The practitioner who built the tools
Most AI sessions in commercial real estate are run by the people selling the software. Ross Carpenter runs a shopping center portfolio, wrote the automations himself, and has been publishing about it since 2019.
Ross Carpenter is a Colorado-based commercial real estate AI consultant and retail leasing executive. He is principal of Carpenter Consulting Group, LLC, a Wheat Ridge, Colorado firm providing investment analysis, AI implementation, and development services to a select group of commercial real estate clients. He is also Director of Leasing and Employing Broker for NewMark Merrill Companies, which handles leasing and property management for the Mountain States shopping center portfolio, and helps build some of the AI tools the firm uses across acquisitions, leasing, budgeting, marketing, and accounting.
He co-chairs Community Advancement and Public-Private Partnerships for ICSC Rocky Mountain, and has produced ICSC@WESTERN's technology programming three years running. He spoke on retail data and AI at RETCON 2026, has been a Developer/Owner/Investor panelist at InterFace Denver Retail in 2022, 2025, and 2026, instructs on retail real estate and green building legislation at the Colorado Appraisal Institute's annual convention, and has written on retail real estate technology for the Colorado Real Estate Journal since 2019. He is a four-time CoStar Power Broker and a LEED Accredited Professional. He co-founded Robot Neighbor, an AI implementation practice for small businesses, with his wife Kiki.
Retail Intelligence 2.0: The New Rules of Data Engagement
Full session also published on RETCON's official channel.
Four talks he can give tomorrow
AI in Action: What Actually Works in Shopping Center Operations
The workflows that survive contact with AI and the ones that quietly break. What a pilot really costs in staff time before it returns anything, where the vendor demo diverges from Tuesday morning, and what he killed after building it. The signature talk.
The Operator's AI Stack
A working tour of AI across the full lifecycle of a retail portfolio — acquisitions underwriting, lease abstraction and review, budgeting, marketing production, and accounting. Built in-house, in production, on a real portfolio.
Building Performance Standards & the Retail Landlord
Colorado's BPS regime (HB21-1286 / Energize Denver) and what it means for shopping center owners — benchmarking, capital planning for roofing, HVAC, and lighting, and how compliance interacts with valuation. Taught to licensed appraisers at the Colorado Appraisal Institute.
Small Business, Small AI
The same adoption curve where there's no IT department and no budget for a failed pilot — drawn from Robot Neighbor's work with local businesses and the chambers, BIDs, and economic development organizations that serve them.
Panels, stages & classrooms
Beyond the Buzz: Real AI Use Cases for the Retail Industry
ICSC@WESTERN 2026 · Show Floor Theater, Hall A · Tuesday, September 15, 2026 · 3:30–4:10 pm
Third consecutive year producing Western's technology programming. Ross demonstrates custom CRE tools live and introduces Mateo Romano (Adaptig), who advises boards and C-suites on AI strategy. The session follows a live deal from inbound opportunity through evaluation to a completed marketing package — built entirely with today's AI tools.
Retail Intelligence 2.0: The New Rules of Data Engagement
RETCON 2026 · MGM Grand, Las Vegas · March 11, 2026
How data, AI, and on-the-ground realities are reshaping portfolio strategy, property management, and leasing efficiency. Moderated by Lee Jackson (Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Bridgeline), with Mickey Papillon (VP Technology Strategy, Irvine Company), Ryan Byler (SVP Property Management, Stoltz Management), Jonathan Agassi (VP Go-To-Market, REAL), and Jordan Hearin (Chief Strategy Officer, ID Plans).
Watch on RETCON's channel →Developers / Owners / Investors
InterFace Denver Retail · The Ritz-Carlton Denver · January 21, 2026
With Meghann Kaltenstein (Macerich), Don Cloutier (Stockdale Capital Partners), Robb Brown (RealBerry), Nicholas Freddo (Kimco Realty), and Reed Treadwell (Curbline Properties). Moderated by Bonnie Russo (MBH Architects). Produced by InterFace Conference Group / France Media, publishers of Shopping Center Business.
ColoradoFest Stein Hoisting Competition
ICSC Colorado · Denver · presented by NewMark Merrill Companies
Hosted three consecutive years, most recently for 75+ retail professionals, with the ICSC Rocky Mountain Leadership Committee.
EV Charging at Shopping Centers
ICSC@WESTERN 2025
Recruited moderator Lane Chaplin, JD and panelists Yvonne Conley-Robinson, Laura McLaughlin, and Kent Maxey — EVgo, Brixmor, Kimco. Deal structures, power availability, permitting, and how fast charging drives dwell time and NOI.
Valuing Sustainability: How Building Performance Standards Impact Property Appraisals
Appraisal Institute, Colorado Chapter · 2025 Annual Potpourri Education Conference · CDOT Facility · May 9, 2025 · 1:00–3:00 pm
A two-hour continuing-education session for licensed appraisers on Colorado's Building Performance Standards: how BPS affects the appraisal and valuation of commercial real estate, the new underwriting considerations investors and owners need to account for, the risks of non-conformance, and the resulting tax impact on depreciation and functional obsolescence. Recurring instructor on Retail Commercial Real Estate and Regulation 28 / Green Building Legislation.
Developer / Owner / Investor
InterFace Denver Retail · The Ritz-Carlton Denver · January 22, 2025
With Amy Cara (East West Partners), Jon Hauser (Drake Real Estate Services), and Robb Brown (RealBerry). Moderated by Bonnie Russo, RDI, Architect and LEED AP Studio Director at MBH Architects. Hosted by InterFace Conference Group and France Media on the 2025 outlook for Denver retail.
AI in Action: Practical Workflow Applications for CRE Professionals
ICSC@WESTERN 2024 · September 24, 2024
Recruited and moderated Choon Lee (Founder & CEO, Abstra Company) and Topher Stephenson (Head of Operations, Aspire Commercial).
InterFace Denver Retail 2022
Hyatt Regency Denver Tech · 9th Annual · France Media
With fellow panelists Carly Krowl (Managing Director, Leasing, AmCap), Nick Kitaeff (VP Investments & Development, Confluent Development), Benjamin Pitman, and Austin Tillack. Hosted by Scott France of France Media, publishers of Shopping Center Business.
Seven years of receipts
Ross has written on retail real estate technology for the Colorado Real Estate Journal since 2019, and was analyzing applied AI in print by August 2021 — fifteen months before ChatGPT launched. These are dated calls he can be held to, not a roadmap slide.
AI in leasing: A landlord's report & a ghost story
What it actually takes to put AI into production across a shopping center portfolio — acquisitions, leasing, budgeting, marketing, and accounting. Written from the operator's chair, including the pilots that didn't survive.
Read the article (PDF) →What to watch: Shopping center management
Three issues facing retail landlords, reported out of a working group of Front Range landlord representatives: cost-effective security against property crime, the compliance runway for Colorado's Building Performance Standards, and the shift toward fixed CAM escalation to compress lease negotiation.
NewMark Merrill found monitored AI camera systems delivered better petty-crime deterrence at a small fraction of the cost of on-site security — against a comparable center spending roughly $900,000 a year on private guards.
Read the article (PDF) →Around the watercooler: Shopping center trends
Reported out of the landlord roundtable Ross convenes — every few quarters, the in-house leasing professionals for the two dozen or so regional and national shopping center owners active in Colorado. With CPI cresting 9%, the table was moving toward inflation-indexed rent language, larger fixed increases, and percentage rent.
Read the article (PDF) →How tech is shaping the future of restaurants
Written fifteen months before ChatGPT launched. On Chick-fil-A pairing tracking cameras with AI to manage inventory and food safety, Burger King's predictive "Blue Flame" menu board, restaurants experimenting with biometric and Bluetooth customer recognition, the race to frictionless ordering, and what Placer.ai foot-traffic data said about Colorado's recovery.
The new AI systems rolling out can anticipate restaurant-specific demand curves and compare them with other external data along with real-time inventory levels.
Read the article (PDF) →Owner insights: Navigating retail centers responses
Written in the first months of COVID-19, on what shopping center owners owed their tenants and their public: tenant-tracking ahead of rent modification requests, a reopening committee formed weeks before dates were announced, connecting tenants to CARES Act and PPP capital, contactless pickup zones, and NewMark Merrill's "Wave of Kindness" — over $14,000 in groceries handed to families at checkout.
Read the article (PDF) →Technology adoption in retail real estate
The first one. A survey of the retail real estate technology stack — data and analytics platforms, space-plan services, and the limits of static demographics against predictive data — and an argument that landlords were quietly losing deals to inaction.
Real estate is an information-centric industry, and the race for better data never stops.
Read the article (PDF) →Need someone on a panel — or a panel built?
Ross sits on panels, moderates them, and produces them from scratch — recruiting speakers, shaping the questions, and running the room. Tell us the audience and the date.
[email protected]