he future operating model for real estate isn’t just human-driven or AI-driven—it’s both,” says Francesco Decamilli, co-founder and CEO of Uniti AI.
Decamilli and his business partner, Emre Altinok, launched Uniti AI in 2023 with a focused goal: to build an AI-powered real estate leasing agent capable of engaging, qualifying, and converting leads across any communication channel. Now, the vision is catching on. Uniti AI has scaled from zero to seven figures in annual recurring revenue and recently secured $4 million in seed funding to help further grow the platform.
In late 2024, the company entered the self-storage market, a sector Decamilli says was “ripe for automation.” With high inquiry volume, repetitive workflows, and a need for speed, the match was natural. “We’ve been able to very quickly penetrate the market,” he says, adding that Uniti now serves more than 10 major self-storage brands, including Storage Star, Access Storage, and Space Station.
Facilities face a daily flood of inquiries via phone, email, text, websites, and forms. “The operators and their internal or external teams are expected to qualify, engage, and convert leads quickly—because in this industry, speed to lead wins deals.”
He adds that storage, in particular, is an event-driven business. “Death, divorce, displacement, downsizing, and deployment—those are the five Ds that often bring people to self-storage. If you miss their inquiry, or bungle your response, you’re going to lose them to the guy down the road.”
Uniti AI’s conversational platform is designed to behave like a real leasing agent, handling calls, texts, and emails, shifting channels without losing the thread, and integrating directly into an operator’s tech stack. “Our thinking was, what if we could create an AI agent that basically operates across any channel just like a human could?” says Decamilli.
Operators configure their Uniti AI agents to reflect their preferred tone and style, specify qualifying questions, and automate bookings, payments, and follow-up communications. “In a business that may get hundreds of leads per month, that’s a game-changer,” adds Decamilli, revealing that implementing Uniti AI typically results in conversion increases of 10 to 30 percent. “A lot of storage operators rely on patchwork systems—an on-site manager here, a call center there, a chatbot online, and a Siri-something on the kiosk. Our AI platform brings everything under one roof. Whether a customer is texting at 2 a.m. or calling during business hours, the same ‘agent’ responds instantly and consistently.”
Uniti AI also extends beyond lead generation into service and support, answering questions about gate codes, unit sizes, payment status, or account access. The platform ingests and understands site-specific information via scraped websites, uploaded documents, and internal data.
“We give the AI a knowledge base on the backend,” Decamilli says. “That way, the AI will be able to answer a question and answer it specifically regarding that site and its units and amenities. It can also speak knowledgably about the location and neighborhood and so on. That’s not something an offshore call center agent can do.”
While the platform brings value to many operators, Decamilli is candid about its fit. “If you’re a mom-and-pop shop handling a handful of calls a week, it might be overkill,” he says. “But for operations with three or more locations, the return on investment is substantial. Not only does it boost conversions, but it cuts call center costs and allows existing staff to focus on higher value work.”
For unmanned or hybrid models, the fit is even more obvious. “There’s no one on site, so you’re definitely using a variety of channels to capture new customers and respond to existing tenants. We can do it all, seamlessly.”
Give it a try; “Mike” at “StorageX” is waiting. That’s right, it’s Mike. “We thought we’d switch things up and make the AI assistant a guy for a change,” Decamilli says with a laugh.