Technology has always moved and, I believe, will always move faster than organizations and industries can adapt. Two reasons this happens are that existing infrastructure is costly and burdensome to replace, and the human factor.
As organizations in all fields feel compelled to adopt and integrate artificial intelligence (AI), the second of those two reasons creates a dichotomy that challenges AI strategies. And this is fair.
How can an organization force the adoption of new technology and systems when each individual at the organization is going to react differently? Some will want to try all the things and adopt them at an almost unreasonable rate. This creates potential risk, heightens the insecurities of less-progressive colleagues, and ultimately diminishes cross-departmental connection.
Some will be open to adopting if they can do it on their own terms. They need to be comfortable with the tech, but also want an understanding of how it can improve what they are doing and augment their own expertise.
Others, of course, will want nothing to do with it. These are the technology-averse, the skeptics, and the “only so many hours in the day” folks. Like all ideas, though, AI will be tested in the marketplace and, if it provides an advantage, will eventually increase in adoption until that advantage is eroded away.
The real estate sector’s AI push (and pull)
The real estate sector is a prime example of this push-and-pull. As Greater Vancouver Realtors CEO Jeff King and I wrote in a REM article titled, Real estate take notice: The consumer is undefeated, the sector’s ability to adapt to changing consumer expectations will dictate future success. But, here again, the reality is that the human element will come into play. Not all Realtors are eager to adapt to new technologies, while others have already incorporated AI agents into their everyday workflows.
No matter where individuals in the sector fall on this spectrum, it is incumbent on everyone to appreciate how AI will impact them. That is, each of us must understand AI in the broader ecosystem — how consumers are interacting with it, how it will impact their current marketing and consumer engagement methods, and how it will impact the Realtor value proposition.
I don’t make a habit of eavesdropping, but I was in a hotel lobby recently when an older guest walked up to the reception desk and told a staff member that she hadn’t been able to find the checkout time on their website. She said, “I had to go to ChatGPT.” Take careful note: she didn’t say that she Googled it.
Regardless of your individual interest in adopting AI or new tech, this anecdote, to me, is emblematic of a quantifiable evolution in consumer habits. So, what do you need to take away?
How consumer behaviour is quietly shifting
First, this is a shifting tide that doesn’t seem to have demographic or habitual borders. Second, beyond considering where your advertising dollars are going — Google AdWords, social media reach and SEO will all be affected by the growing presence of AI — this trend also suggests that consumers may start interacting with real estate data and information differently, if they’re not already.
We’re moving beyond the age of typing an address into Google and receiving a list of internet pages and a pin on a map. As consumers interact with AI models and those models become increasingly exposed to real estate data (as I recently wrote about in a separate REM article), their expectations of the sector will change.
Here’s an exercise that’ll help illustrate my point. Take a second now, go to ChatGPT, and type in, “I live at [insert address]. What is my home worth?”
(I’ll now assume you came back to finish reading this article and didn’t go down a rabbit hole of testing ChatGPT’s limits in real estate valuation.)
The first thing you notice with this type of experiment is how robust the response is. With a simple adjustment to the prompt, such as “please provide a full and comprehensive comparative market analysis on the same property,” it becomes even more complete.
The accuracy of the content is something people always gravitate to and, of course, need to be careful with, but it isn’t the overriding point of the exercise.
What this means for the Realtor value proposition
The point is that as the internet and AI learning models become increasingly populated with what has often been considered proprietary information, the consumer is getting more information, more quickly, than they ever have. The overall consumer experience is going to change, and so the Realtor value proposition must change.
Consider this along with the fact that consumers are turning to AI models to answer everyday questions (including what time they need to check out of their hotel rooms), and it suddenly doesn’t matter whether we want to adopt AI or new technology. A significant number of real estate clients are adopting it, and it’s on us to understand the implications of that adoption. Our understanding of how others are impacted will also impact us.
For those who have been early adopters on the AI front, as well as those who have been slower out of the gate, I encourage you to be aware of the impact AI is having on our sector, our stakeholders, and our value propositions. Have conversations with your clients about their experiences, monitor your marketing investment and engagement stats, and be aware of how AI models are changing consumer habits.
These shifts are inevitable, but our collective appreciation that change is underway will better prepare us to adapt.
As a former managing broker and realtor, Trevor Koot’s nearly two decades in organized real estate gives him hands-on expertise in understanding the profession’s needs. Before stepping in as CEO at the BC Real Estate Association, he served as CEO of Kamloops and District Real Estate Association for four years and Kootenay Association of Realtors for three before successfully merging the two into the Association of Interior Realtors. Trevor’s leadership in the real estate sector began long before his CEO career when he was Chair of the Saskatchewan Real Estate Commission for five years. He played a key role in redrafting provincial real estate regulations during his tenure. Trevor also served two years as Chair of the Governance Committee at the Association of Real Estate License Law Officials.
He holds multiple degrees, from a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology and a minor in Mathematics through the University of Saskatchewan to a Master of Business Administration degree through Royal Roads University. Trevor is adding to his extensive education through his current pursuit of completing a Master of Laws degree at York University. His daughter, Abby, attends the University of Victoria while he and his wife, Jill, live in Vancouver’s Chinatown.