Planning approvals in England have hit a ten-year low. Just 242,610 homes were granted permission in 2023, down 26% from the peak in 2019, and falling year on year since then. Leading developers across the UK are ready to build, but the system meant to unlock land is slowing them down.
The current planning system still relies on handwritten notes and scanned PDFs that even routine decisions can take weeks or months. But at London Tech week in June, Sir Keir Starmer announced the launch of Extract, an AI tool developed with Google trained to pull data from old maps, documents, and plans. In trial runs, tasks that have taken planners an hour were completed in under 3 minutes. And with councils reportedly spending over 250,000 hours a year doing this sort of work, the time-saving potential is massive.
The government’s introduction of Extract is an admission that the current planning system clearly isn’t working and reform requires smarter systems, not just more staff. Planning officers are overburdened, developers are waiting, and aspiring homeowners are priced out. AI might not be a one-stop solution but it has the potential to get things moving faster. Internationally, it already is. In countries like Germany and Japan, brick-laying robots are building homes. In Australia, AI technology is already being used to speed up planning approvals. In America and other countries, VR technology allows buyers to virtually visit properties without leaving their homes.
Housebuilders deal with huge amounts of data across projects from planning details to supply chains and customer queries. AI could spot patterns, flag issues, and offer insights that would take teams much longer to uncover manually. It could help planners speed up decisions and cut through admin. And beyond planning, housebuilders could be missing a trick by not tapping into AI across the rest of their operations. Developers handle thousands of customer interactions every year and a smart chatbot, trained on real customer data, could give homeowners instant answers around the clock.
Only 21% of UK businesses are using any form of AI at all. That means the opportunity for businesses in housebuilding and property is still wide open. AI won’t solve the housing crisis on its own but it offers significant potential for transforming the planning system if applied smartly. With the right level of oversight, it could bring much-needed pace and precision to how we plan, build, and buy homes
