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Can AI Fix Housing and Healthcare Affordability?

Can AI Fix Housing and Healthcare Affordability?

16 segments available

Housing and healthcare make up nearly half of household spending, yet both sectors are riddled with inefficiency and rising costs. In this episode, Erik Torenberg is joined by a16z Growth partner Alex Immerman and Minna Song and Tony Stoyanov, cofounders of EliseAI, to discuss why they’re tackling these critical industries and how AI can transform everything from leasing and maintenance to patient scheduling and compliance. The conversation covers: - Why the U.S. is 5 million housing units short — and how technology can help unlock existing supply - How automation can cut waste, reduce labor costs, and improve affordability - What fully autonomous buildings might look like, and how that model could extend to healthcare This is about the costs that touch every household, and the role AI might play in finally bringing them down. Timecodes: 0:00 Introduction 0:28 Why Housing and Healthcare? 1:55 Technology’s Role in Housing 3:30 Housing Affordability & Supply Challenges 5:29 Regulatory and Capital Barriers 8:13 Improving Efficiency in Real Estate 12:50 Automation & The Future of Property Management 18:15 The Human Role in an Automated Future 20:35 Financial Engineering & Data Bottlenecks 21:51 The Future of Housing: AI, Robotics, and Mobility 25:33 R&D and Technology Adoption in Real Estate 27:40 Addressing Criticisms of PropTech 29:30 Tackling Repairs, Maintenance, and Operations 30:49 Expanding from Housing to Healthcare 33:04 Parallels Between Housing and Healthcare 37:46 The Ultimate Vision Resources: Link to blog: https://a16z.com/announcement/investing-in-eliseai/ Find Minna on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/minna-song/ Find Tony on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stoyan-tony-stoyanov-07690a53 FInd Alex on X: https://x.com/aleximm Stay Updated: Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16z Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/ Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details, please see a16z.com/disclosures.

Segments Timeline

1
0:00 - 0:29
0:29 duration78 words

Introduction

"We're about 5 million housing units short of what we actually need in the country. Our goal is to enable fully autonomous buildings. An entire portfolio has the ability to run core operations without ..."

2
0:29 - 1:55
1:26 duration242 words

Why Housing and Healthcare?

"our latest investment in Elise AI. Mina, Tony, welcome to the podcast. Welcome to the portfolio. >> Thank you. Excited. >> Why don't you guys give us give us a brief background or give the audience a ..."

3
1:55 - 3:31
1:36 duration256 words

Technology’s Role in Housing

"to solve. >> Alex, why don't you give the perspective from the from the growth team in terms of there's been a lot of players in the space over time. What got you excited about about this space and an..."

4
3:31 - 5:29
1:57 duration343 words

Housing Affordability & Supply Challenges

"deeper in terms of what are the unlocks to actually improve housing affordability or why don't you give some more context on on the problem? >> Well, for housing affordability, housing supply matters ..."

5
5:29 - 8:13
2:44 duration489 words

Regulatory and Capital Barriers

">> You mentioned we're going in the wrong direction. Can can you share more about why that's happening and and what are the sort of biggest uh regulatory or technological bottlenecks that that need to..."

6
8:13 - 12:53
4:39 duration748 words

Improving Efficiency in Real Estate

">> Why don't we go deeper into understanding what uh what needs to be true for it to be a more attractive um asset class? Maybe you can you can sort of walk us through explain a little bit h how the i..."

7
12:53 - 18:15
5:21 duration912 words

Automation & The Future of Property Management

"which I think is like baseline expectation to to twice as high and then how do you think about the efficient frontier like where should that be in 5 years from now? >> Our goal is to enable fully auto..."

8
18:15 - 20:37
2:22 duration401 words

The Human Role in an Automated Future

"vision comes true in terms of uh you know fully autonomous or fully automated housing. Uh right now there's a lot of people doing a lot of those activities or or some of them what do they go do? >> I ..."

9
20:37 - 21:52
1:15 duration225 words

Financial Engineering & Data Bottlenecks

"a second. So um let's say you know 10 years from now we we have robotics you know we've made some major advances in longevity research um we have AGI um but why don't you paint what what's sort of the..."

10
21:52 - 25:34
3:42 duration660 words

The Future of Housing: AI, Robotics, and Mobility

"the housing market because all those people this is a fundamental need for all those people. So um yeah we have to find efficiencies uh kind of as I mentioned before it is more housing supply and that..."

11
25:34 - 27:41
2:07 duration371 words

R&D and Technology Adoption in Real Estate

"on tech, it actually has the most to benefit from AI. So it maybe is going from the lowest R&D spending to potentially one of the highest spenders on AI because AI has sort of finally unlocked automat..."

12
27:41 - 29:31
1:50 duration324 words

Addressing Criticisms of PropTech

"technology is introduced you see a surplus and most of that typically goes back to the consumer. The criticism of prop tech would be is it all going to the property managers and the owner operators an..."

13
29:31 - 30:49
1:17 duration212 words

Tackling Repairs, Maintenance, and Operations

"track uh what's going on in a property? How do you know when appliances come near their end of life and and replace them in in smart and cheap cheap ways? Um, and we feel like all of these problems ca..."

14
30:49 - 33:04
2:15 duration360 words

Expanding from Housing to Healthcare

"dropped we're we're launching in healthcare. We launched in healthcare. And and I thought to myself like you know Mina Tony that's insane. Uh what do those two industries have in common? Uh and I I ki..."

15
33:04 - 37:46
4:42 duration869 words

Parallels Between Housing and Healthcare

">> We we spent a bunch of time earlier talking about why housing costs are so high. It seems like no matter what healthcare costs remain at a sixth or a fifth of the of of the economy. Is it that we'r..."

16
37:46 - 40:04
2:17 duration356 words

The Ultimate Vision

"go back in time um you know knowing what you know now uh what might you have you done differently? >> I probably would have started with affordable housing actually. Affordable housing has kind of eve..."