Investor interest in global proptech solutions surged last year. Here are three emerging opportunities to watch in 2026

Last year, interest in proptech and adjacent real estate technology rebounded significantly. 

Across the globe $16.7 billion was invested in tech and innovation companies that address specific pain points here, from construction and surveying to rentals across the entire real estate sector. 

What’s more, investment also surpassed pre-pandemic levels in 2019, when approximately $14 billion was placed in proptech. Although activity has remained disciplined, the latest data shows clear signs of optimism. 

In 2026, we predict investor interest to maintain stable, although the focus is expected to shift to tech and AI solutions that can provide meaningful, tangible outcomes for the industry. 

Examples include proactive ways to improve tenant satisfaction and address the global energy crisis with ways to reduce costs and carbon emissions. 

At the same time, the next wave of investment opportunities being generated by proptech solutions lies in unexpected places. 

From embedded insurance to solar panels, here are three places for investors to watch this year. 

AI bringing new solutions to the market

In 2026, AI in real estate is much more than a tool for handling administration and communication, and insurance is a growing area of interest.

Globally, the embedded insurance market was valued at $144 USD billion in 2025 and it is predicted to reach $2 trillion billion by 2035, with the U.S. expected to see the biggest share of this market growth.

At 30% the property insurance segment generated the biggest market share, and insurance tech companies are driving a large part of this growth.

GetCovered, a New York-based insurance tech enterprise that caters to this market, is one of the companies leading the charge, helping property managers and landlords automate both property and rental insurance and claims, and scale embedded insurance products seamlessly to address common challenges in the market.

For example, the 2025 Digital Experience Index found that 61% of Millennials and nearly half of Gen Z prefer paperless interactions for insurance. This has led many property managers to take on the task of insurance as a way to improve tenant satisfaction.

However, tracking all of these policies across large portfolios is not only a headache for property managers, but could leave them liable to footing costly bills when there are gaps in coverage. Further, many lack experience in handling insurance matters and don’t have access to up-to-date information to help them through the process.

Embedded insurance solves this by making it a seamless part of the process of any new agreement. This addresses the demand from tenants for a paperless experience without property managers shouldering the burden and risk of manual insurance. To achieve this, the real estate market needs API-driven solutions that can exchange data between rental companies, financial lenders and insurance providers and make embedded insurance models viable at scale.

At the same time, Brandon Tobman, CEO of GetCovered, highlighted the fact the best-in-class insurance solutions for real estate are leveraging AI. “Equally important is the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered risk assessment and fraud detection, which is accelerated by automated underwriting and claim evaluations. In mature implementations, AI can support the entire claims process, from first notice of loss to payment, reducing cycle times from days to seconds while maintaining appropriate oversight,” Tobman explained.

Beyond insurance, opportunities from AI in the market are increasingly being adopted by industry insiders, with Zillow (Z) introducing its AI mode last quarter, which connects live listings data across for-sale and rental homes with personalized, real-world actions.

According to Zillow CEO Jeremy Wacksman, “Because Zillow operates across search, touring, financing, connections to professionals, transacting and closing, we can turn insight and data into real-world action, helping people move from discovery to keys in hand.”

The company's announcement followed Compass (COMP) launching a proactive, voice-activated AI-powered assistant last year to provide real-time support and automation. 

Demand for sustainable, energy-efficient homes continues to grow 

The next place where proptech is driving investment opportunities, in particularly in emerging markets, can be found with solutions that provide sustainable, alternative energy sources and enhance the rentability of the unit through integrated smart home technologies.

Energy bills across the world have been rising for years and the current war in Iran has only added to the pressure on global energy supply chains. 

This is why we expect to see ongoing investment opportunities for solutions that help the real estate sector quickly adapt to sustainable energy sources and make residential homes more energy efficient. 

Although the cost of energy bills is the responsibility of the tenant or the homeowner, rising energy bills across the globe mean that energy-efficient homes will be in high demand across the entire property market. 

To illustrate the scale of the issue, U.S. consumers have reported that some energy bills have soared, with nearly one in 20 households in the U.S. at risk of having their utility debt sent to collections leading up to the winter months.

Meanwhile, in the UK, the average household is expected to see a 10% increase in household energy bills this July as providers adjust their charges. In Europe, we can find a similar picture across EU capital cities, where residential end-user gas prices rose by 6.8%. 

Looking ahead, any companies that offer a way to address these soaring energy costs will be a highly attractive option with renters and buyers alike. 

For example, Planno uses geospatial AI to identify rooftops for solar development. If the average rental apartment block came with solar rooftops as standard as a way to offset living costs and building fees for tenants, this is an immediate way to offset the global energy crisis. 

This is particular important for markets such as in South Africa, where rooftop solar has surged, providing homes and businesses with reliable electricity amid rising utility costs. South Africa has more than 111 million square meters of commercial and industrial rooftop space, which could generate enough power to supply 6 million homes.

For cooler regions where solar won’t provide guaranteed energy throughout the year, ground source heat pumps are an alternative to reduce reliance on expensive gas to heat buildings during the winter. In the UK, the government expects to see 600,000 heat pumps going into UK homes annually by 2028, showing the investment potential for this solution. 

Smart homes are another way to address the energy crisis by making rental units and residential properties more energy efficient and boosting the appeal of properties for sale. 

With more people wanting to live in smart homes, existing tech systems become a selling point. As smart home remodeling boosts market appeal, it can also enhance a property’s value, with some luxury buyers willing to pay up to a 7.7% premium. Meanwhile, standard IoT integration with smart sensors can help to reduce energy usage by as much as 25% to enhance the overall tenant experience. 

Although the Iran war has pushed energy costs up in the near term, we don’t expect to see a significant reduction in the long term. Instead, homes with alternative energy solutions and energy-efficient tech solutions that reduce wastage will continue to be in demand with both renters and buyers alike.

For investors, prop tech solutions that enable efficient and easy-to-install smart home technologies and accelerate the adoption of sustainable energy solutions are worth exploring. Publicly traded companies to watch here include Alarm.com (ALRM) and Residio Technology (REZI) . 

Data-driven building management 

Finally, investors may be keen to explore proptech solutions that bring building management into the age of AI. 

Although this overlaps in some ways with smart home systems, this opportunity is less about making individual properties more energy efficient, to looking to transform the end-to-end operational processes at large complexes and buildings. 

Data-driven facility management brings inputs from different monitoring systems, such as energy and lighting into a single platform for simplified management. This improves visibility on one hand, but also allows management companies to apply additional features such as AI-powered analytics to predict when systems need maintenance, helping avoid costly breakdowns and minimizing disruption. 

Companies like MODE are leaders in making sense of complex data from the physical environment to find ways to make operations more efficient and proactive. AI-powered Credibl ESG is another company playing an important role here. 

Publicly traded companies to watch include Johnson Controls (JCI), which has its OpenBlue platform that leverages AI to optimize for sustainability, and Schneider Electric (SBGSY), which has a comprehensive IoT-enabled data framework that's used to reduce cut energy consumption.

With a global labor shortage in construction coupled with rising costs, demand for proptech solutions that make real estate more efficient will be in demand in 2026, offering a clear path for investors to explore.