21 Jan Revolutionizing Team Collaboration: Building Our Own AI Solutions at Miller Diversified
Estimated Read Time: 5 Minutes
In the spirit of innovation that has long characterized Miller Diversified, we’ve taken a bold step forward in the last year or two to enhance our internal collaboration, processes, and content creation, embracing AI for use in our business. December of 2022 was the first time we tested using AI for our processes… it was early on in the AI landscape (at least for us), and we had that same delightful meeting everyone has had, where we gaped as ChatGPT wrote out a Shakespearean sonnet about the glories of Miller Diversified’s commercial real estate agents (pasted for your enjoyment below this article). That was just the beginning, and now we’ve woven AI into many aspects of our workflow.
Our first major milestone was in the development our very own Private GPT, lovingly named Henry in honor of one of Miller Diversified’s founders. We launched the beta of Henry in December of 2023, and kept advancing our use of this AI throughout 2024. Henry was trained specifically on our operations and our external-facing websites, collateral, and content. This initiative was not just about using the latest technology, but also about leveraging the collective intelligence of our team. As we quickly determined that Henry wasn’t structured in the most viable way, a series of subsequent models followed, each of which performed better than the last. We primarily used these GPTs for internal communications creation, documentation, summaries, knowledge base management, and external content generation for our marketing initiatives.
Our Private GPTs served us well, but still only got us 80% of the way down the path in most use cases. We’ve kept a weather eye open for AI opportunities and found some really great solutions at the end of 2024 that has the team very excited. As of the start of 2025, we’ve retired our much-beloved Private GPTs in favor of a series of AI agents designed to perform particular tasks. We are really excited to see the impact of this increased efficiency in 2025!
How Miller Diversified Implemented Useful AI Solutions
Wondering how we went from sonnets to something more useful? Here’s how we did it:
Exploring Capabilities + Identifying Our Purpose
At the start of our journey, we were a little unclear on how the AI could support us. Taking a step back and identifying our purpose, as well as clarifying AI’s capabilities at the time, was actually a fundamental piece of the puzzle. It started with “What can AI do?” and then we connected that to “What help do we need?” This step was necessary both in the training of our Private GPT and the training of our 2025 bots.
Training Our AI
Training is a meticulous process that involves feeding AI a dataset consisting of documents, case studies, research papers, and external records of past projects. We were careful to redact or exclude any information that we didn’t want to share externally.
With knowledge uploaded, we had to instruct AI as to its purpose, and provide rules for it to follow. We kept a document internally with training to-dos and pitfalls we found, to make sure that over time (as our skills improved and AI improved) we’d be able to fill in the gaps. Our Private GPTs followed rules generally, but every once in a while, liked to get a little creative and forget a small piece of training here and there. Our 2025 bots are now built using a new tool, and their training affords us a great deal of precision. We are excited for 2025 with this tool in our toolbelt.
Our Commercial Real Estate & Construction AI in Everyday Use
Using publicly available GPTs like Chat GPT and Gemini certainly increase efficiency, but having our own privately trained AI has made us even more efficient than ever, because it already knows and anticipates the information we need. We now use our internal AI to access and retrieve knowledge daily. It’s great for ideating, gathering initial intel quickly, and helping us become more efficient. Here are a few examples of how we put our AI to use:
- We asked our AI to pull a few quotes from letters of recommendation we’ve uploaded. Since our AI has read all of our PDFs, it quickly supplied a collection of reviews that were pertinent to the topic at hand. What would have taken a human several minutes was retrieved by our AI bot in milliseconds.
- For a recent event, we had our Private GPT generate a supplies list. Because it had knowledge of structure and collateral used at our past events, it was able to give us a relevant party-planning checklist, which we then edited and uploaded to our knowledge base.
- As we developed our Miller Investment Fund website, we asked AI to read the draft of the new site and provide a list of content that needed to be updated. Since our AI had the latest and greatest external information about the Miller Investment Fund, it was able to check the new site (which had been generated from old content), and pinpoint the key areas of focus.
Miller Diversified’s Next Steps For AI in Commercial Real Estate & Construction
The development of our AI solution is just the beginning. We have engaged in ongoing learning about AI developments and are excited about the possibilities it opens up for enhancing our services and strengthening our position as leaders in the industry. Most specifically, we have a few initiatives under way internally that could end up serving our clients well… more discovery is needed, but we are committed to delivering the most possible value, and that means exploring the latest tools.
If you aren’t an AI user yet, we hope this article inspires you to think about implementing the use of AI in your business. Are you a current client with questions about how we built out our AI solution? Contact our real estate and construction team! We are happy to help by sharing our experience with you!
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PS: Wondering about that sonnet we mentioned earlier? Feel free to cringe:
Upon the vast and ever-changing stage
Of commerce, where the fates of buildings rise,
There stands a troupe, both wise and sage,
Miller Diversified, under open skies.
With knowledge deep and networks vast,
Their agents navigate the market’s tide,
Ensuring clients’ fortunes are cast
In properties where success resides.
Each deal, a craft; each client, a muse,
Inspiration drawn from needs so wide,
With skill, they broker, never to confuse,
Guiding through the commercial real estate ride.
In Shakespeare’s tongue, their praise we sing,
Miller’s agents, to prosperity they bring.