RealPage Antitrust Case Poses AI Price-Setting Collusion Test

A proposed class action alleging a cartel among apartment landlords highlights the question of whether collective use of an artificial intelligence tool can amount to illegal collusion.

Renter plaintiffs claim dozens of landlords gave price-setting authority to RealPage Inc., a Texas-based revenue-management software company. The tool analyzes landlord-supplied data on pricing and leasing for apartments and then comes up with a price to charge for renting units in a specific area.

The case will show how decades-old antitrust laws might govern price-fixing suits involving algorithmic databases that crunch massive amounts of competitive information far faster than a group of humans ...