A tale of two MIPIMs

It was a funny old MIPIM this year. Many attendees seemed to fall into one of two camps – either fiddling while the Middle East burns and talking up the market, the impact of AI and level of diversity in Cannes, or channelling Cassandra’s sense of futility about the future, driven by the war in Iran, fears over AI and a perceived lack of diversity.

Me? I was probably, for once, in the majority – of those who oscillated between the two states of mind or were somewhere in the middle.

On the state of the market, prior to the attack on Iran by the US and Israel, things were looking up. The predictions in the annual BE News forecast that real estate would resume a strong growth trajectory this year were starting to prove true as interest rates and inflation came down.

Now, the conflict in Iran has made the short- to medium-term outlook much harder to read and those who thought the market would really take off in the second half of this year are looking to the first or second half of 2027 even with a swift resolution of the conflict.

That said, certain sectors are showing their resilience. The mood was cautiously optimistic at all four of the roundtable debates I moderated at MIPIM. Geopolitical volatility and a challenging regulatory and funding landscape have become the norm, as several participants noted at the first roundtable, on ‘How to turbocharge investment in the regions’, sponsored by Avison Young and hosted by West Midlands Growth Company and DWF. Finding ever more innovative ways to navigate the challenging terrain has therefore also become the norm.

Many of those who joined BE News for ‘The UK development outlook debate’, sponsored by Maples Teesdale and Smart Spaces, were also pretty bullish about the medium- to long-term outlook, with the UK continuing to be seen as a relative safe haven for overseas money and strong demand continuing to drive development activity, with retrofit and reuse increasingly seen as the path of least resistance.

AI was a prominent talking point during this debate and the two debates that followed, the first exploring the journey ‘From adoption to advantage: How to make real estate tech work harder’, sponsored by MRI Software, and the second on ‘How to use AI and data to build operational excellence and resilience’, sponsored by Yardi.

What was abundantly clear at both events was that people – and companies – are at very different stages of the AI journey, with some fearful and adopting a wait and see strategy and others fully embracing it wholeheartedly and excited about its transformational impact.

Would jobs be lost? Opinions were divided, with some leaning towards junior roles disappearing but fresh and more creative roles taking their place and others predicting significant job losses.

Someone later told me that a MIPIM regular had remarked to them that people like them had nothing to fear from AI. I wouldn’t be so sure.

Anyone acting on behalf of someone else, aka agents, are vulnerable to disintermediation. If their job can be done by AI, it soon will be… far more cheaply. When it comes to agentic AI, the clue is in the name. That doesn’t bode well for the vast majority of those who head to Cannes every year, which brings me to my last point.

The usual pale, male and stale faces dominated, as did the posh accents. There seemed to be fewer women, fewer young people and fewer people of colour, not that there were ever many. The BE News events were the exception that proved the rule and after four days of seeing how the other half live (or want to live), I was pleased to get back to normality… and reality.

The MIPIM organisers were lucky that the heavens didn’t open this year and that those who attended had a good experience even if it was an escape from that reality. Next year, they may not be so lucky, but as someone remarked to me this year, you make your own weather. If the optics remain negative and the same old demographic attend, no amount of sunny weather will restore MIPIM’s fortunes.

However, if it flings open its doors to a younger, more diverse and tech-savvy crowd – and just as importantly, if companies pay to send those people – the sun will continue to shine on MIPIM.

Here’s to sunny weather in both senses next year!