Fresh off Forum 2026, Alex Howe, SVP of Marketing and Growth and Tyler Christiansen, CEO of Funnel break down the biggest ideas, conversations, and moments from this year’s event. 

They cover what stood out from sessions:

Plus, they’ll discuss what operators should be paying attention to right now around AI, market conditions, leadership, and change. 

Don’t miss out on next year’s Forum conference. Add your name to next year’s waitlist. 

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Episode transcript:

0:00 The Report — Forum 2026 recap: what the leading operators are seeing next

Alex Howe: Welcome back to The Report. 

We’re recording this just after wrapping Forum 2026 in Scottsdale, and this year’s event really felt like something special. In this episode, Tyler and I look back on the biggest ideas, standout conversations, and key takeaways from the week, from AI and market conditions to leadership, innovation, and what the best operators are doing differently right now.

0:21 Introduction

Alex Howe: Today is Monday, right after we just wrapped up the third annual Forum in Scottsdale at the beautiful JW Marriott Camelback Inn. For me, it was the best one we’ve ever done after an already pretty high bar.

Forum this year featured voices such as Jay Parsons, the housing economist who helped everybody separate signal from the noise on the economic side. We had the great Mia Hamm talking about leadership and trust at the highest levels. Kristy Simonette, CIO at Camden Property Trust, brought a real operator’s view of what it takes to rethink the model.

We also had Clay Bavor, the co-founder of Sierra and former Google exec, who pushed the conversation beyond AI as a feature into AI as a system that can actually do work. Pat McGann, probably my personal favorite, a comedian brought some levity and roasted the audience to the event.

And we did something new this year. Funnel University gave practitioners a chance to get really hands-on.

It’s starting to feel like Forum is becoming exactly what we hoped it could be, Tyler, a place for serious operators to come together and wrestle with where this industry is going.

We talked for years about a conference like this, where there was no pressure from vendors and where operators could be really honest with one another on the biggest topics and themes of the day.

So I’d love to recap some standout moments. But before we jump in, any big-picture thoughts on what stood out for you?

Tyler Christiansen: I think you nailed it, Alex, that we have created a venue or a community that you and I hoped existed in multifamily and we didn’t see.

We actually, fun story, tried to get other conferences to host this instead of us hosting it. And when they weren’t ready, so we hosted it.

And so first you’re not doing it at the Terrane Resort in California. Also a little scary would people show up if the venue wasn’t obviously world class and Scottsdale was world class. But really rewarding to see that the community came out, record attendance, and we consistently heard the best best Forum ever. And so I think that we’re on the right pace and excited to share what we heard so that folks next year can join us as we do year four Forum.

2:10 Clay Bavor on AI at the cutting edge of multifamily

Alex Howe: Let’s start with Clay. So what did you learn from that conversation with Clay Bavor, the co-founder of Sierra and someone who ran Google Labs for 18 years prior to that?

Tyler Christiansen: Every time you get a chance to talk to Clay, it really excites me that we are on the cutting edge of AI.

And Sierra, for those who aren’t familiar, is the fastest growing software company in the world. Zero to 150 million ARR in, I think it’s about seven quarters. Makes our record growth look like a snail’s pace.

But the reason that’s so relevant is that agent use cases are still being discovered in many verticals, but multifamily, for the first time in the history of multifamily, is at the cutting edge.

The quantity and quality of communications that we are having are best in class. And that’s a real wake-up call to any operators who are late to the game or who are not iterating on technology, especially AI.

So having Clay, whose technology is being deployed by the best brands in the world, talking about how proud they are to partner with Funnel and embed AI experiences in the workflows of these multifamily operators was really cool.

Because like you said, this is a guy who led innovation at Google. He’s now running the largest, fastest-growing software company in the world, partnering exclusively with Funnel to help multifamily operators have incredible experiences.

And one of those cool stories was we talked about big numbers and data and millions of conversations, but the AI’s ability to speak 37 languages and answer crazy questions like, “Is this property haunted?”

That was one of our favorite anecdotes. Really fun times, but so proud to see this partnership pushing multifamily to really the cutting edge of AI—as good as anything that’s going on in the world.

3:49 Lessons from the UK with Oli Sherlock

Alex Howe: You had a Fireside chat with our friend Oli Sherlock. That’s his real name, from Goodlord, the largest prop tech company in the UK. Definitely a sobering picture that Oli painted of what PropTech and multifamily looks like across the pond.

But what was your main takeaway that you think multifamily execs could learn from or should be starting to think about or be a little concerned about?

Tyler Christiansen: Yeah, Oli is good friend of yours and mine—hope he is listening to the pod.

I’ll be joining him across the pond in a few weeks at their conference, the Forum in the UK.

And the original idea was a little bit of a foreign exchange student—what can we learn from each other?

And certainly we were hoping that multifamily operators would realize how good we have it here. And that although the multifamily environment is more regulated than ever, that we still have essentially endless opportunities to innovate.

What was probably a little surprising was, given that—as I just alluded to—we’re moving more into a regulated vertical, right? Things like fee transparency and all the fallout of some of the revenue management chaos over the last couple years.

To where we wanted operators—I saw the light bulb going off as I sat on stage—to see these challenges, and in particular the change and uncertainty that’s happening in our markets, is where top performers can get ahead.

When things don’t change, when it’s the status quo, when it’s easy, anybody can compete.

But when things are hard and they’re changing, that is where the top operators really create differentiated experiences.

And so we really jived on that concept, and it was just a lot of fun to see all of our attendees get this international lesson in letting—as he calls it—not leasing. And certainly something that we hope to continue to do in the future is, as we invite our partners to elevate their expectations towards world-class multifamily leasing experiences, what can we learn from other markets?

And in particular, how do we appreciate the incredible markets that we have here in the US?

5:47 Jay Parsons on supply, demand, and what’s actually changing in the market

Alex Howe: Personally, I learned that Oli turns it on on the golf course when there’s actually something up for grabs or some kind of a prize for who gets closer to the pin.He got much better pretty quickly.

Something else fun—Tyler, your dad joined us for, I think, the second out of the three years we’ve had it.

And curious about his favorite part of the programming. He had mentioned that Jay Parsons was the reason he was coming.

Jay gave a keynote on market conditions and what to expect. What did your dad love the most about Jay’s presentation?

Tyler Christiansen: Yeah, this is the proverbial asset management section of our podcast where we talk about what is dad—Tyler’s dad—interested in.

Not AI. I tried to find him during the AI session. I couldn’t find him.

But no—the asset management world. Going back to the theme of things being hard—if you are in one of the popular Sunbelt markets, it’s hard times.

So whether that’s Phoenix, Arizona, or Tampa, Florida, rent growth is non-existent. And in fact, you probably are seeing declining rents year over year. You may in fact be upside down with existing leases or have lost a lease where your existing residents are paying more than market rate—the inverted rent roll, as Jay called it.

And not only is there misery loves company, but more importantly, it really pays to know your markets and to get ahead of it, not be reactive.

I think too many of us, myself included, didn’t realize that the hard times were going to stay as long as they were. Now Jay doesn’t have a crystal ball, but it was reassuring for him to really break down some of the nuance.

And whereas there are, as he calls them, green shoots—and we’re starting to see some of that data emerge—where it feels like the supply tsunami is receding a little bit, creating opportunities.

And one of the data points that he helped us pull from the Funnel data—anonymized, aggregate data, no one customer’s data was used—it was all anonymized in aggregate—is that leasing velocities are picking up across the board.

And that’s an interesting data point. Certainly he pointed to Funnel operators really using the tool well, but also I think it speaks to before you see rent growth pick up, you would imagine that there’s a shorter lag between lead time and lease time.

And so as we’ve seen that shrink over time, it really gets us excited that perhaps we are turning the corner towards an environment where—we certainly don’t want to see us get back to unsustainable rent growth—but I think the entire industry will operate much healthier when we get back to at least keeping up with inflation and with CPI, which has not been the case lately.

That just puts an undue amount of pressure on the industry.

So what’s great—and my big takeaway—was it was completely in line with everything we’ve been preaching all week, which is now is the time to differentiate your operating model.

Whether you’re a small operator or a big operator, you really have to be sharp or else the market’s going to wipe you out.

8:28 Why operators in tough markets are leaning in, not pulling back

Alex Howe: As the furthest thing from an economist, it just kept dawning on me how important the correlation between supply and demand is.

Of all the markets he showed, time and time again on all the slides, the ones that had the supply opposite reaction on the demand side.

Tyler Christiansen: Yeah, and it also seemed to correlate that you had a lot of folks in the room in those tough markets. Because I think that they followed the opportunity and they were smart to do so in ’21, and now they’ve got to outperform, so they’re looking for ways to do so.

There was a lot of groaning when he would show the charts of where things are most painful, because they were folks from the Sunbelt regions.

Although we did have our wonderful friends from Morgan there in the room as well, who are big fans of Jay Parsons, and they’re sitting there in Philadelphia and in the Midwest like, “Man, this is great.”

They’ve been crushing it.

9:12 Inside BH and UDR: what real centralization looks like in practice

Alex Howe: Speaking of great partners, we brought back a format that we tried out last year with GID Windsor and had BH and UDR separately run really in-depth case study panels.

Curious what your takeaway was on either of those.

Tyler Christiansen: Those were the highlights of the conference for me.

Less a Funnel commercial and more operator 101 on change management. And those panels are really well received by folks that are starting on their change—starting on the centralization journey.

So whether it’s BH talking through their evolution of The Mint Experience or UDR on kind of version three of their centralization journey, I think that those case studies, and as we’re able to bring them out and share them with a broader audience, are really inspiring and they’re motivating.

We’ll get to it in a second—I got to talk to Mia Hamm.

When you meet these kind of icons, these legends, these GOATs of their verticals, in some cases, it just makes you feel inspired to do better yourself.

So I think seeing the UDRs and BHs share so openly what they got right, what they got wrong, and the credible results that they have, I saw a lot of motivated operators leaving the conference to implement those changes in their own organizations.

10:22 Kristy Simonette on innovation, perception, and telling the industry’s story

Alex Howe: Before we get to Mia, you had a fireside chat with Kristy Simonette, the chair of RETTC Steering Committee. She’s the CIO and the SVP of Strategic Services at Camden Property Trust. We’ve been partnered with Kristy for years.

Curious what your favorite part of that conversation was.

Tyler Christiansen: Not going to let you pin me down on just one, because it was too good.

Of all the interviews I did—usually when I check the clock it’s, “Oh, I’ve got 10 minutes left to go, where do I want to finish this?” When I checked the clock, we were at the half hour—it flew by with Kristy. It was just so fun to talk to her. Always.

Two things stood out to me as I recall it sitting here today.

One, I asked her why RETTC. And again, if you’re not familiar, it’s the new organization inside of NMHC focused on technology, in particular advocating for technology at the federal and state level. And I really liked what she said. Kristy just says what she’s thinking.

We’re sitting inside this beautiful venue and in the gardens at the Marriott, and she says, “Landlords aren’t the bad guys.”

And she says it so proudly. There’s literally folks walking around this property, and she’s so right.

I think unfortunately you see right now—and Oli, our British friend talked about this—that in other markets, if you let landlords be perceived as the bad guy for too long, the perception becomes the reality, at least in people’s minds. 

So I think it’s important that we do continue to tell our story. As we just talked about, supply fixes the issues of housing and affordability, and regulation exacerbates the issues of housing affordability.

So I love that part—that she just said the quiet part out loud. Multifamily—we’re not the bad guys. We’ve got to tell our story. The data is in our favor.

And then the second thing is that just having a culture of innovation is a huge differentiator. Camden has an incredible track record of being early and being right. And so we’re very grateful to have them as a partner. 

She highlighted their success in deploying Voice AI technology, which as great as it is, a minority of operators use it today. So huge opportunity to deliver improved customer service experiences, keep a human in the loop, reduce operating costs. It’s a win-win across the board. And consumers love it. The data shows.

So those are the takeaways.

And then one piece of breaking news—Camden just announced that Rick Campo is going to be handing over the CEO reins to Alex Jessett.

Alex also has that culture, that DNA of being right and being early.

This is out there in the world to know, so I’m not sharing anything that’s a secret.

But Camden was the company who bet on Funnel.

They weren’t our first investor, but they were our first AI investor.

So way back in 2020, they said—you guys—this, here’s a Kristy quote, “Y’all are 90% the perfect product, but you need AI.”

And so Kristy got Alex [Jessett] to buy into her plan.

So seeing her being the chair of RETTC, Alex being named the CEO of Camden—it felt like this really cool full-circle moment.

Especially the week of Forum where we’re talking about AI nonstop.

And you just have to give a lot of credit to operators that are willing and able to look around the curve and see what’s coming, and then to have the courage to go in and invest in it and implement it.

So yeah—couldn’t be more grateful for Kristy. The panel was fantastic. Excited to share it with everybody. And congrats to Alex on the well-deserved promotion into the big chair.

13:37 Mia Hamm on leadership, humility, and carrying the water

Alex Howe: Congrats. Great name, Alex.

We closed out with Mia Hamm, one of the greatest athletes of all time.

She shared obviously a lot about what she focused on with her leadership and those teams that won the World Cup, and how that can really translate to business teams.

So curious what you remember most from her philosophy on leadership, teamwork, and legacy.

Tyler Christiansen: I want you to give me your top thing for Mia Hamm when I’m done, Alex.

But I would say she really wanted to emphasize—this is clear—that she wanted the group and the audience to recognize we all carry the water.

And I think hearing that from the star player—and she gave some anecdotes and stories about when she was called out by coaches and how important it was for her to lead by example.

And I think in tough and changing times like we live in, we all need to be willing to carry the water. Are you the one who’s implementing new AI technologies? Are you the one who’s willing to disrupt yourself in your own model?

And I think the leaders that are willing to do that are the ones that are going to get those results super quickly.

But then the thing I personally enjoyed the most is she was just so darn relatable and human.

She was telling me all these stories when we were in the green room ready to go on that just showed she does not think she’s above the normal world.

And I loved when she was talking about her kids. For those who don’t know, she’s married to Hall of Fame baseball player Nomar Garciaparra.

But that she judges success for her kids not by how good they are on the field, but if they’re the ones after practice picking up the cones.

So we went deep on parenting, which probably was not exactly what everyone signed up for, but it’s what I was excited about. And it certainly displayed this type of humility and leadership that the great leaders bring into every vertical.

That was what I liked.

Alex, what did you like about Mia’s talk?

Alex Howe: It’s similar.

I mean, her focus and prioritization of filling out the team with people who are just all about the bigger team goals, right?

She was like were plenty of individually more talented people that didn’t make the squad.

Plenty of people who could command the field better and were stronger leaders, but they weren’t necessarily the all-around folks who were willing to put the team ahead of themselves.

And for those folks that did win, she basically said what they all shared in common was that they believed in this greater good that they all wanted to contribute to.

And it wasn’t just about them individually.

So that really resonated.

Tyler Christiansen: Amen. And the US men’s national team could use some of that.

They got their butts kicked this weekend, so hopefully they hire her as a motivational speaker.

16:00 AI in multifamily: the shift toward human + AI as the winning model

Alex Howe: They should.

I’m going to come back to one more question that’s not specific to any one panel or fireside chat.

Conversations about AI were embedded throughout the conference, just much like it’s built into the core of everything we do here.

But what’s really changing in terms of how leaders are thinking about AI?

Tyler Christiansen: It’s fun to be an entrepreneur in changing times and in this vertical right now because when you enter a new scene or you enter a new movie, you don’t know where the story’s going to go.

And so Funnel’s been very intentional.

As Alex—last year in California—we rented a plane and flew a banner that said “humans plus AI.”

And some people probably think that’s a platitude. Some people probably think it was not that interesting.

What’s interesting is the more and more folks are getting it and they’re saying, “Wow, that really is a differentiated point of view.”

So I gave the same keynote two years in a row. I’m not sure if people picked up on it, but the number of folks that came up to me this time was significantly higher than last time and said, “Man, that is really spot on with what we’ve experienced.”

We tried this AI tool and it wasn’t flexible. It didn’t work well with humans. And I think that the more and more we go down this path, the more it will become clear that there’s going to be a choice for operators. Are you betting on human in the loop, or are you betting on no human?

And I think that sounds simple. It sounds silly. But it’s becoming more and more true the farther we go down this path that you need to be finding team members and tools and partners that really allow you to differentiate your model. And one in which AI and humans work seamlessly together.

Alex Howe: Perfect. If you were in the room with us last week, you know how much thought and attention went into every moment of that conference.

And hopefully you saw and heard from leaders who really are going to make a big difference in how you run your own business and how you grow your community.

We would love to see you next year if you didn’t make it this year, and hope you keep coming back year after year.

We’ll be in Austin in April next year.

More details coming soon.

Thank you so much, Tyler.