Across Europe, student accommodation operators are grappling with a familiar challenge: rising expectations, shrinking margins, and the growing complexity of running mixed‑use, digitally enabled buildings. Into this landscape steps Chainels – a Rotterdam‑based technology company positioning itself as a Tenant Operating System (TenantOS) designed to unify the entire resident experience rather than an “app”.
GSL News sat down with Erwin Buckers, co-founder and CEO of Chainels, to explore why the company believes a tenant-centric operating system represents the future of building management, how AI is reshaping operational workflows, and why purpose-built platforms still outcompete in-house development efforts – even in an age of low-code tools and large language models.
The strategic shift to “TenantOS”
Chainels’ 2025 repositioning as “TenantOS” was a strategic articulation of its role in real estate technology. “We purposely put the end user – the customer of our customer – in the name. We’re not saying we are a real estate OS, but TenantOS because we are the interface for the tenants or residents, and that does not matter if it’s a commercial tenant or if it’s a resident or student,” Erwin explains.
While backend systems like ERPs and maintenance platforms remain essential, Chainels positions itself as the interface layer connecting these systems to end users. The rise of open APIs, standardised protocols like the Model Context Protocol (MCP), and AI capabilities has made this unified approach viable. “A decade ago, it was impossible because all the systems were in silos, but by design, we make an open system – we build everything with the assumption that you’ll want to connect to third‑party technology.”
B2B software with B2C standards
A core part of Buckers’ thesis is that proptech has to feel like consumer tech. Chainels may sell to investors and asset managers, but the daily users are residents and occupiers – and they won’t tolerate clunky workflows. “We are a B2B software company with B2C standards,” he explains, “we compare ourselves to platforms like Netflix or Spotify. You don’t read a manual before pressing play. You open the app, it understands you, and it simply works. That is the level of intuitiveness and personalisation we aim for – an experience that feels effortless from the first interaction.” This consumer-grade approach represents a departure from traditional enterprise software in real estate, where user experience has historically been an afterthought.
AI: automating the routine rather than replacing the strategic
As with every sector in 2026, real estate sees a large number of AI claims and promises. Chainels’ approach to AI is notably pragmatic: identify high-volume, routine tasks that can be automated, freeing human operators to focus on strategic work that genuinely requires human judgment and creativity.
“We look for opportunities where automation genuinely makes sense, where it improves efficiency, increases speed, and adds measurable value,” says Erwin. “If a process can be handled faster and more accurately by technology, it should be. That allows real estate teams to focus their time where they create real impact: in decisions, strategy and human interaction. AI should elevate their work, not replace it.”
Rather than positioning AI as a disruption for its own sake, Chainels applies it selectively: targeting operational friction while preserving the areas where human insight remains indispensable.
Chainels has implemented AI across a 360-degree view of building operations, including areas that might not immediately come to mind when people think about automation in property management.
Communication, for instance, represents significant time expenditure for operators. Chainels uses AI to ensure communications maintain the company’s tone of voice, to draft community messages from meeting notes, and to convert planning documents into structured content.
“If you think about many buildings that have certain events during the year – community events or scheduled maintenance that needs to be communicated – quite often these things are planned long in advance and maybe live in a Word document because you had a brainstorm together and made the calendar for the year,” Erwin explains. “Now you can just upload that Word document and it will fill it in for you and ask you at the end, ‘Did I do a good job?’ You already did the hard work with your team discussing what needs to be next, but spending the hours and days to put it into systems – that’s where we see the opportunity.”
Perhaps most impressively, Chainels has automated end-to-end service journeys. When a resident books a guest room, for instance, the system can handle approval, payment processing, and access control – granting the resident access to the space for precisely the booked time slot – without human intervention.
“Together with our client, we can design that flow so that we keep the human in the loop where it really matters,” Erwin notes. “And that is really interesting with AI – it understands language pretty well. Where you may say another word that is kind of related, and it still understands that you’re talking about that topic. That is the magic. By having that power now, it makes it possible to connect things.”
The build-versus-buy debate
With the proliferation of low-code platforms and AI tools that can generate code, some operators are questioning whether they should build their own tenant app in-house. Erwin’s response is nuanced but ultimately sceptical of the DIY approach.
“The first interesting thing is: what does ‘building it yourself’ mean? Because you’re already using certain technology for that,” he observes. “We have a lot of customers that say, ‘We build our own app,’ and they build that on top of our technology. I also agree that they build it. We are an out-of-the-box solution, but you can tailor so many details that at the end of the day, it will serve you with your specific business processes.”
Chainels offers a fully white-label solution, meaning end users typically have no idea the platform is built by Chainels rather than by the operator. “Your customers will not know it was built by us. Maybe somewhere in the footer, but that doesn’t matter.”
In Erwin’s view, the real value of Chainels’ TenantOS lies in the accumulated expertise behind it. Years of implementation across asset classes and geographies have translated into a structured, experience-driven framework.
“We’ve seen these use cases hundreds, if not thousands of times,” says Erwin. “That means we don’t start from a blank page. We know what works, what doesn’t, and what delivers results. Our platform is built on those best practices.”
Rather than offering a neutral toolkit, Chainels delivers an opinionated system, designed around the most effective and proven processes. This reduces decision fatigue, eliminates structural inefficiencies, and ensures that clients operate according to optimised workflows from day one.
Critically, he notes that the maintenance burden of in-house development is consistently underestimated. “It feels like you can build your own solution really quickly and affordably, and that is true in the beginning. But it is the maintenance side that kicks in a few years or months later, which is extremely underestimated and hard to budget for. The biggest proof we have is very simple: people build it themselves, and a few years later, they come to us, and we technically configure it for them again.”
Looking ahead: embedded experiences and intelligent buildings
Erwin envisions digital interfaces becoming increasingly invisible, embedded directly into physical environments rather than mediated through smartphones. “I don’t think there will be that many phones anymore – at least not in the way we use them now. Real estate and all the real-world products will become smarter and keep you up to date on things.”
Smart access control illustrates the shift. “Currently, we can fully embed that in the app, and you can open the door with your phone. In future, I don’t think that will be necessary anymore – the building will recognise you, and ideally, the building will work for you.” This vision of ambient intelligence, where buildings anticipate needs, represents a significant evolution from today’s app-centric model.
The future of proptech
Erwin predicts that the availability of AI agents and automation will increasingly force operators to be disciplined about considering when human involvement is essential in a process. “We’re all thinking: when do we need to hire a human, and when do you automate a process with an agent?” Erwin observes. “Before, we would think, ‘We have work, so we hire another person.’ Now we have started to think, ‘Or should we change the process so we can do more?’ Within a year the first operators won’t operate software; they will supervise intelligent systems. The tools won’t wait for instructions; they will anticipate, execute and optimise in the background. Human effort will shift from administration to decision-making. That’s the big change.”
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About Chainels
Chainels is a Rotterdam-based tenant experience platform serving approximately 1,000+ buildings across 22 European countries, with over half a million residents and commercial tenants using its white-label solution. The company provides a “TenantOS”- a unified interface layer that sits between backend property management systems and end users, supporting retail, office, co-working, residential, and mixed-use asset owners to have strong relationships with their tenants.
For more information, visit: https://getchainels.com/en
