Drones and AI Boost Hurricane Resilience in CRE

Industry Insights from Next Move Strategy Consulting

As extreme weather events intensify along the Atlantic coast, commercial real estate (CRE) is experiencing a decisive shift toward resilience-driven strategies. Facilities managers, faced with recurring storm-related damages, are prioritizing property protection with the aid of emerging technologies. 

At the forefront of this transformation is Site Technologies, a company leveraging drones and artificial intelligence to revolutionize property risk assessment and maintenance planning.

A Technological Pivot in Property Management

Historically rooted in construction, Site Technologies has expanded into advanced facilities management by pairing drone data collection with engineering expertise. “We teamed up with our team of experts and engineers in pavements and roofs and facades and landscaping, and we started to figure out how we need to be able to capture data from facilities to be able to do engineering work and review of the current conditions of the properties,” explains Austin Rabine, CEO of Site.

Rather than owning its own fleet, Site deploys freelance drone operators across the U.S. and abroad. To date, the company has surveyed approximately 13,000 properties in 15 countries, with major clients running large-scale real estate portfolios.

Risk Intelligence at Scale

Captured drone imagery is processed through Site’s AI-powered platform, combining machine expertise with proprietary engineering insights. The system generates condition and risk reports for each facility’s exterior while projecting repair and maintenance needs over a three-to-five-year horizon.

Rabine highlights the practical impact: “We create the scopes of work and condition reports using AI, and then we have a lot of dashboarding features that allow [clients] to sort by their worst properties or their highest-risk properties for them to be able to focus their attention on their highest needs.”

This predictive approach helps identify vulnerabilities such as clogged drains, weak roofs, or overgrown trees before they escalate into costly liabilities.

Enhancing Resilience and Insurance Preparedness

Beyond prevention, Site Technologies also supports recovery. For existing customers, drones are deployed post-disaster to provide before-and-after documentation critical to insurance claims. This service adds measurable value for large-scale operators, who often oversee hundreds or thousands of properties.

Prominent customers include Prologis, a global warehouse real estate investment trust, Link Logistics, and several large national retailers. For portfolios of this size, technology delivers an efficiency once unattainable through manual inspections alone.

A Strategic Response to Intensifying Storms

With the first hurricane of the 2025 Atlantic season forming off the East Coast and forecasts pointing to more severe storms ahead, CRE’s adoption of drone and AI solutions signals a proactive industry-wide shift. By combining real-time monitoring, predictive analytics, and scalable property assessments, companies like Site Technologies are enabling facilities managers to minimize risks, strengthen resilience, and control costs in an era of heightened climate volatility.

Source: CNBC

Prepared by: Next Move Strategy Consulting