Agent Dan

If you do the X / Bluesky thing, follow me at @HousingITguy or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

Agentic AI has become one of those phrases you cannot escape in UK #socialhousing tech conversations. Suppliers talk about it with great confidence. (OBVs)

Agents that plan, decide, act, learn. Systems that do things for you, not just respond when clicked. Yet when you scratch the surface, most of what is described still lives firmly in the future tense.

Currently as far as I can see, practical use is still quite limited, but not entirely absent. While significant productivity gains are clearly possible, anyone who has dabbled with it will confirm it’s a week of defining your process and six times that defining/confirming guard rails and testing it all thoroughly iteratively. Then it might be a blind alley, as over 80% of pioneers appear to be reporting.

Where agent style behaviour is starting to show real value is on the CRM platforms, particularly Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics 365. Not in fully autonomous decision making, but in tightly constrained, supervised tasks. Things like AI driven case triage, where incoming repairs, ASB or damp reports are automatically categorised, prioritised, and routed to the right team based on rules, patterns, and historical outcomes. That is agent-like behaviour in practice, (even if nobody really calls it that on the ground).

I think we are also seeing early but useful examples around assisted case progression. AI nudging staff officers with next best actions, chasing missing information, drafting responses, or flagging cases that are stalling against policy or SLA. Traditionally these might be templated anyway for policy consistency. In D365, Copilot style tooling is already being used to summarise long case histories, prepare updates for managers, or draft resident communications that staff then review and send. It is not autonomous, but it genuinely saves time and cognitive load.

Salesforce based housing solutions look to be a bit further along with orchestration. Some providers are experimenting with agents that span multiple systems, pulling data from CRM, repairs, and finance to support a single outcome, for example preparing a voids readiness pack or highlighting risks ahead of a mutual exchange. Still this is reliant on quality of integrations  in place at times. Again, these are supervised agents, operating within guardrails, not free ranging AI making housing decisions on its own.

On the HMS side, things are quieter.

Most UK housing management systems are still focused on embedded AI features rather than true agentic behaviour. Things like predictive repairs, arrears risk scoring, or document classification. Useful, but largely reactive and contained within a single module. The bigger challenge is that many HMS platforms are still finishing the journey to full responsive-browser based, API rich architectures. Without that foundation, serious agent orchestration across modules and systems is very hard to deliver safely. So for some its jam tomorrow.

There are a few tentative examples. Some suppliers are piloting AI driven scheduling optimisation in repairs, image diagnosis or automated follow ups in income collection. But these tend to be narrow, rules heavy, and carefully constrained. Some not really AI at all in its recent clever Trevor LLM incarnation. Sensibly so. Housing is not a domain where most CEO’s want an AI agent learning through trial and error with real people’s homes and lives.

So where does that leave us.

Right now, agentic AI in UK & Irish social housing is most credible when it behaves like a very capable assistant, not an autonomous decision maker. CRM platforms are better placed to support this today because they are already designed around workflows, orchestration, and integration. HMS suppliers are not out of the race, but many are still building the track while running on it. Many trad HMS already have plenty of under-implemented workflow and similar capability – so think on, don’t be reaching for AI if you haven’t even got to first base!

The danger is not that agentic AI will fail. It is that suppliers & CRM solution partners oversell it before it is ready, and housing providers either over commit or switch off entirely. The sensible path is boring but effective. Start with small (pay as you go), practical agents. Keep humans in the loop. Prove value in time saved, errors reduced, and residents better served.

So, less talk about the art of the possible everyone. More evidence of the possible working on a Tuesday afternoon in a housing office, over a bookies, grocers and a chemists.

Are you sufficiently implemented to be ready for AI  ? 

Get in touch , I will drop in for a cuppa & bring the Jammy Dodgers ☕

       Related Post: Don't suffer from system under-implementation

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I would be pleased to connect with you on LinkedIn - http://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy Message me with any issues or queries, you would like to be explored in this blog. We generally receive a couple of suggestions each month.

Agent Provocateur - Agent Dan

(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009


Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here , what projects do we get involved in? Access them here

Could we help you or your organisation? Our contact details are here , get in touch we will be pleased to chat about your problems and help with your organisation issues.

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Fragile

If you do the X / Bluesky thing, follow me at @HousingITguy or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

In my very first exposure to IT in early 1980’s, I experienced a small part of a large engineering company where raw data was keyed in by a team of female admin and submitted to a mainframe down in Stafford. If you were lucky you got a result four hours or longer later, if it wasn’t an ‘Abend’ (An abnormal end error message – technical but correctly spelt) probably due to strange data, or a comms issue down the very expensive leased line. If the mainframe was off-line or busy, your ‘job’ could not be submitted up the line sometimes for hours, maybe days.

Moving on in the late 80’s, t'internet was being imagined as a distributed network by Paul Baran and others, who originally worked to create a communication system that could withstand a nuclear attack by having no central point of control. This vision was a response to Cold War concerns about vulnerable, centralised phone lines and led to the development of ARPANET. The concept was a decentralised network designed to remain functional even if parts of it were destroyed. So far, so good.

Since the 2000’s as we know, we have seen the growth of most of our internet resources in far fewer hands. No more so than in the provision of Cloud storage and technology. This is now dominated by Amazon (AWS) approximately 30-32%, Microsoft Azure 20-23% and Google Cloud with around 11-13%. The dangers of concentration of so many eggs in so few baskets was brought home last week, as a AWS outage. We were told this was due to “a latent defect within the service’s automated DNS (domain name system) management system”. This was apparently down to an empty DNS record for the Virginia-based US-East-1 datacentre region. Well it certainly was a problem that affected many well beyond the US East Coast between the Atlantic Ocean and the Appalachian Mountains.

Around 2,000 organisations were affected including Banking sites (Lloyds/Halifax), HMRC, parts of the NHS (at least ten sites), DWP, Ring doorbells, Duolingo and Strava. “The Cloud” in this situation feels less good than my old friend the IBM mainframe situated in Stafford in the 1980’s. Its just a big computer in someone’s big shed ! Many organisations rely indirectly on AWS. This occurs through our partners, third-party services, or SaaS applications. How aware of this are we within our supply chain? Do we even ask about it in sufficient depth?

AWS storage and Agentic AI has been enthusiastically marketed within the socialhousing sector, non-profits and among other parts of the UK public sector. AWS is in use at quite a few HA’s, such as Aches Housing in Sheffield and Housing Plus Group, in Shropshire. 

One Social Housing Management System, is also currently being marketed, which operates behind AWS AppStream 2.0 as a means of browser delivery of a legacy solution. Users and residents of that one had an outage last week until around 10am on Monday, although could have been worse. Unless an ITT tender purchaser of a HMS had their wits about them, it could be easily sold as a modern browser solution, with the true platform being spotted much later. Always ask the right questions in procurement's, or have a Critical Friend along to help you do that and interpret the answers properly too!

While ‘lightning might not soon strike twice’, this shines a spotlight on the fragility of our supposedly smart technology. Amazon's massive AWS outage here, points to a key weakness in the modern internet. I have read multiple articles and listened to a tech podcast that basically took the view that ‘errors are understandable and inevitable for so-called “hyperscalers” ‘. It shows just how difficult it is, to prevent every single failure,

While no one I know really would like to return to multiple rooms of refrigerated tin, what is to be done going forward? What appetite might there be for the big three to work together to enable redundancy? Are organisations better looking for smaller alternatives or spreading their risk (with the downside of potential duplication and additional expense). 

The questions for management and their boards following this should include, “do we have good enough dependency mapping” also “have we effective business continuity planning” ? Does the potential fragility of our core storage choices make our organisation fragile too. In previous blogs I have shone a light on the tech beneath, another latent issue. 

Boards should consider specific due diligence regarding reliance on automated systems managed by the hyperscalers. If a latent defect in an automated process can bring down critical infrastructure affecting major banks, government services (HMRC, NHS, DWP), and consumer services, the question must be asked: What is the specific risk quantification tied to single points of failure within provider automation layers?

Fingers crossed, the next major Cloud outage may spare you !

Are some suppliers right to turn their back on Cloud/browser solutions? 

Get in touch , I will drop in for a cuppa & bring the Custard Creams ☕

       Related Post: If we implement new browser based solutions, do we still need mobile apps?

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I would be pleased to connect with you on LinkedIn - http://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy Message me with any issues or queries, you would like to be explored in this blog. We generally receive a couple of suggestions each month.

Wire – Fragile

(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009


Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here

Could we help you or your organisation? Our contact details are here , get in touch we will be pleased to chat about your problems and help with your organisation issues.

File Under: #HomesForBritain,#HousingDAY,#InternetOfTenants,#Shout,#UKHousing, 07854655009, 1st Touch,1stTouch,360,365Agile,3squared,4Js, ACL,ALMO,AMS,AX,Aareon,Abritas,Academy,Accuserv,Accuserve,Active Housing,ActiveH,ActiveF,ActiveFinance,ActiveHousing,Acutence,Advanced,Affinity,Aidenn,Agile,Agile365,AHB,AirWatch,Alscient,Alfresco,Alignment,Allpay,Amazon Web Services,Anite,Apex,App,ArchHouse,Archouse,Asprey e-state pro,Asset Management,Associates,Aurora,Average IT Costs,AWI SX Integration Toolkit,AWS, BI,BO,BPR,BancTec,BigChange,Blockwise,BluTek,Bluebox,Blueprint,BrikHousing,Browser Applications,BC, Business Central, Business Objects,Business Planning,Business Process Review,Business social networking, CACI,Capita One Housing,CBL,CCS IT Keystone CCSIT,CEDRM,CHICS,CHR,CIH,CMS,COA,CORE,CPL,CRM,CRM2013,CRS,CTI,CTX,Cadcorp,Capita,CapitaOne,Capita One,Capital Management,Cashflow,Castle,Castleton,Castleton Technology,Cedar Open Accounts,Cerrus,Change,Charges,Chartered Institute Of 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Yuneo,QuantSpark,Qube,QLX,Qlikview,QueryView,Queryview reporting,Quiss, RM865,ROCC,RPs,RSL,Rave,ReAct,Reality,RedkiteCRM,Red Olive,Registered,Registered Social,Rent Increase,RentSense,RentSenseLite,Repairfinder,Reporting,Reports,RobotAutomation,Rocket,Rubixx, Salesforce,Salesforce.Org,SAP,SASSHA,SDM,SHBVN,SM,SOTI,SP,SQL,SQL Open Housing,SQL Reporting,SQL Server,Saffron,Safron,Saturn,Scenario,Scotland,Scots,Scottish,Scout,Sequoa,Serengeti,Serros,Server,Service,Services,Servitor,Sharepoint,Sim,SimPro, Simdel,Simdell,Slash and Burn,Social Housing ICT,Social Housing Software Applications,Social Media,Software,Software solutions,Spotlight Service,Spotlightservice,Star rating,Stores and Stock,Strategic,SunAccounts,Sunguard,Surveys,Streetwise, Swordfish,Sx3,Symatrix Human,System alignment,Systems,Systemwise, T-Files,TEAMS,TED,TFiles,TP Tracker,TSG,Tagish Casework,Tagra,Task,TAIM,Techlabs,Technologies (India) PVT Limited,Telecetera,Template,Terminal Services,That,Three Star,Tilt,TiltAffinity,Today,Tony Smith,Tony Smith That Housing IT Guy,TonySmith that housing IT,TonySmithHou,TonySmithHousing, ,TonySmithHousingITguy,Total,Total Mobile,Totalmobile,Trace,Tribal,Twitter, U2,UC,UK,UK Housing,Ukhousing,UniClass Enterprise,Unidata,United Kingdom,Universal,Universalcredit,Universe,Unrest, Valueworks,Van Stock,Vantage,Vantage Sentinel,Version,Virtualisation,Visitour,Visualmetrics,Voice,Voice and data,Voicescape,Voluntas, Wales,Welsh,Wheatley,Windows Server,Workflow and,Work Hub,Works Connect, XML,Xen App,XenApp,Xmbrace, Yuneo,TS Acutance Consulting, ...

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