Real estate has been around forever—and on the commercial side, no one plays the game bigger or better than CBRE.

If you thought that sounds dramatic, it’s not.

Consider the facts.

CBRE is the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm, headquartered in Dallas, Texas. With over $35 billion in annual revenue, operations in 100+ countries, and with over 140,000 employees, CBRE is a true industry leader. It’s been ranked 128th on the Fortune 500 and it counts 90 of the Fortune 100 companies as its clients.

At its core, CBRE helps clients buy, sell, lease, finance, manage, and value real estate. That includes everything from office buildings and industrial warehouses to retail centers, hotels, apartment complexes, and much more. Whether it’s helping a major company find the perfect headquarters, advising an investor on where to deploy capital or manage warehouses on behalf of an e-commerce giant, CBRE is involved at every stage of the lifecycle.

Basically, if it involves real estate, CBRE is on it.

CBRE’s position seems unassailable because of what it’s accumulated over the past 120 years of its history. It owns the broadest and deepest dataset about how major companies across the world buy, sell, and manage properties. It knows the right people—connections built not overnight, but over generations. And finally, it has the ability to combine them both to predict how real estate will unfold over the foreseeable future.

But CBRE’s leaders know that staying ahead means going further.

They understand that true growth may require shaking things up, including their own business model.

Real estate seems untouchable—until one bold player rewrites a rule the industry assumed was set in stone. And no one knows this better than CBRE, who’ve seen rules being rewritten by upstarts across decades. They’ve witnessed the evolution of WeWork, who disrupted traditional office leasing with flexible co-working spaces and brought a consumer-first brand to commercial real estate. They’ve seen Airbnb create a completely new asset class by turning homes into income-generating short-term rentals. Even in India, they’ve watched dozens of startups such as OYO, Housing.com, Stanza Living, 99 acres, Nobroker, and many others raise venture capital and jostle to take a slice of the lucrative real-estate market.

So many such startups have come and gone, but CBRE remains stronger than ever.

However, all of this was before the AI revolution.

Nobody seems immune from disruption. Not even the mightiest name in real estate, with a century-old fortress built on the most enduring asset on Earth—land itself.

And for CBRE, this new world is an opportunity.

On one hand, CBRE is best-positioned to meet the demands of Big Tech hyperscalers like Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, and others who have huge amounts of capital, and seek long-term real-estate services to build massive data centers across the world. On the services side, if it aggressively deploys AI across its massive advisory, operations, and client-facing businesses, CBRE won’t just be the world’s largest real-estate services firm, it’ll become the smartest real-estate player in the world.

But as history shows, this is exactly the kind of gap the right startup can seize.

Some have already started to give it a shot. New AI-led proptech challengers are actively working to disrupt CBRE’s core operations—spanning site selection, lease and construction management, as well as property and investment oversight. According to an estimate, these proptech companies secured over $100 billion in funding over the last five years.

Then there are the ones who’ve not emerged yet.

Smaller, nimbler firms armed with AI can take slices out of CBRE’s business by flipping its assets—vast data, deep human relationships, and predictive analytics—into precise points of attack. Perhaps they’ll figure out ways to use automation. Or get access to similar kinds of data through other sources. Or simply disrupt human relationships altogether.

Other startups may come up with completely new propositions that challenge long-held assumptions about how companies buy, sell, or manage real estate. They may build platforms or offerings that neutralize CBRE’s traditional advantages, effectively leveling the playing field.

All of these are possibilities.

But nobody knows for certain where it’ll come from, and what it’ll look like.

This is precisely the kind of disruption CBRE is eager to get a glimpse of—by inviting teams from all over India to rise to the challenge.

For teams ready to challenge one of the most powerful incumbents in one of the world’s oldest and most lucrative industries, this is a rare and exciting opportunity.

Executive Sponsor

Deepak Dewani is the Chief Strategy Officer for CBRE, where he works with the senior executive leadership team to define and enhance the company’s strategy to accelerate growth and competitive advantage across CBRE’s four segments and functions.

He’s advanced through every level at CBRE to become one of the world’s foremost experts in commercial real-estate strategy. Deepak has built a diverse and impactful career at CBRE, starting in India, where he spent over eight years managing major leasing and advisory projects for Fortune 500 clients. He then led operations for CBRE’s Advisory Sales Management in Asia Pacific, driving growth through technology and process improvements. Later, he took on leadership roles in Americas Research, overseeing a large team and partnering with national leaders on key initiatives. Most recently, as Senior Vice President of Analytics and Insights, Deepak guided data-driven decision-making at the highest level before assuming his current role in December 2022.

Teams shortlisted in The Ken’s case-build competition who choose CBRE as their company of choice will gain access to Deepak and other senior CBRE leaders at every stage. They’ll receive valuable insights, have their assumptions challenged, and be guided toward stronger strategies.