James, three months on: now on video, and part of the team
Short answer: since 24 September 2026 you can have a video call with James, our AI assistant, on this website: in English, or in Mandarin on our Chinese site. He also answers our phone at any hour, knows every page of this site, and handles a growing share of our paperwork. A person still makes every decision.
In June we introduced James and told you where we wanted to take him next: a face, and more of the languages our landlords and tenants speak. Both are now live. This post covers what has changed, what James does that you never see, and what comes next.
Can I really have a video call with James?
Yes. Go to the James page and press "Start a video call with James". You talk, and James answers out loud, face to face. It is the same James you meet in the chat, with the same knowledge and the same rules.
He tells you he is an AI as the call begins. He uses your microphone, never your camera, and the call is transcribed so the team can follow up on anything you ask for. Ask for homes and he shows up to three of them under the video, with the photos and a link. Ask about a rule and he answers from our published pages. On video, as in the chat, a claim he cannot support is held back before he says it.
While we learn how people use video, calls are time-limited and there is a daily allowance. If the video button is not showing, the chat and the phone are always there.
Video calls are in English on this site and in Mandarin on our Chinese site. Most of our landlords live outside the UK, many of them in mainland China, so a face-to-face conversation in Mandarin matters to us. If that is you, our overseas landlords page is the place to start.
How can I reach James now?
| How | Where | Languages | Live since |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chat | The chat button on every page of this site | More than 70: write in yours | June 2026 |
| Voice in your browser | "Talk to James", on every page | More than 70: speak in yours | June 2026 |
| +44 7463 580011 | More than 70, by text | June 2026 | |
| Phone | Our office number, 020 3865 1500, at any hour | English and fourteen others | 15 September 2026 |
| Video | The James page, and our Chinese site in Mandarin | English and Mandarin | 24 September 2026 |
The fourteen phone languages besides English went live on 21 September. So far the proof is our own test calls in each of them: at the time of writing, no caller from the public has yet spoken to James in a language other than English. When the first one does, the date goes on our build log.
What does James know?
Everything on this website: 188 pages in English, 187 of which also exist in Chinese. That covers the Renters' Rights Act guides, our fees and terms, the area guides, the new-build and overseas-landlord pages, and 60 articles before this one. By our own count, the English pages run to more than 300,000 words.
We don't assume he knows them. We measure it. As at 25 September 2026, his index held all 188 English pages. When we change a page, he rereads it by himself within two hours. This article is the first brand-new page since that started, so it is also the test.
What he does not memorise is anything that changes by the day. Listings, availability and viewing times are read live from our systems, so the rent he quotes for a home on our books is today's rent.
What does James do with our email?
On our team page, James is listed as the eighth member of the team. Most of what earns him that place happens out of sight, and most of that is email.
- He reads it. Every email that reaches info@, our main inbox, is read and sorted, seven days a week. So is the mail to our shared desk addresses.
- He sends it to the right person. He recognises more than 100 kinds of email, from deposit notices to letters from building managers. The ones for a person go to the desk that owns them: 1,366 since 11 July 2026. Automated notices that need nobody, such as signing notifications, daily market reports and key-handover alerts, he sets aside: 963 of them.
- He turns the work into tasks. Anything that needs someone to act, whether it came by email, phone or chat, becomes a task in our team's own app, and most of those appear on our job board too. Nothing depends on someone remembering to open an inbox. Since the end of August he has opened 1,280 of them, and since 24 September the email's attachments travel with the task.
- He files the bills. Council tax, utility and service charge bills for the homes we manage are filed against the right home as numbered tickets: 144 since 11 July 2026.
What else does James do behind the scenes?
- The phone. Since 15 September, James has answered 59 calls from members of the public, from 40 different callers, three of them outside office hours. 39 of those calls left a record on the desk (a viewing request, a message, a repair) before anyone had to write a thing down.
- Viewings. He offers real times from Warren's diary and pencils one in. Warren confirms by text and email, so a person always stands behind the booking.
- Valuations. When a landlord asks for a valuation, the file for the call is on our board within seconds by chat or phone, and within a quarter of an hour by email: the request, the official rent for the borough, our own asking rents nearby and a checklist. Harvey hears about it straight away.
- The morning brief. At 8:30 every morning, James sends the team their own short brief: what is overdue, what is due today, what comes next.
- Repairs. A tenant can report a repair at any hour and gets a reference number there and then.
Figures as at 25 September 2026.
Is James learning to run our repairs desk?
Yes, and carefully. Repairs is the first desk James is learning to run rather than simply route. Nothing James drafts about a repair reaches a landlord, a tenant or a contractor until Harvey has read it, and James never moves money. We are building the desk to check every quote against what that kind of job has cost us before, and to keep the tenant told at every step. When it has proved itself, it will get an article of its own.
Is James replacing our team?
No. We won't use James to put a wall between you and a person. He takes the admin, the chasing and the record-keeping, so the people can spend their time where it counts: with landlords, with tenants, and at the homes themselves. Anything that needs judgement, care or a signature goes to a person, and James tells you when he is handing you over.
Where are we taking James next?
"I want James to run seminars and help applicants get ready, not just be somebody who books appointments." Harvey Juttla, director
| When | What James does | Status |
|---|---|---|
| June 2026 | Chat on every page, voice in your browser, and WhatsApp | Live |
| July 2026 | The post room: every email to info@ read and sorted, bills filed as numbered tickets | Live |
| August 2026 | Turns the work in our inboxes, calls and chats into tasks for the team | Live |
| 15 September 2026 | Answers our phone at any hour | Live |
| 21 September 2026 | Fourteen languages besides English on the phone | Live (proof so far: our own test calls) |
| 24 September 2026 | Video calls, in English and Mandarin | Live |
| 24 September 2026 | Knows all 188 pages of this site, and rereads a page within two hours of a change | Live |
| Now | Learning to run our repairs desk, with Harvey reading every message | Building |
| Next | Showing you what he is talking about beside him on a video call: the photos, the floor plan, the area guide | Next |
| Next | Talking applicants through affordability, referencing and guarantor cover before they apply | Next |
| Next | Short seminars for landlords and tenants on the London market and the Renters' Rights Act | Next |
When James talks an applicant through what referencing looks at, he helps them understand where they stand. He does not decide who gets a home: a person on our team does.
We put no dates on the last three. In June we wrote that we wanted to give James a face and more languages, and that we would never claim a capability before it was real. Both are now in the table as Live. When the next one is ready, you will read about it here, and it will be dated on our build log.
Try him
Start a video call on the James page. Ring 020 3865 1500 at any hour. Or open the chat on this page and ask him about this article: it is the first new page since his automatic reading went live, so it is also the test.
If you are a landlord weighing us up, book a free rental appraisal. James takes the details, and Harvey gets back to you.
Sources
- James's call log, read 25 September 2026: calls of 15 seconds or more since 15 September 2026, with our own staff and test numbers left out.
- The post room's own records, read 25 September 2026: tickets, emails passed to a desk and notices set aside since 11 July 2026, and the tasks James has opened for the team since 26 August 2026.
- James's knowledge index and this site's sitemap, read 25 September 2026: 188 English pages indexed out of 188, and our own count of the words in those pages' main text.
- Our landlord records, 9 September 2026: 58 of 93 landlords with an active tenancy live outside the UK, 46 of them in mainland China.
- Our build log: the dated record of what went live, and when.
- Meet James, our AI property assistant, June 2026.
What James says is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice, and he hands you to a person whenever you need one.