In this episode, Alex Howe, SVP of Marketing + Growth at Funnel, sits down with Tyler Christiansen, CEO at Funnel, to unpack a new era for Funnel: multifamily's first front-office-only AI platform. 

They get into two F-words, Fenix and Fabric, explain what orchestration means for multifamily operators, and share why Funnel remains committed to an open, human-in-the-loop approach to AI.

The conversation explores how operators can combine AI, people, and workflows to improve the renter experience without giving up control, flexibility, or the value only humans can provide.

In this episode:

• What it means for Funnel to be a front-office-only AI platform
• How Fenix, one AI to connect everything
• How Fabric connects Funnel with LLMs, property management systems, and other PropTech tools
• Why Workflow Studio gives operators more control over orchestration
• The case for human-in-the-loop AI instead of autonomous property management
• Why open integrations matter more in the AI era
• Commitment to remaining independent and not building a property management system
• What operators should consider when making long-term technology decisions

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A new era for Funnel

Alex Howe, SVP Marketing + Growth, Funnel: Today, we're announcing a bunch of new developments that we're packaging into one thing. It's a new era for Funnel. We're calling it multifamily's first front-office-only AI platform. But Tyler, how would you describe this new era?

Tyler Christiansen, CEO, Funnel: Yeah, there are so many things that we've been pumping out, but probably the most interesting part is our recommitment to being front-office-only. I think that when we first had that idea, maybe it didn't even sound as novel as it does today. The reality is that multifamily operators are going to be experimenting with new AI tools, and the options available to them (outside of Funnel) are going to be single-stack.

We believe that focusing on the front office, the renter experience, and the agent experience will give us the most leverage to really enter a new era. So, yeah, multifamily's first front-office-only tool is something we're super excited about.

Introducing Fenix and Funnel Fabric

Alex Howe, SVP Marketing + Growth, Funnel: All right. If you just had to remember two big parts of the new era of Funnel, they would be Fenix and Fabric. Let's start with Fenix. Tyler, what is Fenix AI, and why should people care?

Tyler Christiansen, CEO, Funnel: We obviously love our F-words here at Funnel, so let's unpack these new F-words. But Fenix, first of all, is not a new word. We've been talking about Fenix for over a year now because it was a big part of introducing Insights.

That's been a wildly popular tool for our customers to take their customer interaction data, mine it, coach from it, et cetera. Fenix now, for Funnel, is more like how you would think about Gemini for Google. It is all the AI power available in the world plugged into the in-app experience. In many cases, that is the actual sidekick, working alongside leasing agents, helping them with support and knowledge, and organizing their day.

It's a tool for regional managers and executives, again, inside the Funnel experience, to find where their top leasing agents are and where they have trouble, really empowering that side-by-side AI assistant. But it's even broader than that for Funnel today. We are constantly packing more AI value into the tool.

One of the things we realize is that our real, cutting-edge development partners, the Cortlands, Camdens, and Hillpoints of the world, are using this bleeding-edge technology. If we keep adding it as, 'Here's the new feature. Here's the new feature,' it gets overwhelming.

So Fenix is going to be, again, similar to the way Gemini pops up in my email and my docs, right? Across all of my Google tools, it is the technology that ties everything together. Fenix is that for Funnel. It is where we plug AI value into existing workflows. But again, that's really primarily inside the four pink walls. 

Now Fabric, the other F word here, is the ability to interconnect that across multiple workflows, where we break outside those walls and start to stitch together multiple tools. Especially under the leadership of our Chief Product Officer, Nikki Hand, we've really embraced the ethos that if we are the core operating system, or, as an executive once told me, 'Funnel is the desktop of multifamily,' then it's incredibly important that we are the easiest and most open platform to work with in multifamily.

We're constantly looking for ways to make that better. The most modern way we can do that is MCP. Think of it as AI APIs, the way one system talks to another. But most importantly, it's about how you leverage the LLMs, ChatGPT, Claude, or Grok. How do you get that world-class, frontier-level intelligence to plug into and interact with Funnel data and/or whatever data and tooling you're using?

Part of Funnel Fabric is world-class APIs, but it's also connecting to the LLMs, right? It is thinking about orchestration. Alex, we've talked about how that's a buzzword, but it's a real word. There are so many amazing tools available to us as consumers and certainly in the world of multifamily operations that we view our role, as that desktop of multifamily, as the hub for orchestrating the customer experience.

So we are leaning into partnerships with PM software providers, maintenance tools, and revenue management software tools because we don't need to own everything to create the best customer experience, but we have to stitch it all together. That's what Fabric is about.

Alex Howe, SVP Marketing + Growth, Funnel: Got it. So Fenix is the AI that touches all of our products. You're going to see it pop up. It's the name of the in-app assistant. Fabric is the way you can tie in your favorite LLM, PMS, PropTech tool, and other cool things that haven't even been developed yet.

Tyler Christiansen, CEO, Funnel: That's the key. You're right. It's the fact that we are putting everything we've developed for in-app AI under Fenix, and all the relationships, integrations, and MCP under Fabric. We will continue to invest in and add to those. So, really, for our existing and new customers, it's a simplification with even more value.

What orchestration means for multifamily

Alex Howe, SVP Marketing + Growth, Funnel: Another development is this concept of orchestration. Tyler, could you talk a little bit about that?

Tyler Christiansen, CEO, Funnel: Yeah. If agents were the buzz term of 2025, orchestration is that in 2026. It can mean a lot of different things, but specifically, what we mean by orchestration is that we've always believed Funnel is a tool that brings all your teams together into a singular renter experience. Whether that's on-site teams, off-site teams, centralized teams, or AI, you really need to have them all working together.

Beginning with our Workflow Studio tool, you now have the ability to tie together multiple kinds of tasks, workflows, or events in the customer journey and really be the chef. If you are a multifamily operator, all the ingredients are there, but now you get to tie them together to orchestrate what the experience looks and feels like.

We've put those tools into our end users' hands. Orchestration begins with Workflow Studio inside Funnel, but it carries through different workflows because Funnel is the core communications and leasing task management platform for multifamily. That opens the door for even better orchestration. What if I want to use a tool that lives outside Funnel, such as a maintenance tool or a touring tool?

The data needs to be connected across multiple pieces. We're very proud that Funnel has more integrations than any other CRM. It's part of being the only independent CRM in multifamily and not building PM software. As such, we can tie together work streams, such as maintenance, facilities, and touring, that may not be owned by Funnel themselves. For example, I may want to tie together a wonderful self-guided tour process.

I want to understand communications around my maintenance tooling, and I still want to orchestrate those. I want to conduct multiple work streams with a single view and a singular renter experience. Even though Funnel is not necessarily building and developing those tools, they still need to feel seamless to the end user. The agent or multifamily operator needs to be able to determine which tools to use at which point.

Why AI still needs humans

Alex Howe, SVP Marketing + Growth, Funnel: There's plenty more that we're packaging here, but this is obviously part of a new era because of the time in which we find ourselves. What's the current mood in multifamily right now? We hear concepts of a very dystopian, autonomous property management future with zero humans and only software.

We know our technology could facilitate something like that today, but why don't you think that's the right goal?

Tyler Christiansen, CEO, Funnel: Yeah, I think you're right, Alex, to first ask, 'What's the moment in time?' Our customers are really going through a challenging couple of years. There's been a lack of rent growth for three years in most markets. When you think about any of our businesses, no revenue growth and increasing costs create tremendous pressure.

So there's absolutely appropriate excitement and enthusiasm for AI. It's the most disruptive technology of our lifetimes, maybe even longer. But there's also a lot of hyperbole about how to leverage it. As is often the case, we start with the extreme, and we've heard a lot of folks say they're excited about, optimizing for, and planning for autonomous buildings.

To your point, that is absolutely doable inside Funnel today, but it is not what we should be optimizing for. We believe the opportunity to create more efficient but improved renter experiences is the combination, as it's always been, of phenomenal human workflows, whether on-site or off-site, and automation through AI.

We're looking at truly agentic technologies, such as our agentic mid-lease change, where AI, and role specialization in particular, can transform what is currently a cumbersome administrative process and deliver both cost savings and an improved renter experience. So I think it's a great question.

At this moment, there's tremendous pressure, fear, excitement, and optimism all at the same time. We felt it was the right time to really plant our flag in the ground and say, 'We are renter-experience-only, but we're doing it with a human in the loop, now and forever.'

The importance of an open platform

Alex Howe, SVP Marketing + Growth, Funnel: Tyler, you mentioned a moment ago that we have more integrations than any other CRM in the space. There are plenty of other public claims that various platforms are open to integrations and are making things a little friendlier. But in reality, we're seeing more platforms close off those opportunities, put up more walls, make integrations harder, or push operators toward the rest of their tools, or maybe a brand-new PMS product.

You've long pushed us at Funnel in the opposite direction. I call it Switzerland, but why do you think that's the right approach?

Tyler Christiansen, CEO, Funnel: Yeah, I think most folks playing with AI tools know they're only as good as the data they can access. Given that Funnel was always designed to be a human-in-the-loop system, not an AI-only system, we've always been a system of record and a system of action. But we're humble enough to recognize that the only way to have the full customer journey and all the data points is either to build it all, which in many cases pushes you down a path where you become a walled garden, or to be as open as possible.

I would push back a little on the notion that everyone is becoming more closed. I think we're seeing a sorting happening in multifamily and across the tech ecosystem. You are seeing certain companies take the approach of, 'Hey, to deliver the best possible experience, we need to control the entire operating system.'

Look, I'm not trying to criticize that. That's kind of Apple's approach, by and large. They say, 'We're going to build the hardware and the software, and we will approve apps, but according to our criteria.' Our bet in the AI era is that this really myopic and fairly closed way of viewing it gets limited results, right?

So, to your point, we're trying to crank the other way.

I feel very strongly that in the AI era, being open is more important than ever. But I think many folks are going to go in the other direction.

Time will tell, but we feel confident the results will speak for themselves and show that having an open mindset will benefit the end users: renters, agents, and the property management companies themselves.

Why Funnel won’t build Property management software

Alex Howe, SVP Marketing + Growth, Funnel: As long as I've known you, you've talked very openly about committing to never building a PMS. You're alluding to folks going in the other direction and forcing you to buy everything. But why are you so bullish about not building a PMS specifically?

Tyler Christiansen, CEO, Funnel: Yeah, to your point, there have been plenty of opportunities. Probably at least once a year, an investor approaches us and says, 'Hey, would you be willing to fund this?' I get it if you're optimizing for what we call TAM, total addressable market. You want to build as many things as you can, and the biggest pile of cash in multifamily is either an ILS or PM software.

Some folks try to be both. We did not set out to solve that problem, and we have not yet fully solved the problem we are trying to solve, which is creating the world's best renter experience. So, first and foremost, that's why. If you are committed to a mission and your why, deviating from it just doesn't make sense.

I think other companies have a mission to be the biggest company they can be, or their mission is to leverage AI, right? While I love AI, and it's the coolest thing since the internet, it's not the mission of the company, and using AI shouldn't be the mission of a property management company.

When that's your mission, of course, go build AI tools for other industries. Build AI for revenue management and property management software. But our mission is to create the world's best renter experience. To your previous question, being clear about what we're not allows us to make a lot of friends, right?

Because we're not trying to encroach on people's borders beyond what we've already built, right? You said Switzerland, and that's a very decent analogy. There are plenty of folks with whom we overlap. We do resident AI, so there's overlap in maintenance. But when we talk to the SuiteSpot’s and HappyCo’s of the world, they love that we say, 'Hey, you're the best in the industry at facilities, inspections, and turns.'

Let's partner. Let's make that AI one plus one, rather than having to own everything you do. There's constant contention. This matters in particular because my background is in selling property management software. Our ability to be a partner, a friend, and an extension of property management software providers puts us in a really great position to serve our customers.

So we're not going to double down, as I saw my previous employer do, on trying to own the entire ecosystem. Again, there's nothing wrong with it. It's an approach. But that approach puts you at odds with the other systems. Our goal is to partner as much as possible with property management systems and all the adjacent tools to create the best possible renter experience for leasing agents and renters themselves.

Data access, MCP, and operator control 

Alex Howe, SVP Marketing + Growth, Funnel: You mentioned how cool AI is. We all think it's cool. A lot of AI vendors, though, take the approach that their technology knows best and that one should simply follow their best practices. Why doesn't AI always know best in our world?

Tyler Christiansen, CEO, Funnel: Oh, really great question. Yeah, I think we're seeing more folks come out of the hype cycle this year than in previous years. One of the things we used to hear was, 'I want the AI to tell me how to market to my renters.' If you like that idea, please go experiment with it, and then please pay attention to your close ratios, right?

These tools are not best utilized as black boxes. They're not best utilized as set-it-and-forget-it solutions. They are best utilized when they are constantly given new criteria, frameworks, and guardrails, and when they make the human element better, right? My favorite analogy comes from our head of AI at Funnel, who is a big musician. He has a drum set behind him, and he loves to say, 'AI ain't got no soul,' right? There's a lot of AI music out there. It all sucks. I would never listen to it. There's no soul to it, right? I know, Alex, you went to RÜFÜS DU SOL. I love Noah Kahan.

There's soulful music you listen to and feel a connection with. Great multifamily operations are not going to be designed by AI. The idea that a black box would just optimize itself is flawed. Perhaps the most dangerous lie people tell about AI and leasing today is that it's learning.

Google 'self-learning leasing AI,' and you'll find providers saying it does this. The models themselves don't self-learn. They are... The P in GPT stands for pre-trained. You have to pre-train a model and then put it into the world. It's fairly static, and it works generatively within that pre-training.

But it's not constantly saying, 'Well, Alex told me this is the best kebab shop in LA. Now I know that.' That's not how it works, right? I think humans learn. Even when you don't try to, you inherently learn. The best multifamily operators have learned through trial and error, and they plug that experience into AI tools.

So we are not moving toward a world of black boxes. Most importantly, the test of whether your vendor is selling you a black box that you have to use the way they say is to ask for the data, right? Can I get read and write access to all this data? One thing we haven't talked about yet is that Funnel built an MCP server. That MCP server gives you full access to information such as how your agents are performing, right?

Let me pull that information, whether inside Funnel via Fenix or in my preferred LLM. Maybe I want to pull it into Claude. You can even write back to it and say, 'We actually want to change that workflow inside Workflow Studio.' So openness, as we've been discussing, is directly correlated with this idea of who's in charge.

So, to the folks who watch Terminator or any kind of AI apocalypse, don't hand your property operations over to AI. Use AI and put on that amazing exoskeleton, but own it and use your experience to tell the AI the outcomes you want.

Advice for operators making technology decisions

Alex Howe, SVP Marketing + Growth, Funnel: And definitely don't use it for music. Shout-out to my guy Tyga, who released an AI album that Pitchfork gave its first zero out of 10 in, I think, 20 years. Today is obviously very different from even five years ago in terms of budgets and vendors in the ecosystem. Certainly, nobody could predict the technology that's going to exist five years from now.

What's your message to operators making bigger decisions today, and what should they keep in mind?

Tyler Christiansen, CEO, Funnel: Yeah. First and foremost, find your why. What is your ambition? What are you solving for? I think those who have clearly defined whys, such as some of the wonderful guests we've had on the podcast from Camden, embed their why deeply into everything they do.

It just so happens that they're often AI pioneers as well. They helped us build our first virtual leasing agent. They helped us build our voice product, which is now the best in the industry. But the why was never, 'We want to throw AI out into the world,' or, 'We want to run autonomous buildings.'

The why was, 'We want to serve our customers,' and if we serve our customers, that will take care of the stakeholders. As you're going through the journey of rebuilding your operations in a world designed for AI and centralization, identifying the objectives makes the decisions clearer. I think most folks will conclude, 'I want a human in the loop.'

I think most folks will also conclude, 'AI allows me to start doing specialization and centralization.' So start with why. Then, I would say, that allows you to make some smaller bets on the more experimental side. We're just getting started. We're going to find so many cool use cases for this technology that we can bring to our partners, and it makes a ton of sense to experiment on the margins.

But for your core leasing operations, tour management, resident management, leasing, and renewals, put your team in a system that optimizes for their best attributes.

Alex Howe, SVP Marketing + Growth, Funnel: Awesome. That's a ton of new developments that we've announced today. Obviously, reach out to Tyler on LinkedIn, to me, or to anybody on the sales team. We'd be happy to show you more.

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