You Didn’t Write It… But You Expect Me to Read It? And Worse… You Didn’t Analyze It, But You Expect Me to Invest?

by Todd Kuhlmann, CCIM and Founder of TheAnalyst® PRO

My inbox has definitely gotten busier these days, but more than that, it’s gotten longer. Emails that used to be two or three sentences are now six or eight paragraphs. The grammar is perfect. The tone is polished. The structure is clean. And most of the time, it just doesn’t need to be that long.

You can usually tell right away that an email was written by AI. Now I use AI, too. At TheAnalyst® PRO, we’ve been integrating AI for years. This is not about avoiding it. It’s about using it the right way. It’s a powerful tool when used correctly.

What I’m seeing more and more is people using AI to expand instead of refine. A simple idea gets stretched into something that sounds more important than it actually is. The message is still there, but it takes three times as long to get to it. If it takes eight paragraphs to say something that should take two, that’s not better communication. It’s just more words.

You didn’t write it but you expect me to read it?

And when I read those emails, I start to wonder whether the person actually understands what they just sent me, or if they simply hit “generate” and copied it over. If you’re not reviewing and editing AI output before sending it, that’s just irresponsible. You’re also wasting my time.

In commercial real estate, it becomes a much bigger issue, because I’m starting to see the same pattern show up in deal analysis. The write-ups look great. They are written with polished language and a confident tone. Everything reads like it came from someone who really understands the deal.

Then you look at the numbers, and that’s when it becomes clear what’s actually going on. They didn’t analyze the deal. They let AI analyze it. And now, they expect me to trust it.

We’ve seen this behavior long before AI entered the scene. Brokers have been doing this stuff for years with Offering Memorandums. They would load up pages of demographic reports, charts, and data, assuming it all added value. It looked impressive, and it made the package feel more complete. In reality, most of that data was never read, interpreted, or even tied back to the site.

Today, AI is doing the same thing, just faster and with more polished writing. Instead of copying demographics, we’re copying analysis. Instead of understanding the deal, we’re summarizing something we never validated.

And now, it’s being taken one step further. You’re not just asking me to read it. You’re asking me to invest money in it. So, let me ask you the question directly....

You didn’t analyze it… but you expect me to buy it?

In this business, analysis is not optional. It’s the foundation of every decision. Pricing, risk, financing, and returns all depend on it. If you don’t understand those pieces, you don’t understand the deal.

AI can help you communicate. It can help you summarize. It can even help you organize your thoughts. But it should never replace your understanding.

At TheAnalyst® PRO, we’ve spent years building the calculations first - the math, the structure, the logic, because if the analysis is wrong, the write-up does not matter.

Right now, there is a growing gap in this industry. People are getting very good at sounding like they know what they are doing without actually doing the work. That’s not just a credibility issue. It’s a liability issue.

If you are presenting a deal to a client, an investor, or a lender, you need to understand it, not just repeat it.

If you’re going to send me something to read, make it worth reading. And if you’re going to ask me to invest, make sure you’ve actually done the analysis. I can tell the difference, and so can anyone else who knows what they’re looking at. AI should be a powerful assistant, not an inadequate replacement.