Over the past few years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been revolutionising several industries, including land development.
From sourcing sites to reviewing complicated policies and waiting for planning application approval, a lot goes into land development that can make it a painstakingly long process.
However, thanks to technology advancements like large language models (LLMs), the landscape is beginning to change.
In this guide, we’ll cover some of the ways in which the power of AI is changing the land development sector for the better.
AI In Land Development: How It’s Transforming The Industry
AI is transforming the land development industry in several ways. They include:
- Enhanced site selection
- It promotes sustainable development
- Efficient site appraisal
- Streamlined planning
- Better market analysis
- Faster decision making
1. Enhanced Site Selection
The use of AI in land development is revolutionising the way developers find development opportunities.
Gone are the days when developers need to rely on manual, inefficient processes to select sites.
AI-powered tools allow developers to evaluate vast numbers of potential sites with greater efficiency and precision by analysing datasets, GIS data, and more.
AI is baked into every aspect of platforms like Landstack, which makes site selection more efficient than ever.
How To Find Development Land Opportunities
Using Landstack AI’s site finder tool, users simply need to describe the criteria of the exact site they’re searching for, and the site finder will do the rest!
Finding land development opportunities within seconds has never been simpler than with Landstack AI.
2. It Promotes Sustainable Development
Secondly, AI can be harnessed to promote sustainable development.
Sustainability plays a crucial role in land development, and the rate at which biodiversity loss is occurring is a prevalent concern for planning and land management authorities.
Research shows that, on average, the species studied have declined by 19% in the UK since monitoring began in 1970, emphasising the importance of protecting environmentally sensitive areas.
AI can help developers make informed, data-driven, and environmentally friendly decisions by providing analysis on everything from soil conditions to environmental impact data, and much more.
Through leveraging AI, developers can help ensure that each development opportunity meets regulatory requirements while simultaneously supporting ecological goals.
3. Efficient Site Appraisal
The use of AI in land development is transforming the industry through efficient site appraisal.
Site appraisals generally take several hours to complete, due to the inefficiency of data being spread out across hundreds of sources.
AI is streamlining the site appraisal process, enabling the user to rapidly collect and analyse data from several sources, and present this data in a way that’s easy to understand, all at the click of a button.
For instance, with Landstack AI, customers can generate bespoke reports that go into ownership, land use, planning constraints, and more using 50 different sources, on any piece of land in around 1 minute!
When you compare this to the 4 to 8 hours it takes on average to produce a site appraisal without AI, the transformative nature of AI tools like Landstack cannot be understated.
Are you interested in speeding up the site appraisal process? Book a demo today.
4. Streamlined Planning
AI is also streamlining planning applications.
Planning authorities are already under an immense amount of pressure, which is clear when you consider that in 2024, the UK Government highlighted that ‘only 1% of local planning authorities determine more than 60% of major applications within the statutory 13-week period’.
AI can improve the quality and speed of planning applications, offering a wealth of opportunities for local authorities to harness the power of AI.
Our team recently hosted an event that covered AI in Land and Planning, where we detailed that local authorities are already adopting AI to aid in plan making, for site appraisals, as well as validating planning applications.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. As LLMs and predictive AI develop, we expect to see more AI adoption to further support planning.
5. Better Market Analysis
Lucrative land and property development relies on a comprehensive understanding of the market.
AI can be leveraged to gain a deeper understanding of market trends through data analysis, allowing developers to discover development opportunities and align them with market demands.
This can help developers to remain agile in response to market fluctuations, allowing them to remain steps ahead of their competitors.
6. Faster Decision Making
Lastly, the use of AI in land development is enabling faster decision making.
As we’ve touched on above, AI is streamlining the fragmented processes of analysing and selecting land, allowing developers to make faster decisions in relation to which opportunities to pursue.
What’s more, it’s allowing faster decision making through its ability to provide instant data.
For instance, at Landstack, we’ve built an industry-leading AI-powered chat bot, allowing users to get instant insights about any piece of land across Great Britain within seconds.
Whether you want to know how much a piece of land is worth or the answer to another land-related question, you can ask Landstack AI to fill in the gaps.
We hope that this article has given you a better overview of the power of AI in land development and how it’s transforming the industry.
Transform Land Development & Planning With Landstack AI
Whether you’re looking to identify development opportunities, analyse sites, or access critical insights faster than ever, Landstack AI can empower you to make smarter, more informed decisions.
Landstack AI makes land finding faster, smarter, and stress-free.
Book a demo today with our team. Or, to learn more about the services we offer, please contact our team at support@landstack.co.uk or 01285706708 today.