology is heading.
Not AI as a party trick. Not AI as a content toy. AI as workflow, judgement support, emotional load reduction and performance improvement.
The best technology does not make agents less human.
It gives them more room to be human where it actually matters. This fits neatly with the wider idea of helping agents remember that what they do matters, not just because of the houses, but because of the people involved.
