Nigerian startup HUBBU is betting that the future of real estate operations lies not in replacing people with artificial intelligence, but in combining AI systems with human expertise to automate repetitive back-office work while keeping critical decisions in human hands.
In an exclusive interview with AIBase reporter Ahmad Ibrahim, HUBBU founder Taofeek Onimisi Adam said the company is building AI-assisted workflows designed to help real estate businesses become more efficient and scale their operations without significantly increasing staff numbers.
“I help real estate companies build systems around their processes to make them more efficient and scale without increasing headcount,” Adam told AIBase.ng.
While much of the public focus on real estate centres around property development, sales, and brokerage activities, Adam argues that some of the industry’s biggest inefficiencies exist behind the scenes.
“A lot of things happen behind the scenes,” he said. “These include paperwork in terms of compliance, safety, calculations, documentation, verification, and stuff like that. So, that is where we come in.”
AI as an augmentation tool, not a replacement
According to Adam, HUBBU’s approach differs from many AI startups that position artificial intelligence as a standalone solution.
Instead, the company focuses on using AI as an augmentation layer built on top of existing business processes.
“One mistake I noticed with the current systems is that a lot of people just feel like AI is something you ask questions and it gives you back answers,” he said. “Using it like that is not the most effective.”
Rather than replacing existing workflows, HUBBU documents operational processes, converts them into structured procedures, and combines them with AI systems that can repeatedly execute routine tasks while allowing humans to review outputs and make judgment calls.
“We build a working process plus AI and human judgment together to make the process more scalable, verifiable, and editable when needed,” Adam explained.
Addressing long-standing industry inefficiencies
Adam believes the Nigerian real estate industry faces multiple operational challenges that make it well-suited for automation.
Among the issues he highlighted are land verification challenges, fragmented communication between landlords, agents, and tenants, lengthy contract reviews, and the industry’s heavy dependence on WhatsApp for customer interactions.
“The scattered form of communication between the real estate company and their customers, which over 80% happens on WhatsApp, [creates challenges],” he said.
He also pointed to difficulties faced by diaspora property buyers who often experience inconsistent communication and limited visibility into ongoing projects.
According to Adam, AI-powered workflows can help consolidate information from multiple sources, including project updates, photographs, and documentation, into structured reports that can be delivered much faster than traditional methods.
“When we have real-time data and pictures from the building site plus other information, it can be put together in a complete, reasonable information packet that can be sent almost the same day,” he said.
A framework built around company-owned processes
At the core of HUBBU’s offering is what Adam calls the ICM framework, which allows companies to build and modify AI-assisted workflows using plain English rather than relying heavily on software developers.
“The real users of the system are able to build or edit the workspace themselves for better efficiency without needing a software engineer,” he said.
The approach is also designed to give organisations greater control over their internal data.
“The company has 100% decision on what part of the data they want to keep private and what they want to allow AI to read,” Adam said.
Unlike traditional software platforms that may require businesses to adapt their workflows to the software, Adam says HUBBU’s system is built around existing company processes.
“Companies own 100% of their process, which is completely aligned to their process, instead of building their process across a third-party tool,” he added.
Automating property listings in minutes
One practical example of HUBBU’s automation capabilities involves property listing creation.
Adam said he has developed a system that allows users to upload property photos and basic specifications, after which the workflow automatically generates marketing content tailored for multiple platforms.
According to him, the system reviews submissions against a company’s internal checklist, creates platform-specific listing descriptions for sites such as LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Zillow, and Jiji, and checks the content against platform rules and regulations.
“The listing write-up for Zillow, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and Jiji, while using the brand identity, ICP, and style, [can be generated] in less than two minutes,” he said.
The final content is then reviewed by a human before publication.
Adam argues that this approach produces more consistent results than simply prompting a general-purpose chatbot.
“A traditional broker might input the same information into ChatGPT and get a listing description that doesn’t take into account the brand’s identity, platform regulations, and ideal customers,” he said.
What should — and shouldn’t — be automated
For Adam, the dividing line between AI and human responsibilities is relatively straightforward.
“The part that involves a logical process should be automated,” he said, citing tasks such as writing, summarisation, reading, and information extraction.
“Where judgment is needed should be left to humans.”
This philosophy also shapes his broader view of AI’s impact on the real estate profession.
“AI won’t replace human brokers,” Adam said. “It will be another tool human brokers use, just like Excel and Microsoft Word.”
Model-agnostic AI systems
Interestingly, HUBBU does not position itself as a traditional AI platform.
Instead, Adam describes many of the company’s systems as structured workspaces built from folders, documentation, and instruction files that can operate across different AI models.
“In the simplest case, it’s not a platform,” he said. “It is just a ZIP file containing folders and Markdown files, which contain instructions and guardrails.”
Because of this approach, he says the same workflow can run across multiple AI providers, including Anthropic’s Claude, Grok, Qwen, and other large language models while producing consistent outputs.
“Our framework allows the system to get better as the AI models get better,” he said.
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The real challenge isn’t AI — it’s company data
While concerns about AI reliability often dominate industry discussions, Adam says the biggest obstacle he encounters is not the technology itself.
“The major challenge, given the kind of systems we build, is the data that is used to build the system,” he said.
Many businesses, he explained, operate largely on institutional knowledge rather than documented procedures.
“Most companies just have their processes, the way they work, in their memory,” he said. “There is no written document of how they work or who is responsible for what.”
As a result, organisations frequently need to document workflows, standardise procedures, and clean up data scattered across WhatsApp conversations, emails, and other communication channels before automation can be effectively implemented.
Early-stage growth and expansion plans
HUBBU is currently in its early stages and has not yet onboarded any paying customers.
“We have no customers, users, or transactions at this moment,” Adam acknowledged.
However, he said the company has attracted interest through its open-source projects, which are publicly available on GitHub, as well as demonstration videos published on LinkedIn.
Looking ahead, HUBBU plans to focus on real estate markets across several major Nigerian cities.
“We are reaching out to real estate businesses in Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kaduna, and Kano, and other major cities where there are real estate companies that fit our services,” Adam said.
As AI adoption continues to accelerate across industries, HUBBU’s strategy reflects a growing belief among technology builders that the most practical applications of artificial intelligence may not be fully autonomous systems, but rather tools that combine machine efficiency with human oversight.
For Adam, the future of real estate technology is not about replacing professionals. It is about giving them better systems to work with.
“AI won’t replace human brokers,” he said. “It will be another tool human brokers use, just like Excel and Microsoft Word.”
Freelance AI Journalist
Bio: Ahmad Ibrahim is a Minna-based freelance AI journalist and content creator for AIBase.ng, specialising in simplifying complex technology concepts in the evolving Nigerian AI ecosystem.