- Artificial intelligence, such as Amazon's Alexa or Apple's Siri, will only grow smarter in the coming years.
- Tracking the who, what, where and when of our day-to-day lives can make an "internet of you" that anticipates and delivers product suggestions and personalized recommendations.
- An "internet of you" would enable agents to take client data spread across various platforms and combine it into one place.
Over the past year, tech wizards and enthusiasts alike have been heavily pondering the future of artificial intelligence (AI).
This week at Inman Connect New York (ICNY), Zillow Group founder Rich Barton said AI, such as Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri, will only grow smarter in the coming years.
Another ICNY panel discussed the usage of automated chatbots to engage clients, and a number of real estate portals are using “neural networks” that enable computers to evaluate and suggest homes in the same way a human appraiser would.
Big data is now open
Adrienne Meisels, CEO and founder of myPlanit, is determined to combine elements of AI and big data — the who, what, where and when of our day-to-day lives — to make an “internet of you” that anticipates and proactively delivers product suggestions and personalized recommendations.
“We’re entering an age of personal big data, and its impact on our lives will surpass that of the internet,” she said.
Meisels said technological transformations come in 20-year waves, each time taking a piece of technology and moving it from the back rooms of big companies to the hands of consumers.
The latest emerging transformation is in the realm of big data. The information that has until recently only been available to business enterprises and the government is now available to you to improve your “health, wellness, happiness and productivity,” she said.
Each time we turn on our smartphones, conduct Google searches, slap FitBits on our wrists or install new smart thermostats in our homes, we’re giving over a treasure trove of information on habits and preferences. That information is then used to provide recommendations for people like us, who share the same careers, interests and habits.
“The game-changer will be the ability to make sense of all this data so that the average consumer can interact with it, learn from it and use it,” Meisels said.
Making your apps talk
Meisels said the next step in making technology more “human” is by enabling it to mirror how our brains instinctively contextualize and connect the “who, what, when and where” of our days seamlessly in one place.
Right now our information is spread among a bevy of apps that all speak “different languages,” making it impossible to “speak to each other” and contextualize information to give recommendations that are specific to you, and you only, she said.
Meisels said users don’t want an internet of a thousand different apps that they manually have to connect; they want an internet of “me” that can predict what they want before they ask for it.
According to her, it would look something like this:
- You have a 9 a.m. meeting programmed into your calendar, and the calendar “asks” if it can pre-order a chai tea latte (your favorite drink) from a nearby Starbucks.
- On your way to get the latte, your phone notifies you that due to an accident, you’ll be five minutes late. An email is automatically sent to meeting members notifying them you’ll be late, and it makes another pre-order for a round of coffees to bring them for the inconvenience.
When it comes to the real estate world, Meisels says an “internet of you” would enable agents to take client data spread across various apps and platforms and combine it into one place — something her new app, myPlanit, does.
MyPlanit allows users to combine their calendar, contacts, places and photos into one app that analyzes and plans your day.
Need to see all the homes you’ve shown a buyer? It’s there. Need help organizing your open houses for the day? There’s a preset route.
“You manage your careers based on the context of who, what, when and where,” she said.
