Arlington-based homebuilder giant D.R. Horton is tapping Prophetic, an AI-native platform startup for land acquisition and development analysis, to tackle the housing shortage and bring affordable new housing online faster.

“One of the largest challenges to providing affordable housing is the identification, acquisition and entitlement of land suitable for development,” Jason Jones, VP of data analytics at D.R. Horton, said in a statement. “We’re confident the insights provided by Prophetic are going to help us expand homeownership opportunities for hard-working American individuals and families.”  

Portland, Oregon-based Prophetic said the move “marks one of the most significant applications of artificial intelligence in U.S. homebuilding to date,” amid growing demand and complex land-use rules, empowering faster, more sustainable growth across the U.S.

“Prophetic was built for this moment,” Oliver Alexander, founder and CEO of Prophetic, said in a statement. “Housing demand is outpacing supply across the U.S., and land teams need rapid discovery and faster site evaluation, turning thousands of pages of zoning rules and parcel data into clear, verifiable buy-or-don’t-buy decisions. Our AI platform lets teams evaluate dramatically more opportunities in less time, supporting growth across markets.”

Instead of months, ‘consistent go/no-go guidance in minutes’

The U.S. housing market is short an estimated 4.7M homes, according to a new Zillow analysis of recently released Census data, putting sustained pressure on builders to deliver supply faster. Yet the process of bringing new housing units to market remains hampered by the manual workload to examine sites and complex local zoning codes, often involving thousands of pages, Prophetic said.

Prophetic’s AI-native platform translates zoning rules, environmental data, and parcel records into instant, verifiable site potential. Prophetic customers have already analyzed 183,000 parcels across 20 states identifying over 3,000 high potential development sites. What once took weeks of analysis can now be done in minutes, enabling evaluation of many more opportunities across the nation, the company said.

Prophetic applies AI to unify zoning rules, environmental diligence, parcel ownership data, and market activity into a single platform, featuring ZoneAI, SiteAI, DevMap, DealDesk, and SearchAI. Instead of manually searching thousands of pages of codes and maps, land teams generate educated zoning site plans, yield estimates, and “consistent go/no-go guidance in minutes.” That consistency lets homebuilders, developers, engineering firms, and brokerages nationwide evaluate more opportunities with confidence and at scale, the company said.

Prophetic is moving fast to bring AI to the plate to help solve the housing shortage. In July, the company launched DevMap, the first 50-state map of new residential subdivision developments.

Launched in July 2024, Prophetic is rapidly expanding its reach around the United States, an expansion fueled by the April completion of its seed funding round, led by Entrada Ventures.

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