A Great Case for AI

A couple of years ago my wife and I purchased a vacation rental condo in Orlando. It is only a couple miles from the entrance to Disney World and we got it so we could make wonderful memories with our grandkids. When we are not using it, it is in a rental pool that generates income for us. At least we hope it generates income. This year that is not the case due to a number of extenuating circumstances, one of which is that the condo is several decades old and needs a bit of refurbishment. We knew that when we bought the unit and planned accordingly.

In October the property management company did an inspection and told us we needed to replace the carpet in the bedrooms. This did not come as a surprise as we actually had plans to do that but hoped to get a few more months of rental income to offset the cost. When another maintenance issue arose that kept guests from renting our unit, we decided we should immediately replace the carpet and did so. We have a great company we work with that quoted us an amazing price and did the work in only 3 days. When you have a vacation rental unit, you don't want to spend a lot of time without guests and 3 days amazed us as being short.

In talking with the refurbishment company, I asked their opinion on what else needed to be done to help the condo look more up-to-date. He responded that it is too dark and needs to be repainted. That did not surprise me. The owners before us took it upon themselves to make sure no two walls in the condo matched. Naturally I asked for a quote.

The refurbishment guy went one step above what I asked for and sent pictures of what it would look like with new paint. As he finished installing the carpet, he made sure to take some pictures so we could see the work he did. He then ran the image through ChatGPT and asked what it would look like with updated paint. He then sent 2 different images for each room giving us an option of colors.

While I expect tech guys to use AI tools a lot, it is not something I expected from a construction contractor. Needless to say it impressed me. I have yet to get a price quote but given the cost of the carpet and other projects I have seen him quote, I found a refurb guy I will get to do all of the work on the condo.