Insights for removal companies
who want to lead, not follow.

CentralNest replaces the routine in-person survey with an async video walkthrough. No call, no scheduling, no second person required for the moves that don't need one. Competitors moved the surveyor onto a video call instead, for every job. We think that's a stopgap, not the answer.

This isn't an argument against surveyors. Some moves genuinely need someone on-site: an elderly customer who wants a familiar face, a business relocation, a high-value or complex property. What we're against is spending a surveyor's morning on a routine three-bed semi that the customer could film themselves in ten minutes. Take the admin off the surveyor's plate, and free up their time for the visits that need them.

Three ways to survey a move

A surveyor visit needs two diaries to line up. Most software built after 2020 moved that same visit onto a video call, same two people, same live appointment, just over Zoom instead of the hallway. It saves the drive. It doesn't save the diary problem. CentralNest skips the appointment altogether: the customer films their own home whenever it suits them, and the AI builds the inventory from the footage.

Three ways to get the video, no calls involved

We don't force one workflow on every customer. There are three routes into the same async process, and none of them involve a live call.

Customer-led. The customer records the walkthrough themselves on their phone, at whatever hour suits them. This is the default, and the one most people choose given the option.

Collaborative. The customer records the video, then the removal company reviews it and follows up async, by message or a note on the quote, rather than a scheduled call.

Surveyor-driven. For trickier jobs, the company's own surveyor records the walkthrough on-site. Still no call. The footage goes through the same AI pipeline as everything else.

Why we built it this way

Speed. A video call still needs a slot in two calendars. A self-recorded walkthrough needs a slot in one, the customer's, and they can do it at 11pm in their pyjamas if that's when they get round to it. Quotes come back in minutes, not days.

Consistency. A person doing a video call gets tired, distracted, or rushed on a Friday afternoon. The AI checks every room, every item, every access point, the same way, every time. Fewer items get missed. Fewer quotes get revised on moving day.

Respect for the customer's time. Booking a call means someone has to clear 30 to 45 minutes, wait for the surveyor to join, and stay put for the whole thing. A self-recorded walkthrough takes a few minutes and fits around a life that isn't built around your booking calendar.

Other industries have had this argument too

Banking had the same fork in the road. Some high street banks added video tellers: a real person, on a screen, at a set time. The neobanks, Monzo and Starling among them, skipped the teller for most everyday banking: identity checks, statements, support, all handled async, in the app, on the customer's schedule.

It isn't a clean win either way. When something goes wrong, people still want a human to call, which is exactly why we don't force self-service on every job either. Most moves don't need a live appointment. The ones that do, an elderly customer, a business relocation, a complex property, still get a person, not a video call as a substitute.

The number that convinced us

We didn't design around a theory. We checked our own data. Across the last 100 quotes on our platform, 41 were completed entirely self-service: no call, no surveyor, no nudge from us. Given the choice, roughly four in ten customers just get on and do it themselves.

For jobs that don't need a visit, customers aren't waiting for a friendlier version of the call. Given the choice, plenty would rather do it themselves, and that frees up the surveyor's day for the moves that do need a person in the room.

On 25 April 2026, CentralNest co-founder Victoria Papathanasiou took to the stage at the FEDEMAC & Young Movers Committee conference in Crete, delivering a keynote to removal industry leaders from across Europe on why AI is no longer optional for movers and what the data actually shows.

FEDEMAC, the Federation of European Movers Associations, represents the interests of removal companies across the continent. Being invited to speak at their annual gathering, alongside the Young Movers Committee (YMC), was a milestone for CentralNest: a chance to bring a data-driven, grounded perspective to the biggest conversation in the industry right now.

The shift has already started

The central message of the talk was direct: AI won't kill your business. Ignoring it will. Drawing on lessons from three other industries that faced the same fear, the NHS, remote working, and the property sector, the speech challenged the room to question the excuses that keep good businesses stuck.

"AI will replace my staff." "It's too expensive." "We'll wait for it to mature." Each of these, the data shows, is now a more dangerous position than the risk they're trying to avoid. Businesses delaying AI adoption are paying what researchers call an invisible tax: an estimated €8–15k per month in wasted labour, lost leads, and avoidable human error. Meanwhile, their competitors are using agentic AI not just to write emails, but to run entire workflows.

Victoria Papathanasiou presenting "The AI-Powered Mover" at FEDEMAC Week & YMC, Crete, 25 April 2026.

Your gut is the captain. Your data is the instruments.

A highlight of the session was a live audience exercise using Slido, where delegates were asked how much they trusted data compared to their own instincts. The answers opened one of the most engaged conversations of the conference.

The analogy that landed hardest: the difference between a map and a GPS. The experienced driver who says "I know these roads" isn't wrong, but the GPS can see the accident three miles ahead. It doesn't replace experience. It gives experience better information to work with.

Applied to removals, the talk unpacked three moments where operators consistently trust instinct over data and consistently pay for it.

AI doesn't replace people. It replaces paperwork.

The second half of the keynote introduced the "AI Superpowers": practical tools removal companies can deploy right now, grouped around three capabilities: Time, Vision, and Prediction.

From an Autonomous Booking Agent that monitors incoming leads and sends self-booking links in real time, eliminating the invisible tax of slow response, to a Multi-Modal Video Intake that turns a customer's smartphone walkthrough into an itemised inventory in minutes. From a Sentiment Safeguard that catches a stressed customer message the night before move day (before a 5-star job becomes a 1-star review), to a Dynamic Backload Optimiser that fills empty return miles with high-margin smaller jobs.

The technology exists. It works. And the firms implementing it are already pulling ahead. The session closed with a challenge to every delegate in the room: "Which repetitive task do you want to delete from your Monday?"

Before starting CentralNest, we moved flats. To save everyone time, we did a video survey with the moving company. The mover was confident. We were confident.

Then moving day came. The van was too small.

It meant two trips, double the time, and double the cost. A disaster for everyone. Lost profit, a stressed-out crew, and an unhappy customer. And here's what we realised: the problem wasn't the video. It was the guesswork. It was a human eye trying to do a machine's job.

This is where AI comes in. It doesn't replace the mover, it replaces the guesswork.

Every major service industry has faced this same fear. And every time, the firms that moved first won. Here's what the data from three other industries tells us.

In today's market, AI certainty is the difference between surviving and leading. Are you ready to remove the guesswork?

Your gut is the captain. Your data is the instruments. Data isn't here to replace your instinct, it's here to sharpen it.

Most removal company owners make decisions based on feel. That's not wrong, experience matters. But when feel and data disagree, data usually wins. Here are three myths the numbers consistently bust.