Dr. Rock & The Rise of Agentic AI: Neil Cobbold Unplugged

In this electric episode of The Viking Chats, Kristjan Byfield is joined by none other than Neil Cobbold—industry heavyweight, tech evangelist, landlord, Drum & Bass DJ, and true rock superfan—to unpack what’s really going on behind the scenes in UK lettings, PropTech, and beyond.

You might know Neil as the Managing Director of Reapit, or from his long tenure as the voice of PayProp. But in true Viking Chats fashion, we go way deeper than job titles. From sleepless DJ gigs to serious property pain points, Neil brings his full self to the mic in a conversation that blends insight, rebellion, humour, and some honest-to-goodness truth bombs about the current state of our sector.

Kristjan and Neil get into:

• Agentic AI: What it actually is, and why it could change how lettings agencies operate at a core level—whether you're ready or not.
• The reality behind digital transformation in lettings—why it’s more than PDFs and e-signatures, and how it's reshaping compliance, communication and cost.
• The problem with policy: how clunky regulation and slow reform are throttling innovation, and what agents need to do to keep ahead of shifting sands.
• Neil’s surprisingly personal take on mental health, self-worth, and rediscovering creativity beyond corporate confines.
• How his musical alter ego, Dr. Rock, keeps him grounded, curious, and just a little bit dangerous.
• Why the lettings industry still struggles with trust and perception, and what it’ll take to rebuild confidence from landlords, tenants and the wider public.

More than just a tech or policy chat, this episode becomes a deeply human look at what it means to be in property today. Neil shares stories from his early days in agency life, his experiences growing (and fixing) big teams, and the sometimes bruising—but always revealing—lessons that come with driving change in an industry that often resists it.

There’s also plenty of trademark Viking wit, fierce debate about the future of AI in property, and a call to arms for agents, landlords and suppliers alike: evolve or become irrelevant.

This episode is a must-listen for:

• Letting agents who want to understand the real implications of AI, automation and digital workflows (without the fluff).
• Landlords and property investors curious about what all this tech change means for them—and how to spot agents who are keeping pace.
• PropTech innovators and suppliers who want a blunt but insightful view of what’s working, what’s not, and where real opportunity lies.
• And anyone who likes their property chat with a healthy dose of basslines, brainpower and brutal honesty.

Whether you're a die-hard techie, an old-school agent, or somewhere in between—Neil Cobbold brings the clarity, credibility and character to shake up your view of where property is headed.

Get ready for riffs, reforms, and a few revelations. The Viking Chats are back—and they’ve never sounded quite like this.

Transcript

Hello everybody and welcome to the latest episode of the Viking Chats podcast and I'm joined today by none other than Dr. Neil Cobold or Mr. Paperop as I think most of us Neil. I'm not used to the doctor yet. No, I'm good. Listen, I've got to be honest, neither am I mate. I've seen that in a couple of your guest appearances and I'm like, he never told me about the doctor bit. So yeah, after we finish this chat, I've got something on my back. Yeah, you've got something on my mates and done exactly the same joke. I can't help with that. I can't help with that. Okay. So, well, let's start with the doctor. What are you a doctor of? So it's a doctor of business and my thesis was around change management and how it can be developed for small businesses. A lot of change management when I was coming through and I love change and I love the whole, how do you get the stakeholders and everybody behind? But all the principles seem to be built for large manufacturing companies that had then been moved. So when was this? When did you become a doctor? September 2024. Oh, right. So probably it is. It is very recent. It wasn't a title that you just kind of humbly like left off and now you're like, that's right. For some reason, I decided while also running paper up and doing a full time career and being a husband and a sometimes vacant dad that doing a doctorate was a right move to do. It took just over five years. Wow. And a lot more writing than I think I've ever done in my life. And was it was just something that you personally that was kind of one of these things on your kind of wish list of things you wanted to do? No, no, never. So I did my MBA and I did it with the university and my dissertation then was around this same change principle. And I started alluded to the fact of I liked this Japanese principle called Kaizen. Yeah, constant improvement constant. Yeah. And that actually the small business suited elegance. That's it. Yeah, the suit of elegance. And I read occasionally, guys. There's just my shock to some of you. But but I actually if you look at a lot of that and you look at how a lot of people run small businesses without even realizing it, we adopt Kaizen. Yeah. We unfortunately would then become complacent. Yes. That's six months to a year in. We forget what made you successful. You start you start getting some turnover, you start making a bit of money and you forget about that. Yeah. That elegance. Yeah. And if you went back, even after having like a business you've had for as long as you had and treated this business as if you had no money, the same desire that you had to drive it to make those changes. Would you do all the processes that you do now? Would you actually look at tighten them? Would you find ways to improve ways to save? Or more importantly, would your staff who are now those same people with that hunger find that so that was the principle around my dissertation. There was nothing in the university that I attended in their library. So they actually came and offered it me and I laughed the first time they offered it me. I thought, no, I'm not not doing a doctorate. That sounds ridiculous. But then they came back and said, we'll give you a fully funded. Nice. They're good about you. Which in principle sounded like that, I should have read the small print because about three years in I was like, maybe I bitten off more than I can chew here. But in the small print, if I cancelled, you would have to pay back any and then. Oh, there you go. It's about 20,000 a year to do a doctorate. There you go. They got you. So they have found the short and you go. I think quite frankly, I probably would have had a similar clause if it had been me. So 85,000 words later, not including bibliography and appendix and summary work forward. It was done and submitted. And where can we get our hands on this light half of your read? So it's actually in the University of Hartford, on their library. It's a change management article done by, as it is now, Dr. Newell. And we'll probably be used for future people for their. Dude, that's awesome. I mean, it's super cool. Because like I said, I genuinely, I saw a doctor appear on your name a couple of times recently and I was like, he can't be a fucking choir. That's not like people in our industry. We're pretty quick to be like, by the way, it's doctor. There's not an item in our industry. I should be bad. I do some panels now and they say next time for Dr. Newell, come on over. Look at that. When's he arriving? So obviously that everyone knows you. Like I said, Mr. pay prop, the pay prop days. And what was what came before paper? What was what was that? Go or pre-paper up. I don't need your entire life story, but kind of like. No, but I will, I will go back a little bit just to kind of show. So I became an estate agent while I was still at uni. Yeah. I had a full time job running a nightclub. Back then it wasn't alone. They gave you money to go and study because it's my. I'm worried about this Sheffield Sheffield. And I thought, who else at the age of 18 is going to loan me money that I haven't got to pay back. So I want to start a business. And unfortunately, I know I say this knowing the audience that I'm doing to, but I did a study. What could I do even in the weekends that didn't look like I needed to know much? And estate agency was top of the list back then. But I think that that lack of that lack of barrier to entry, right? It's it's our industry's greatest weakness, but also it's our greatest strength because it has allowed people like you, people like me and lots of other people. I think it was our industry. I think it is now more a week. I think it was the most important weakness than it ever was. I think yeah, because I think there is when I went in, well, look, this was what? 1991 pre gas regs. We wrote tenancy documents on the back of a flag back it. Yeah. We handed over deposits to landlords already making an excuse to the tenants knowing it was never going to get made. You're never seeing that. Yeah. That's somebody now as that same barrier. Yeah. But they've been doing it. There is now far more compliance and legality. I mean, look at a million pounds where the fines just for not registering and having things lodged correctly with the HMRC. Yeah. That never happened when I started. No, that was it. I was looking at that list today. What was I think the biggest one was about 30 grand, wasn't it? For an agent? No. So 43 was the biggest on an agent. I mean, the biggest was the art guy. You've got done for a million. But if there's ever a look, it's like getting somewhere to launder your money then. Yeah. Art's always been up there. Art's class. But yeah. So it kind of varied. I mean, a lot of them had the one and a half, two and a half thousand minimum requirements, but it goes on the size and the number of that you've missed when it's been investigated for you. Yeah. And so, you know, I mean, that's a million pounds our industry has given away for not registering. And I think that's only the start of it. We're going to see a lot more enforcement. But yeah. So I did that estate agency. I then let that run and went and did other things. I got into my tech side. I've always been into tech. I'd have used to programme. I suppose into Dave's world. I'd have to refer to myself as an ethical hacker. I wasn't at the time. I'm pretty sure I probably wouldn't be now, which is why I've not done here as a profession. But I always had that tech background. So I moved down and I actually ran a housing association. Okay. That's now me as housing management. We have got sold out to David Mars. And I did a piece of software called Rehows, which was a choice based letting system that was used by a lot of London boroughs. Nice. And then did a couple of contracts where I got to work abroad. At that time, I had small children and my wife was like, there's two parents in this family. Yeah. And property market, that point, was just about to endorse a piece of software. And I'd known them. I'd been a property market member. And Peter Savage was on his first round to be in president. And was just saying, we're about to endorse this. You've always been techy. Would you have a look at it? And yeah, sure enough, I'd look and I fell in love with it. And I met the original founder, Johannes, and I think I offended him. Because I was asking him how he's going to run the business from the UK. And he was going to support everything and have all the support and development from South Africa. Yeah. And what I said to him is we're too bigoted for that. If we can keep here the word Africa, you can tell me you're an Nigerian prince with a hidden heritage next. But I'm not going to give you my keys to my bank account. It's an estate agent. And what he heard was me calling him a Nigerian prince. Yeah. Which for a South African was not good. Yeah. And so I remember my wife asking me after that and said, so how did that go? And I went terrible. Yeah, not good. Yeah, not good. I said I was doing property. I think I am. And yeah, then I just got the call and was told and then everything went from strength to strength. I mean, it's such a good product, such a good system. It was so good to work with something where the product actually did everything it was supposed to do. And so when was that? When did you start your paper? 2015. 2015. So 10 years, 10 years ago. Fabulous. And I came on with a completely different remit that then changed and came and looked after their sales. But I remember everybody referred to me as Mr. Paperup. That it was my business. It never was. No. It's only ever an employee. But everybody believed it so much that I even received an entrepreneur of the year award for a business that I didn't know. There you go. Because you were an entrepreneur. Yeah, it's just, I think it's everybody thought it because I got so passionate because I believed in the product so much because everything I asked it to do and everybody I dealt with did everything that needed to be done. And that's that's rare. But I think it's rare that you I think it's rare as individuals that you get put in front of a product, particularly fairly early doors in its in its evolution, where you have that excitement. I mean, I'd like to think it's something that happens similarly with Carla. You know, when I first met Carla and I showed her what we were building with the depository, you know, I very much see Carla is a very similar kind of entity with you, you know, Carla and I bonded over, you know, as as characters. And a couple of beers. Yeah. But, but, you know, one of the things that underpinned that from the offset was, you know, when I showed her what I'd built and I when I explained what are what our long term ambition is, that that was the, it was the total buy in of that that is everything. You know, and I say, you know, Carla's very much a part of our team. She's now a small shareholder in the business. And, you know, in time that will that will hopefully grow as well. So that's really exciting. And then how long is it now since we've had a position about a year? So, well, 18 months. Yeah. So, in there. So we announced it in November 23 that we were being. Oh, is it not for long enough? Yeah, that we were. So November 22 is when we were purchased by AKKR. Yeah. So we were, we were like stepchildren. Because we there, they were the main VC behind Repit at the time. Yeah. So they dealt with Repit back in, I think, 2018. Yeah. 2017. And then with us a few years later in 2022. And then it was just, I mean, it was crazy. You know, we've got two tech steps. We've got two finance with completely separated and negotiating. And it's like, well, why are these not to get a marketplace positioning as well? I mean, you guys as specifically at that time, you know, the first and the biggest payment processing platform. And again, Repit very much that kind of stronghold, both here and over in Oz. And that, you know, very, very strong mid market, mid to corporate position. Yeah. So then that's what we're doing. So we're helping taking Repit out into that mid market and down. And then pay prop is also launching in A and Z. Yes. Our next big one. Nice. But it has, it's been good to see because a lot of our values, the pay prop was all around the truth, trip, truth, care and transparency. Yeah. And a lot of that was in Repit. I think it was felt within the market that they'd lost their voice for a period of time. And if they don't hear from you in this industry, we are really good at making our own rumors and voice. Yeah. And I think by not being heard, if you don't give them a story, they'll make up their own story. Yeah. And I think that they've realized that and now it's changed. And I love the position where we are now. We're great. I mean, the things that we're doing, all this, everything under one roof, our next move, our partnership strategy, we've got some really good partners coming on. We've got some really good developments. We've already done the renters rights, although it's not out yet. Yeah. We've already started getting things. I suppose we'll have to wind back on the insurance element. Yeah. There is an optional. You got to love last minute changes. Yeah. But we're already there ahead of that. And then our recent announcement that we've just done is our new AI. Sorry. What's that? What's AI? I've not heard of this. Well, well, do you know what? Actually, not what a lot of people are producing. Yeah. And I think that there's a lot of people who are just calling automation AI. Yeah. I think we need to. There's a lot of machine learning being wrapped up as AI, right? There's a lot of workflow automation being passed off as AI. And do you know what? That AI, that intelligence, that is important. Yeah. If we're going to truly make something that changes, the thing that worries me is how little people are paying attention to security. And that was my worry here. You know, it's quite scary if you go on to chat GPT and ask it how many passwords it notes. So good exercise to go through. Well, there are, it doesn't know and there's all kinds of things. I was at the, has a large recently with Lord Elliot, who was doing this whole look into it because we're not far away from voice to voice. Yeah. But what does that then mean? Because if a lot of people doing AI or do like you used to on the IVRs, you know, with somebody rang up, they said, please be aware this call is recorded. Yeah. We're trading the monitoring purposes. But for AI, it often just says, be aware we transcribe our calls. Yeah. Doesn't tell you that we transcribe our calls. We put it into a public database and all of your information can be searched upon and will be used to influence everybody else's searches all around the world. Yeah. Because we're using free data. Yeah. So we've decided to use a gente AI. Yeah. So what it's actually going to be able to do is it's going to be able to have all that large language model learning. Yeah. But it then brings that in to local level agent learning, but none of that fleshers back out. Right. So there's no reshare of any data from you at all to keep it fully secure. But it does mean that it's then able to learn your voice, your brand, your way of communicating from using all of those data points. And then what we're actually trying to do is, instead of it being AI that can do gimmicky things, which will be on there, like we've put in there, you've done property descriptions, but look, I think I think early doors, I think the stuff we've seen done with AI in the last 12 months, I think to call it gimmicky is unfair. But I think a lot of companies were quick to just look at the quick wins, the easy things. And I think, I think when you deal and work with a lot of the top performing agents in the country, you forget what business is like in the other 50, 60, 70% of the industry. And so I think for that reason, you know, we've all been on to those property listings where literally one was written to bed flat house on street. Do you know when we started with some fabulous, melon spelling mistakes and stuff? Our fingers pointing at the flats. I'm letting this one. So I think it's easy to be like, you know, I don't think they were very easy to achieve. Yeah. Very quick and easy to achieve. And I think it, I think what it will do is it, that helps reduce agent cynicism and reluctance to adapt to new tools. So I think the early solutions, they didn't really move the needle massively, but they have just light touched on kind of very quickly what AI could do. And I think, you know, talking to you and talking to a lot of, you know, knowing what we're building at the Positree and talking to a lot of suppliers, the next six to 12 months is kind of that phase two. And I think, you know, there's a lot of people looking at a Gentic. We're kind of doing a half step with ours. We're going to go as an assistant with a view to then gear it up to a Gentic. Because we're actually looking at the negotiation process. So I think, I think if we launched a Gentic tomorrow, I think I think 99% of our agents wouldn't touch it. Because I think they just, the trust factor isn't there yet. Whereas we have so much data, you know, we can over the next six months, we can show what those results look like. And again, we know what best in class, we know what the top 1% looks like, the top 5%, 10%, 20%, 30%. And likewise, we know what the remaining 70%. And especially, we know what the bottom 30% looks like. Okay. And that's our thing is like, when I talk to, when I talk to agents and they're like, look, what are you hoping to achieve with this? And there are, there are two primary things that I think we can achieve in the next six months. I think we can take that bottom 30%. And either enable the other 70% to carry that case load, if that's what a business wants, or we can, we can give that bottom 30% the capability to perform like the top 10%. Okay. And then going ahead with that, what we can then do once we've got the data to back that up is then we can go cool. In 12 to 18 months, we can take our transactions and we can say that probably one in three of these we can do without a human needing to be involved at all. So I think the way that we're approaching it is I think the way the industry is approaching AI. So it's costing us a lot of investment, money, time, effort. But what we're going to build is a modular fashion with agentic. So actually you can decide this part of my process, I want to put it in. But actually I want to stop it here. Yeah. So as an agent, you can decide how far in our deep a lot of people with the AI, it's you switch it on and it takes over. Yeah. And that can feel quite scary. Yeah. So what we want to actually do is give them the big one, particularly corporates, the ring fencing they have, you just, you just won't go off the ground with that now. So we're doing trust us. It's fine. Switch it on. What's the worst that could happen? Yeah. So they need to protect their brand and reputation. So we're doing it where it will have this capability to everything from, you know, lead scoring and prioritization down to looking at how it can handle all of your workflow automation and then deal with your communication flows. Yeah. But you decide as your agent, how much are our little? And you can do that by department, by job flow, by branches. It'll have this ability for you to really flex how you use the agenda, but AI. And what we're releasing early 2026, that's like here. We had our first global hackathon. Yeah. And God, there's stuff and ideas that came out in these three days that they were able to put out using AI and how quickly it can roll up. I mean, when I was on this thing at the house of laws, the guy next to me was they provide security modeling for the government. Their typical thing is that they take two years to research, two years to build a year to test and then a year to deploy. So they have a six year cycle. Yeah. With AI, they're research and they're billed with six months. Four years down to six months. That's where I think people, I mean, my son does coding and he doesn't feel my pain. Yeah. When I had a problem coding, I had to go down line by line and find that extra space, find that missing syntax. Yeah. He now gets told where it is or he can drop the code into an AI and say, find it for me, fix it and give me the code back. That's cheating. Yeah. It's just not right. Yeah. It's, um, yeah, I think I think it's, it's really exciting. And I think, you know, it's, it's the complexity, isn't it? I think like you said, you're taking the right approach. It's about really, really granular pieces and you'll get that in certain very specific products like us where we're looking at a very, very specific point. Like we've got, we're focusing on three very specific areas, negotiation, because we've identified that we've prioritized that because that is where we see the greatest discrepancy in user performance. Okay. Yeah. Our top, so our top 5% achieve over 95% on average of what they propose to come out of a deposit or for a tenant to pay as charges. Um, the bottom 10% average, a brown 30%. No. Yeah. So that is, you know, that's big. That is, um, so we, we, that is where the greatest disparity is. Um, and it was really interesting because we debated it quite a lot because we looked at three areas, which was how the deduct, how the liabilities are proposed. Yeah. How they're negotiated and then how our senior users access data within the platform. And straight away, it was like, okay, data, data can wait because we already have what they can already do now is create an Excel spreadsheet and drop that into Julius or whatever your data led one and go tell me what I need to do. Yeah. Um, so I think we took the, we took the view of, well, that will be step three. But what was really interesting was looking at negotiation proposals, business owners and directors wanted us to do proposals first, but frontline users wanted the negotiation tool first. And then when we asked for their friction, that's why. And, but then when we looked at it, like I said, where we saw the greatest disparity was actually in the negotiation process, not from the proposals, although we think the proposal's underpins it. So, so that's why we're starting with negotiations. Then we'll do proposals, which we'll, we'll do in very quick succession. So I think we're hoping to release our AI tool. It'll be out by Kefafelcon. So it'll be out within the next two weeks. Um, as will our reaper foundations app. We'll talk about that in a minute. But then straight off the back of that, we're going straight on to building the proposals one. Really? You know, and the idea is that will be out ideally, if we can, before August, we're hoping to do that in a month. Um, so that our agents can capitalize on that through the busy summer season. Really? Yeah. Because, you know, what will busy seasons look like after the renter's rights bill? We don't know. But right now, I mean, student lets fundamentally, I know there are concerns over an element of how it worked, but fundamentally that might shift a month or two earlier, but you're still going to have that high volume. It's still fundamentally going to fall in line with an academic year. So it's just really how the rest of the PRS. Do you know what? And I don't see a huge amount of change. I think you'll see a moderate shift. I mean, we, we in what August and September, we do about 60% of our deals. Whether that's a new letter or renewal, we do it in that time of year. It's traditionally the busiest time of year because people start as a student, but you're on that one year cycle. Right? So even after you graduate, you're on that one year lock-in, it's easier to move in the summer. You're not cutting your furniture around impressing rain. It's a great time of year to see properties because they've got a garden, if they've got a balcony again, showing them on a day like today, slightly more beneficial than when it's three degrees and dark at four o'clock in the afternoon. But I don't think that'll change. I absolutely think your terminology will change. You do all your relits in your section 13s. Yeah. During the same period. Yeah. But that's what I'll check. I don't think, wouldn't I matter? I know they like to think that they're all encompassing MPs. I do not think that the legislation that they change will change grassroots behavior or how people are in how they fundamentally and, you know, I've said that from the offset, this whole 85% of tendencies are ended by the tenant. Now, that happens at the moment in line with contracted terms. So that's the only thing is, where does that nudge happen? Where does that, I think where we will see movement is in tenants who are underserved in the market by an apathetic, let's give them the benefit of the doubt, let's call them an apathetic either managing agent or self-managed landlord who has the security of a contract that goes, are they really going to leave over the fact? Yeah. XYZ happens. Are they really going to leave a contract by themselves out of a contract that ends in six months time? Whereas now tenants will be wearing clients and go, "I'm not putting up with a shit, I'm out of here." Yeah. But equally, will that kind of resolve that apathy? Because will agents and landlords be like, "I don't want to, they only moved in three months ago? I don't want to re-let, yeah?" So actually, I won't be apathetic about fixing XYZ. I'll get it fixed tomorrow. And I think there are some good things that I like within it. They're the fact of the decent home standard. Yeah. I mean, we've already in essence been working to that level to have a framework that we can use to now know what that means is not a bad thing. I'm not sure I agree with extending rent and payment orders to two years from the offense and to two years where the rent. That feels a little bit punitive, but I suppose that's why they're doing it. It wasn't enough of a deterrent at one year and one year's worth of rent. So maybe now they're hoping by making it a larger. My worry is that we see ambulance chasing lawyers. Yeah. Because it now becomes an attractive sum to get. There's also a clause in the Renters Rights Bill that's not been hugely discussed, which actually says that if a landlord has already been prosecuted for the offense of which a rent repayment order is being asked for, then the tribunal has no choice but to give the maximum award is a change happening in the Renters Rights Bill. So now if you've got somebody who has already been taken for an environmental order for not actually keeping the property up to standard and I choose to go for a rent repayment order under that. The tribunal has to award the two years. Well, if you've been there two years. But if I have been there two years, it has no choice but to award maximum amount. I mean, it's that tricky one, isn't it? I mean, I think fundamentally you talk to most agents and most landlords and fundamentally legislation and compliance is a good thing. It does fundamentally drive up standards. People should feel safe and supported in their home. I've spoken to many agents who are of the mindset of if the thing that scares you most about the Renters Rights Bill is decent home standard in A-Wabs Law, you're probably the very reason that those are being mapped up into the Renters Rights Bill. And are there legitimate concerns, you know, things like A-Wabs Law that we all know, molding properties is not as black and white as everyone as the press certainly would like us to believe. You know, there is tenant responsibility within there and mitigating that and managing that and hopefully, you know, that will evolve. But again, you know, when I look at that, yes, don't screw up. But actually what I think is really nice about that is the fact that it sets these very clear. You must respond within this timeframe. You must have inspected it within this timeframe and you must have resolved it within this timeframe. I thought the timeframe frames were particularly loose and I thought that when I rang a housing association because those HRS hazards have been there for years. So when I ran the housing association, they were the same 29 category one hazards that we had to adhere to then. And those time frames, those time frames are lax. But at least they're there. Yeah, at least they're there. I think when it comes into the PRS, we might find those time frames shortened for our landlords. I mean, I'd like to see wholesale changes and things like that. I don't particularly like the phrase "landlord" anymore. No, I mean, we take kind of, you know, we're always looking at what other agents do and we very much take an elite from Paramount on the language that we use within our industry. So we try as much as we can within base to talk about owners and residents. Now, on the podcast and when I'm posting stuff on LinkedIn, I have to say, when I'm talking as me, I default back to landlord and tenant for the simple reason that that is still industry terminology. You will have landlords go on and look for advice for landlords. And that is it because if not, then again, tenants will go and look for advice for tenants, help for tenants. So I think there is, it's that tricky balance. And with base, you know, we thought about this really long and hard because this all came as part of our not reinvention, but our new website, a total remapping for one of a better word of what a marketing looks like. And that was a legitimate concern of ours was that if we transform our language into owners and residents, it's that going to resonate with search. And I think actually within base, it's fine. And the feedback that we've had from people coming to our website is that they love that language. And interestingly, a lot of that has come from owners, from landlords that coming to our site and going really love. And actually, they love the fact we talk about residents and homes, not tenants and renting. So, but there is still that juxtaposition. Now, there always is. I mean, I always felt the terminology started to change like about 15 years ago, away from social landlords to social housing providers. And that's our fear we needed to make the change with landlords. They are housing providers. And I think that also changes your mindset. I'm not a lord of the land. But you've got to be careful, because I because Wales trying to legislate that and I think Wales made it sound worse. Yes. Because what is it? It turns a contract holders. Yeah. How impersonal. Yeah, does that sound generic? Does that sound because now you're not even at least tenants you know, it's to do with housing. I mean, a contract holder, a contract holder for what? A higher purchase on a car, you know, a loan shark agreement. Like, you know, who knows. But yeah, I found that their choice of language. I found that bewildering, because I didn't. I felt like it went in completely the opposite direction to where it should have gone. No, I know there's not much that I bring over from because I've done this in both the UK. And I also did some section eight title housing over in America. But their whole resident engagement program is so far advanced of we are in our thoughts about that and how it is to to keep the resident happy is part of it. I think we're getting there. I think we have a lot. It's usually you bring it the American thing because I've always liked that. And it's something I talk quite a lot about with our property managers is I again, looking at the American model, they kind of have these caretaker managers where they're very much, they facilitate every element of that process. They will go and meet the resident for the viewing. But then they will be the person that looks that not only shows them the property and does the deal, but looks after them throughout their stay. And that whole kind of end to end thing, that ownership, I love that. You know, it's something we talk about occasionally. I mean, it's a lot of people just go out and do viewings. It's a lot easier to do in a single multifamily environment where that's typically one person is looking after a hundred units that are all in the same location. We don't have that same kind of make up around our property that makes it more difficult. No, and that's the chat. And in base, we've got one property manager, Holly, is in our office every day. Terrence, who works for us, does eight out of 10 days from his home in Suffolk. So there are logistical problems there that, you know, aren't going to work for that. But I think it's really important to look at different models in different countries and look at just little aspects, even it's something you aspire to. But I really like that idea of giving your property managers kind of more the process. And I think actually Benjamin Stevens, they made, I think I'm right on saying they made a shift like that about six or 12 months ago where they actually looked at it. And they were kind of like, why do we have this negotiator role? Which literally just does this tiny little bit from handing the inquiry to kind of tying up the deal. But then they have no ownership, no buy-in. There's no reward. Also, if that tenant stays on. But also because of that, they don't really, you know, when you look at it, you're effectively motivating a negotiator to put a tenant in that is definitely going to leave in six or 12 months time. Because as a neg, you want that property back on the book so you can relet it and get your whatever 10% commission again. And they looked at it and when, hold on a minute, you know, we're paying these guys this and actually a third of the problems that we see stem from that relationship because they were promised something they weren't going to get or, you know, they were pressured into taking a property because that neg wanted to hit their target or their bonus or whatever it was for that month. You know, we've all seen it. And they made a decision to get rid of that negotiator role, put that on their property managers role, which meant they could pay their property managers more. Their property managers are then involved in the entirety of that, of that journey. You don't have that off of God's sake, I've got a tenant moaning because Fred promised them XYZ and, you know, the landlord never agreed to that. You know, it's that total ownership. So, you know, and that relationship from day dot. And that's where I think AI really needs to come in and help. Because if you're going to have singular people owning a life cycle, we've got to take some of that heavy lifting out of that life cycle for sure. They can have all of those one on one interaction still. Oh, absolutely. And I think fundamentally, if AI goes where we think it's heading, the people and that human interaction point is going to become the most valuable part of what any of the humans in your business do. Aside from your experts, aside from your experts who were there to stay on top of compliance and legislation, and aside from your tech experts who are there to kind of guide, you know, your tech stack and everything else like that, and you're kind of ops expert who understands how to tie all that together. But I think out of that, you know, when you look at your administrators and your negotiators and your conveyances, your in-house conveyancing, really fundamentally, those three roles are going to become a lot less transactional and a lot more emotional. Yeah, it's going to be about the personality, the relationship, and that kind of hospitality approach of the experience, feeling looked after, cared for the fact you can pick up a phone, the fact that you know who you're talking to, they know you, et cetera, et cetera. Rather than does this person know how to order a gas safety certificate on time, does this person know to double check that the 10-year EPC hasn't expired? Because you're almost in this industry going to become a property concierge, almost that person who can facilitate everything that needs to be done. Doesn't mean you have to do it all. No, there will be systems and processes behind, but you are the person that knows everything that needs to be done in that process. And again, you know, I'm not for one second saying that advocated for the fact that in the future we should have untrained staff. But by digitizing and automating compliance, it will reduce that burden to have fully, well, at least at the offset to have that full array of technical knowledge. Yeah, I mean, I think the knowledge will still need to be there. Yeah. Application of it might not. Typical academic talking there. Yeah. You've got to know about it. You don't necessarily have to apply it all. And I think that's where we'll go with some of that. But I think it's exciting. It is really exciting. And I think it's, you know, what I find fascinating. I said talking to both suppliers and agents as well. There are so many projects going on here there and everywhere. That's a neat segue back into what you alluded to your REPIT integration going on. So yeah, so we are the thing that every agent wants every product to is to create the CRM. And as you know, we've been working with the Foundations app team. Yeah. And we've been building out our REPIT integration for the last seven months. I think it is now. It's about that. I think we're in Mum's Seven now. And so that we are confident we will get that released by kerfuffle con two weeks today. Nice. So we're there. So we're currently in beta testing with one of our agents. And so, but again, we're looking at what an integration looks like because I think you talk to, you talk to any agent, pretty much about any product. And when you talk about an integration, it's that front data entry point, right? For most agents, that's what they want. They just want that data entry gone, which totally get absolutely on our platform takes on average about five minutes, let's say, to set up a record completely from scratch of a landlord and property isn't already in our system. You have to create those before you create a tendency. And depending on what system you use and how your documents are stored and everything else, you know, that can be a complicated process. So I get that and that's absolutely obviously what we're delivering. But we're kind of going through a few phases with you guys. So we will be releasing that data import, like I said, the aim is to have that live officially live. It's in the app store now. So if you're on repeat, go and have a look at the foundations app store, type into repository, it will come up. I think you can even request, you can even download it and request access, which puts you in our queue, if you're interested. So we will have that out within the next two weeks. And then in very quick succession, we're looking, we want to do an end to end integration. Because that, the passing back and forward of information and the triggering of key processes within that is really where the magic happens. So great. First things first, for the admin team, we're going to remove that really boring, low value task of copying data over, hooray. But in very quick succession, one of the things that we capture within our system is tenant forwarding addresses. Notoriously difficult for agents together. But we've kind of embedded that within our workflow in several places. For actually agents who work with us on insured schemes, whether tedious insured or my deposits insured, they basically can't get their money back without giving us a forwarding address because we wrap it into the refund process. So we do really well. We probably capture about, I'd say easily, like 40% of tenant forwarding addresses within our system. And very quickly after our initial release, we will plug that in. So that data will now seamlessly slide into repair into the tenant's second address record. And as we all know, for most agents that work within a particular geographical area, those forwarding addresses represent business opportunities. Right? Because what we know is about two thirds of those tenants are moving to another rental property. Yeah. So you've just got that address. And if they're not, they're buying, which also regardless, you've either got a landlord address to start prospecting, or you've got a tenant who hopefully had a really great experience with you and left on really good terms. Who is now into a first property where you can now start feeding, you know, if you've got insurance products, you want insurance, you know, or we have a life cycle of a first time buyer, you're going to sell in seven years, seven years. So in four years time, we start that, you know, we do the annual congratulations message congratulations on your first home, you know. So again, it's all that data. Another thing, and this was actually something when we built the integration with you guys, when we were building it, I hadn't really thought about. And then we had a really interesting call with the guys at Paramount, who we're doing the beta testing with at the moment. And one thing that we've done, so we, as agents, we totally get this whole idea that your CRM should be your primary source of information, your single source of truth, as much as possible. What we also know is there's a lot of messy data. Yeah, there's a lot of messy data, different times, different eras in software, different users, different rules about what information you had to gather, whatever. One thing that we do is so we built an import wizard. So when you trigger the export from you guys, which will be the end confirmed action with an intensity record that pushes all the data from you to us. So that's the landlord, the property, the tenancy, the tenants, the key documents, tenancy, check-in, inventory, all that sort of stuff. But, you know, what we had to build was this kind of safe space that we might capture the run document because the right one might not be in the system, it might have been relabeled, we might capture a historical document. We might have a landlord in there that for some mysterious reason doesn't have an email address against them, or their email or their name was input correctly, or it has an email, but it doesn't have a mobile number. What we've done is we've built this import wizard where, let me remember, I think it goes people property process, it's a three-stage importer, where basically on each screen, you can see what we've imported, it flags anything that's missing, or it flags anything that's kind of corrupt, like if an email address isn't formatting correctly or whatever. But, importantly, because what we don't want to do is create a disparity between our system and a central CRM, rather than enabling users to update that information in our platform, most of those key fields, what you have to do is go back to Repit and go, "Oh, I'll put that phone number in," or I'll format that name correctly, or I'll change .com to .com as it should be, whatever it is. So, you'll go and update your Repit record, you'll then come back to the screen, and on that particular data set, at the top of each screen, there is a re-import button, or recapture, and so all we will do is then pull in that data set, and say, "Have you now fixed those issues?" So, if you work on the premise that Tenancies last roughly three years, so every three years, on average, an agent should be seeing pretty much its entire Letting's Book transition with new tenants. What you've now got is that by a Repit agent using our platform and using that integration, within three years, we will help them ensure that their landlord, tenant, and property data is perfectly clean, because every new tenant in there, it will flag it, but it will push them back to Repit to go, "This landlord name's wrong," or "Is this missing a first name?" Or, like I said, the email address is formatted right, it doesn't have a mobile number, the address is weird, you know, but it's all about pushing people back, update it there, quick re-click, it's right, and now you've got not only systems that match, you've not only got rid of the manual data entry, but you're using our tool, so that, like I said, three years from now, agents should look back at their data and go, "Well, we've now got a completely clean data set." Which is then if you think what AI is able to do, or a predictive learning, mining data, looking for opportunities, the better your data, better the opportunity. Exactly, right. And then, you know, we're looking at other things, so we'll quickly drop in the forwarding address. We are increasingly dealing, and particularly with Repit, we're increasingly dealing with that mid to upper section of the market, and what we see a lot in that is either independent or outsourced accounting teams, so they are totally separate to the property managers, the property managers will kind of negotiate up until your final ledger of who gets what, but then it gets passed on to, like I said, either an internal department down the road or sometimes a complete third entity. What we now do is, what we'll be able to do very soon after launch is we'll be able to trigger tasks within Repit, which agents can create themselves, they embed the trigger within the settings of our platform, and we will create a reconciliation document that is embedded within that. So literally, when a property manager signs off, they're not going to have to duplicate that and to Repit, they're not going to have to trigger a workflow and put the data in there, we will automatically create and generate and trigger that. So literally the second the PM clicks done within what 10 seconds, 15 seconds of that being happened, that reconciliation document is sat with that accounts team within Repit or pushing it out and going, you know, and then there's one more thing that we're still working on, and I'm not, we're going to keep that one as a surprise. We're looking at one other area, and if we can get that, then it really is that whole end to end journey. That's what we want to do. That's what we're trying to do there. It's not just a statement at Repit, there's everything under one roof. With any tech provider, you've always got the build partner or buy. We bought a lot. We didn't really get it. They've bought a lot. We've decided where that needs to be. We are building what we're good at, but we need to partner. The idea that, you know, six, seven years ago, somebody wanted that holy grail where a single CRM would be able to build everything and be the master of it all, there's been too much diversion. So what we're now doing is we're saying we will continue to build what we're really good at within the CRM, but all these others, there are so many good players, let's not go and reinvent the wheel, let's reinvent the way that they can connect with us, and the way that you can seamlessly use that within your CRM. I think we're starting to see people are really waking up there. Those touch points we've talked about, right, those passing of data back and forward and triggering of actions, there's value to the business and the delivery of them, but in the human delivery of those, there is no value. There is only risk, right? Because they either do what they have to or they don't, and either way, they don't affect the, that is the only way they impact the outcome, right? They either do the job or they don't. Yeah. So either succeeds or fails. Correct. But you can't super trigger a reconciliation notification to an accountant. You can't like provide them with extra reconciliation data. No. So, you know, ultimately, if that is all they're doing, if it is just succeed or fail with no value add, that for me is where software, whether it's internally or in partnership, that is where systems should be working to go, cool, don't worry, we've got this. Because you shouldn't have to worry about that. You shouldn't have to think, oh, now I've done that. Now I need to do this. You know, if you're not adding value to this, to this, you shouldn't have to do it. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what's really exciting. It's really, really exciting. So are we going to see you at CapafoCon in two weeks? Yes. Headline sponsor. The cat's out of the bag. Reaping some work. Have you guys met before? Yeah, no. He kept that so under wraps. I did love bikes. I loved bikes. Oh, great. So I was opposed. I wonder what that would be. Yeah. Now we're really looking forward to it. It's a lot in the short time frame, but that's... That's where you leave your met side. You know, you know, that's what's coming. But actually looking at the people attending, look at what he's managed to put together. I mean, this guy thrives on that last minute energy. He so loves to put himself on the bread dough. The King of Chaos. King of Chaos, but it somehow works for him. I couldn't think of that. I think he's got incredible people around him who make all the details. Yeah. Actually get delivered. Shout out to Bitty and Sarah and Sous and everyone else who's a social and business. Supportor, Angel, Enabler. Well, you wouldn't call it. For Mr. Whaley, thank you for that. I was a disarmant. So my daughter and my son have both been to conferences with me because they wanted to know what it's about. My daughter, for fortunate or unfortunate, went to the Guild Conference at the Queen Elizabeth Centre. And she still says to me, "Who's that man in pink?" The loud one. The loud one. Yeah. And so she remembered his name. She went to go and work at her current business and they had a list of companies. And one of the companies was our company, Repit, because they'd sold into our business before. And she was able to grab that business and take control of it. Because she proved that the current person wasn't looking after the sales journey because they still had Simon Whale down as a main point of contact for Repit. And I met him five years ago when he was a pink man, so he didn't work for them. Yeah, that is. I mean, obviously you guys will always have an element of a relationship, but yeah, the official partnership. Yeah, yeah. And so, tearing it away from all things tech and conferencing and agents. Talk to me about the ultimate rock dad we can do about to have. So where are we tonight? We're listening to the delicate, quiet and unruly Guns N' Roses. Guns N' Roses. At Wembley. September rain, welcome to the jungle. All of that. They're open with welcome to the jungle. Of course they do. And yeah, and then goes all the way through. I think they're finishing with Paradise City. Top and tailing it. A couple of good tracks. And then tomorrow is Shepherd's Bush for Live Wire doing ACDC. Yeah. Absolutely love seeing them live as well, but this will be a great homage to. And then Saturday is at the Olympic Stadium for Iron Maiden. Jesus Christ. And any of the kids going with you, Tony, are those? Not these. My son has started coming up. None of them. It's just me. It's just rock. Dr. Rock. Yeah. So I try to do around 50 live gigs a year. This will be number 39 on Saturday. Jesus. That's good. So pretty much one a week. Really? Yeah. I mean they don't go like that. They go like this one. Yeah. But my son. That's back. Yeah. So I did five in seven days in May. That was probably, I came off of that need in a break. Was that when you went to Germany? No. No. No. That was a load of people from, you know, Rory. One of them was on the night of the Women in a Estate Agency. My son came and then we left and went to that evening. That's right. And then we were in London for another one the following night. He's all over. So I know. But I love it. But my son has now started to come with me. So he's coming, he's doing his first two festivals this year. He did slam dunk with me. Nice. And we did a full day there. Managed to listen to 16 bands. One day's worth of really heavy. And then he's doing Reading with me this year. Nice. And I'm reading in years. So I'm feeling a little bit scared. But it's, um, uh, Limp Biscuit and Tchaikari. And then bringing the horizon, headlining. So we'll be another fantastic day. But I, I just love live music. And particularly rock though, right? That's your moment. Yeah. And some of it. Rock and metal. Yeah. Some of it is quite shouty and my son doesn't go with that. But I can't do that one on that I like to listen to. Yeah. I can't, I can't do that for a shouty. No, I can't. Yeah. Cool. I, I can sit down and listen to pretty much anything. And in, in, in sequence, I could listen to Vivaldi and then listen to Snoop and then listen to Drum and Bass and then listen to, you know, pop and then listen to, I don't know, Guns and Roses or Bon Jovi, you know, whatever. But yeah, there are certain things I, I can't wrap my head around and, and the kind of the, the extra heavy, the, the slash, the, the screaming stuff. So lawn is sure like dead eyes or something that I'll put on and my son will just point and go therapy. Yeah. That guy needs therapy. I can't, I can't, I can't say this again with this other to be honest. I feel like, you know, you need a massage. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and a nice cup of tea. Although I am being put through my paces because I cannot stand pop music. I really struggle with pop music and I'm being dragged in a couple of weeks time to Sabrina Carpenter. Oh, wow. You're going pop pop. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's not going to be a terrible show to watch though. Yeah. I, I'm worried. I mean, I know we're all men now. Yeah. But, you know, just don't drill. I'm taking a child with me. I have a reason to be there. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Um, dude, I think that's, I think that's everything. I think we've covered a good job. Everything from where I started to where the, where is the, where we're going to reap its new AI tools to our, our imminent repeat launch to call FuffleCon and on to dad rock gold. Three nights of, I genuinely don't know anything three nights out on the trot. I'm, I'm epicly impressed. Something will be a recovery day. Yeah. Yes. I've got the, I've got the whole top off and ready. I will just be literally pruning myself. Nice guys. You heard it all here. Uh, if you want to find out more about what REAPIT is up to with their agenda KI that they're kind of beatering through the rest of this year with a launch early launch. Uh, with a launch early next year, reach out to Neil or the team to find out more about that. Um, if you are a REAPIT client and you want to know more about the depository and our imminent integration release or you're already a depository client and you want to find out more about REAPIT and what that's going to look like. Um, yeah, getting in touch with myself or Carla. Um, obviously we're all going to be at KI FuffleCon two weeks today that we're recording this. So, uh, Thursday the 10th, Thursday the 10th of July. And so again, come and say hi, we will have, we've got a stand there. So we will have our REAPIT integration there to see, uh, in a full demo. We'll also have our new AI negotiation tool live for you guys to see. So come and check that out and obviously REAPIT and pay prop will be there as lead sponsor with no doubt. It's a very cool stand. Probably some very tasty merch to give away. So, uh, get on that one. Neil, always a pleasure buddy. Fantastic. And thanks very much. See you soon, mate. Talk to you soon.