PPW Madrid 2025, what I loved this year.
- Hannah, Inoki
- Oct 17, 2025
- 7 min read
Heading home after a really epic few days in Madrid at the PPW conference. It's been a hell of a year for portals/ proptech! So not surprising that the turnout was insane I think it was well over 300 at the end and almost all C-level execs and stacks of market leaders. The energy was on point! the industry is standing on a technical cliff edge, and nobody's quite sure if we're about to leap forward or fall backwards.
Aside from the learnings, what I love about PPW is the community. You really feel like you're with your people, the ones who get it and you, others who really live and breathe this space, and who understand that property isn't just bricks and mortar, it's human stories wrapped in the biggest financial decision most people will ever make… the trillions of dollars in the layer cake doesn't hurt either.
This year the vibe was a little more edgy, there was a palpable mix of fear and fascination about where tech is taking us next, and whether the industry can keep up. The conversations weren't just about AI as a buzzword, (ok there were a few) but more on sharing predictions about the uncomfortable truth that AI is moving faster than commercial models can adapt.
The Gap Between Talking and Building
First up, there's a huge gap between ‘talking’ about AI and actually building incredible innovation using AI, or letting users take the steering wheel in guiding this evolution. Haider Ali Khan from Dubizzle was one of many standout presentations on this one, as much as it pains me to say as a hard core PropertyFinder groupie, his talk was refreshingly open about the different features coming out of their engine room and into users' hands, with experimental evidence shared generously with the room. This is what real innovation looks like: not press releases about AI labs, but actual products in market being tested, refined, and improved based on user behaviour. Too many companies are still at the "we're exploring AI" stage, while, the ones seemingly winning are those actually shipping features, feeling ok with uncertainty, collecting data, and iterating at lightning pace.
The Commercial Model Conflict Nobody Wanted to Talk About
My next observation was that underlying fear seems to be mainly centred on the effect of AI on commercial models, much more so than on consumer preference or behavioural consideration.
Edmund Keith (Online Marketplaces), challenged the room this year on why portals across the world, particularly the number ones, are so reluctant to unleash new AI-driven tech into the hands of their users to improve the user experience, and they were very quiet to honestly answer. After spending the last 16 years or so in proptech, from early stage to unicorns, I do have an opinion on this, though it's very open to be challenged!
In almost every portal around the world, we live with a constant conflict: building a product that services both the end-user (consumer) whilst driving value for the paying customer (the agent). It's a double-edged sword, and it's genuinely hard to balance. Most of the time, when push comes to shove, the paying client's demands win over user delight.
Even in portals with established VPA (Vendor Paid Advertising) models, despite more claims of being user-first, the reality is that the point of the sword stays firmly biased towards the industry customers over the users. Because historically that's where the money is, that recurring, predictable revenue that investors and markets love to see.
Portals have made huge profits capitalising on this relationship, and customer retention is still insane. What other software in the world can force year-on-year double-digit price rises and still retain customers for decades, changing almost nothing from their core product? The motivation to shift from customer-led to user-led simply isn't there….or not quite yet.
Where the Real Innovation Sits
Unless that is, you're journey is at the start, it was the early-stage players that were holding the majority of innovation findings. Why? Because claiming user consideration and preference is the golden ticket of their current flywheel. They can't win on brand, they can't win on content (listings), but they can win on the experience.
I've been incredibly lucky in my career to have worked for some exceptionally talented ‘legends’ in this space. If I look back at what commonalities are shared with those highly successful founders, naming no names but you know those ones who've gone on to create not just one but multiple unicorns, there's one thing that rings hard and true: The earlier days were absolutely obsessive about the user experience. OBSESSIVE with a big big O.
Instead of caving to pressure from customer feature ‘demands’ or investors needing to see cash returns ramp up faster, they refused to sacrifice even 1% of the user experience. And here's why that mattered, they understood that winning on user experience first would eventually create such a powerful moat that commercial models could be built on top of that foundation, not at the expense of it. Their track records proves the strategy works, but it requires patience, conviction and a heathy attitude to risk that is lacking in most established players.
This week I’ve talk about, watched and heard some fascinating ideas that leverages rapidly evolving AI technologies to transform the user experience, particularly this has been around search. These changes will eventually alter our entire conditioning of using portals and our digital property search behaviours, incidentally, behaviours that were designed by the very first super portals who have not really evolved since.
My Summary
The most interesting product advancements in this space are, and will continue to, come from new players, those hungry and with something to prove to the user, before the balance sheet. The big portals will continue to send out press releases about their AI labs, I am sure, but real change will be distilled.
If I unpick it a little more, I feel that unless there's a huge shift in the primary commercial models of most portals, innovation that greatly improves the user experience will continue to come in second. There's no motivation to rock the boat (yet yet yet), Why? Because the agent has been squeezed so hard on diminishing commission margins (and slower property valuation growth) that today, the greatest metric to quantify a number one position is not listings or traffic, it’s share of wallet.
Until portals can diversify revenue streams enough to directly or indirectly rely on independent (of agent) consumer revenue to grow their financials, the prioritisation roadmap will continue to favour features that extract more cash from agents over experiences that offer both delight and real value to users. The consumer, who should be the most important person in the room, remains secondary.
But that attitude is loosing it's shine, it couldn’t last forever! It’s not only coming from the tech, there is a huge generational shift on the horizon,. Users who are digitally native in all aspects of their life, and bring with them expectations so much higher than the portal audiences of the last 25 years. Adapt or die, they won’t give you their loyalty as easily.
Conference Highlights
Back to the real stars - the speakers! The quality this years was outstanding, but I had a few favourites, if you get the chance to see any of them again or watch any recordings I recommend a view. Ok some of my hot watches were..
Malcolm Myers from EIG never ever disappoints, but I'm yet to find anyone who can rival his exceptional insights into the industry, delivered in a way that's both meaningful and genuinely enjoyable to watch.
Haider Ali Khan from Dubizzle. already mentioned this a little, but worth repeating. His presentation was refreshingly open, and the experimental evidence he shared showed what happens when you actually let users drive product evolution.
Mike DelPrete. I mean, he's a bit of an industry legend, but his dive into the US soap opera was so well put together and insightful. I love how he can tell a great story with data.
Daniel Cooper from Jitty. I love what they're doing, and it was a really honest take on the challenges and fun of altering search behaviour in the UK. It was also great to hear a presentation from the eyes of an engineer. It's rare, but some developers do speak!
Rich Hayes from Zoopla elegantly cut through the noise surrounding Zoopla with a sharp take on how they're turning changes in user behaviours into more customer value, specifically at their critical flywheel moment, the seller leads (which get a surprisingly low amount of air time across the board).
Andy Florence from CoStar. I can't really miss out the headliner. Simon always manages to position (or sneak in) questions that I'm sure have his team back on CoStar island hyperventilating, but we love it. Again, his talk captivated the entire room.
And my best for last: Edmund Keith, from the house at Online Marketplaces. His insights into this industry are always stand out for me, he manages to humanise the data that reminds us all, at the end of the day, it's real people we're all impacting, and we're all passionate about making that better.
The Bottom Line
It’s been a Netflix worthy year of action but the industry is at a bit of an inflection point. AI isn't coming, it's very much here. The question isn't whether it will transform property search, marketing, and transactions (it will). But whether the incumbents will move fast enough to stay relevant, or whether they'll cling to legacy commercial models until new players steal the market from under their noses.
The next generation of users won't tolerate poor or fragmented product experiences, irrelevant ‘over commercialised’ listings won’t have a home, and platforms that prioritise agents over people will be ditched. The winners, I predict, will be the ones that really put users first again, not in press releases! but back into the fabric of their business, their roadmaps, resource allocation, and maybe most importantly right now, into their commercial strategy.
Many thanks to the team at OnlineMarketplaces.com for a truly epic few days, my adopted family at Iovox for inviting me, and to everyone I managed to see this week who generously gave me their time, support, advice, oh and their super strong margaritas. I am about to land back in France and getting stares to put my Mac away, so if you made it to the end thanks for flying with me! See you at the next one ;)
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