Q&A with Hirdeyjeet Singh, Co-founder & COO, XOTO Proptech
By Nazish Shah • Fri Oct 23 2026
1. Let’s start simply by understanding - What is XOTO, and where does the name come from?
XOTO (say it “Ex-Oh-To”) is an AI-powered platform that simplifies mortgages and real estate transactions, end to end. The name has a bit of meaning in it. The “X” stands for technology and limitless possibilities, and “OTO” stands for Offline-to-Online. Property is still a deeply personal, in-person business. We’re not trying to take the human out of it. We’re trying to bridge the physical and the digital so the experience feels effortless.
2. Why did you start XOTO?
It began with watching someone close to me go through it. A friend of mine was buying his first home in Dubai. He was smart, well-prepared and excited. Within weeks he was exhausted. He’d found a flat he loved on one platform, then spent days working out whether he could afford it, because every bank gave him a different answer. Documents went back and forth over WhatsApp and email, and nobody could tell him where his application stood. One evening he called me and said, “I just want someone to tell me what’s happening.”
That line stayed with me. Here was a capable person making the biggest purchase of his life, and he felt lost. The agent was working hard too, but was juggling leads, calls and paperwork across five different tools. Nobody was failing. The system around them was disconnected.
I remember thinking: what if the property, the mortgage and the paperwork lived in one place, with an intelligent guide beside the buyer and the agent the whole way? That question became XOTO. We wanted a connected journey where customers feel guided, agents get their time back to spend with people, and technology does the heavy lifting quietly in the background.
My earlier career in operations and people leadership taught me that great experiences come from well-run systems and well-supported people, and that’s the thread I’ve carried into XOTO. Technology should never replace trust and relationships. It should clear the friction out of the way so people can focus on each other.
3. What problem are you trying to solve at Xoto?
Honestly, the feeling of being lost. Buying or financing a property is one of the biggest decisions in someone’s life, and the journey is scattered. You search on one platform, work out affordability somewhere else, approach banks separately, then hope everything stays in sync. Agents feel it too. They’re running leads, calls, WhatsApp chats and mortgage paperwork across different tools. Every handoff is a place where time is lost and trust can slip. We wanted to ask: what if the whole journey lived in one connected place?
4. What does “connected ecosystem” actually mean?
Think of it as one continuous thread. A customer discovers verified properties. Our AI recommends the ones that fit their preferences. The platform connects them with suitable lenders and digitises the documentation. Then the deal closes. The property and the financing aren’t separate worlds, because our Real Estate Engine and Mortgage Engine work side by side. The customer never has to start over, and neither does the agent supporting them.
4. Why put mortgages and real estate in the same platform?
Because in real life they’re one decision. People don’t buy a property and then wonder how to pay for it, or the other way round. They need to know what they can afford and what fits them at the same time. When eligibility, lender options and property matching sit together, buyers move forward with confidence instead of guesswork, and they can see where their application stands at every stage.
5. Who is XOTO built for?
Everyone in the journey: buyers and renters, agents and freelancers, developers, lenders and the people who aspire to work in real estate. Our goal is to democratise the industry so that anyone can become a successful property advisor, with technology and an earning ecosystem behind them.
6. For those agent-level tools, what does XOTO offer?
We’ve built a toolkit that covers the whole workflow. Grid is the real estate CRM platform for inventory, AI-generated offers and presentations, and pipeline tracking. Vault is a mortgage command centre for comparing lenders and tracking applications. Blitz brings calls, WhatsApp and email into one screen with automated follow-ups. The idea is that an advisor should spend their time with clients, not switching between apps.
7. Now, the part everyone asks about: XO. What is it?
XO is the AI core of XOTO. It’s what makes the ecosystem feel connected rather than just co-located. It powers the property matching, the eligibility assessment and the intelligence behind the journey. But we don’t see XO as a hidden engine. We see it as a companion.
8. What do you mean by a companion?
We’re giving XO a face. XO is a mascot, a friendly presence people can talk to and ask for help, and it’s designed to be an assistant to every stakeholder in the ecosystem:
- For customers, it’s the guide: “What can I afford? Which area suits my family? Where is my application?”
- For agents, it’s a teammate: preparing offers, following up with leads, spotting where a deal needs attention.
- For developers, it’s a bridge to demand: helping surface the right projects to the right buyers and advisors.
- For our own employees, it’s an internal partner too, helping teams answer questions and work faster.
Same intelligence, same context, different conversations depending on who’s asking. That’s what a truly connected ecosystem looks like: everyone has someone to turn to who understands the whole picture.
10. Is there a risk that AI replaces the human advisor?
We think it’s the opposite. Property decisions are emotional. People want someone they trust beside them. XO takes on the repetitive work, such as scoring leads, drafting presentations, chasing updates and answering the same questions at 11pm, so the agents can show up for the conversations that matter.
11. You recently announced a joint venture with Ikonic International, part of the Sawarthia Group. What does it mean?
It’s a 50:50 partnership that pairs Sawarthia Group’s established business foundation and market relationships with XOTO’s AI-powered technology. For us it’s about credibility and reach, and about scaling a broker-led model across the UAE.
12. What makes XOTO different from other PropTech platforms?
Most solutions solve one piece- We’ve tried to build the whole journey as one connected system, with the AI shared across all of it. That creates a flywheel. Advisors with several income streams stay and bring others, and customers who start in Connect can become advisors themselves. Each part strengthens the others.
13. Where does XOTO go from here?
We want to be the place where anyone in the UAE can buy, sell, rent or finance a property with confidence, and where anyone with ambition can build a career in real estate. If a first-time buyer feels guided, an aspiring advisor feels supported, and a developer feels connected to the right audience, then we’re doing it right.
15. What is one key message you would like to share with the Future PropTech Summit community?
Technology is never the goal. It’s the enabler. The real measure of a PropTech company is whether a first-time buyer feels guided, whether an agent gets hours back to spend with clients, and whether a lender or developer is better connected to the people they serve.
What I’d say to this community is that the future won’t be built by isolated tools. It will be built by connected ecosystems, where technology, partnerships and people work as one journey rather than a chain of handoffs. At XOTO, that’s what we’re building: AI that supports every stakeholder, and a platform where anyone with ambition can take part.
And leadership matters as much as the technology. The best systems only work when you look after the people running them and the people they serve. Get that right, and the industry becomes smarter, faster and more human at the same time.
If you’d like to see what that looks like in practice, come and visit us at Booth XX.
Meet the team, try Grid, Vault and say hello to XO. Whether you’re an agent, developer, lender, investor or simply curious about where real estate is heading, we’d love to hear your ideas. You can also find us anytime at www.xoto.ae.