Nearly 200 years ago, one of the great scientists of his time, Charles Lyell, published, “The Principles of Geology.” In this influential work, Lyell extended the notion that changes in the geological record were gradual over time, giving credence to the notion of “uniformitarianism.”

Uniformitarianism was cast against the notion of “catastrophism,” which held that huge changes occurred as the result of massive stimulus and were few and far between. Lyellian gradualism was canonical, even in evolutionary biology, before an intervention in the early 1970s by Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould.

Eldredge and Gould posited that the geological record did not support gradualism in evolution and, instead, suggested what they called “punctuated equilibrium” in which massive changes happened over short periods of time; in between things were static. Gradualism, they argued, was not supported by the geological record.

Analogies are never perfect, but the debate over punctuated equilibrium versus gradualism reminds us of the world of technology and more specifically, of the effects advanced technology will have on the real estate industry. One of these epoch-making technological innovations is Computer Vision. Put simply, Computer Vision will create massive change over a short period in the real estate industry, similar to the punctuated equilibrium example.

Computer Vision is a game-changer in the real estate value chain and the inflection point is upon us. The question has gone from theoretical to practical as the pace of innovation accelerates during this period of intense change.