This article was last updated on May 15, 2023.
In recent days, Inman has explored tales of viral-but-fake images, real estate agents who are getting computer-generated headshots, and even cookie recipes conjured from a digital hive mind.
But the through line among all of these disparate-sounding tales is that they’re all products of artificial intelligence. Thanks to an explosion of new AI tools that began last year with ChatGPT, the public — including the real estate community — is gradually turning more and more to bots for tasks that previously required human intervention.
Inman’s previous stories on this topic aimed to provide context for what’s happening. But what follows is something different: A long list of resources that real estate professionals can actually use, whether they’re dipping toes in the AI waters or going all in and asking bots to them save time and money. And while it remains to be seen at this point where this still-nascent field is headed, it’s already clear that AI is poised to radically change how housing professionals do business.
Table of Contents
The chatbots
Chatbots have been around for years, but recent technological advances created a tsunami of interest in their abilities. They also happen to be the most popular AI tool among many real estate professionals, who are using them to write listing descriptions and branding copy.
- ChatGPT: This product from tech firm OpenAI opened the flood gates for artificial intelligence when it went public last year. It can answer questions, write stories and listing descriptions, generate marketing plans and even write computer code.
- Google Bard: Google’s answer to ChatGPT, Bard similarly offers text-based responses to users queries. Reception of the tool has been somewhat lukewarm, but it is constantly evolving.
- Microsoft Bing: Once just a search engine, Bing now offers a chatbot as well. Inman’s experiments with the tool suggest it tends to offer responses that were a bit more creative than its rivals, though those responses also raised questions about factual errors and plagiarism.
- Other chatbots: There are a bunch of other platforms including Kuki, Replika, Cleverbot and others, though none that Inman has experimented with were even close to as impressive as the big three mentioned above. Still, the fact that there are other options hints at how rapidly this field is expanding.
- Additional resources:
The image generators
These tools can generate images that look like realistic photos, illustrations, comic books and even baroque paintings. Real estate professionals are now beginning to look at image generators as a way to imagine new developments, visualize properties and even conjure better headshots.
- DALL-E 2: This is the platform that kicked off the current wave of AI image buzz, and it’s still one of the best-known image generators available to the public.
- Midjourney: Widely considered to be the best of the publicly available image generators, Midjourney is known for creating images that are so realistic they’re often mistaken for being real.
- Midjourney users also have to sign up for Discord, a social messaging app.
- Stable Diffusion: Though it tends to have a harder time producing stellar images compared to rival platforms, Stable Diffusion has the significant benefit of being free and not requiring users to sign up — making it an ideal entry point for anyone wanting to experiment with AI.
- DreamStudio: A lesser-known but nevertheless decent AI image generator, DreamStudio is a product of Stability AI and uses Stable Diffusion technology — though in Inman’s test of the platform it tended to produce better images than Stable Diffusion.
- Fusion Brain: Fusion brain is also a somewhat obscure but powerful AI image generator. The platform tends to produce high quality images, though a word of caution: It also appears to be a product of a Russian firm, so use it at your own risk.
- Try it On: This platform focuses exclusively on producing sleek headshots for working professionals. It charges a small fee, but has been making waves in real estate social media groups lately.
- StudioShot: Another AI headshot provider, StudioShot promises users “premium” images and claims to have delivered more than half a million images so far. Inman contributor Rachael Hite recently gave the platform a try.
- Additional resources:
AI-powered real estate platforms
Numerous real estate companies are currently experimenting with AI. The applications vary, but over time these types of innovations are likely to become the most useful form of AI for real estate agents; though ChatGPT might be handy for writing copy, AI that gets built into other tools has the potential to tackle everything from contracts to title and escrow.
This is a rapidly expanding field, but we’ll keep updating this section as we hear of useful new tools.
- OJO: OJO has offered its own chatbot for years now. But today, the company focuses on using artificial intelligence for a variety of tasks including assisting consumers in curating properties as part of their home searches, and helping real estate agents understand and improve their rankings.
- BHR: A business-to-business data marketplace, BHR is deploying OpenAI and ChatGPT technology to help agents access data faster and more easily. The company’s platform can provide reports on individual properties, and leans on chatbot tech to answer users’ questions.
- Restb.ai: Restb.ai has been working with AI for years, and among other things is able to use the technology to scan and analyze visual images. Earlier this month, Restb.ai debuted a new AI-powered property description tool, and then days later announced a new “enhanced AI automation” partnership with data and analytics company Black Knight.
- Scout: Scout offers a marketing platform for agents that is designed to let users design personalized email campaigns. The company is now integrating OpenAI technology into the platform.
- Rezora: An email marketing company that has been around for years, Rezora recently partnered with ChatGPT maker OpenAI to integrate prompt-driven AI tools that are supposed to help agents devise email campaigns.
- RESAAS: An enterprise real estate software company, RESAAS is using ChatGPT technology to help users work on property descriptions.
- Nila June: Nila June provides agents with “instant property descriptions,” and uses artificial intelligence to generate its content.
- ListAssist: A company that allows agents and teams to automate the creation of marketing descriptions, ListAssist uses what it describes as “computer-vision AI” and claims on its website to be superior to ChatGPT.
- LocalizeOS: LocalizeOS provides what it describes as the “operating system for real estate.” Among other things, that includes tools to help manage leads, grow teams, and track costs and opportunities.
- REimagine: A digital imaging company, REimagine lets users digitally transform both indoor and outdoor spaces. The company has an AI-powered platform, which can quickly insert features such as landscaping and furniture into existing images.
- Real Estate Webmasters: A company that makes agent websites and a customer relationship manager (CRM), Real Estate Webmasters also uses ChatGPT and OpenAI technology to help agents come up with content such as area descriptions.
- Additional resources:
- How to create great marketing content in seconds with ChatGPT
- Rezora latest marketing vendor to team with ChatGPT maker OpenAI
- RESAAS is latest proptech to integrate ChatGPT
- Black Knight, Restb.ai forge partnership in big step for AI
- Restb.ai releases new option for automated property descriptions
- Automated listing descriptions get better with Nila June: Tech Review
- Writer’s block? Break it, with computer-vision-backed ListAssist: Tech Review
- Localize to expand its AI tools for agents to more markets in 2023
Other more exotic AI tools
While chatbots, image generators and real estate-oriented platforms might be the most visible AI tools at the moment, there are a variety of other options that can perform even more exotic tasks. The list of such tools could be nearly infinite, but here are a few worth knowing about:
- Adobe’s podcasting products, all of which are in beta right now:
- Enhance Speech: This tool from Adobe is geared toward podcasts and relies on AI to improve the sound quality of recorded audio. In a recent conversation with Inman Windemere Abode co-owner Dave Jones mentioned that the tool saves him significant time editing his podcasts.
- Mic Check: Another product for podcasters, Mic Check promises to use AI to “unlock quality sound from your microphone.”
- Adobe Podcast: A more comprehensive tool, Adobe Podcast includes features for editing sound quality and translating audio recordings into text.
- Eleven Labs: Eleven Labs is an AI-powered text-to-speech platform. At its most basic, it’ll read back whatever text a user inputs in a realistic sounding voice. But it also lets users upload a recording of a real person, and then imitates that person’s voice. Users have deployed the tool to create audio that sounds like it comes from celebrities, politicians and other famous figures. Eleven Labs is also how TikTok users have created audio for the Balenciaga trend in which famous people are depicted in a fashion show-like environment talking about the controversial clothing brand.
- DI-D: This is an AI-powered video generator that promises to “give a face to conversational AI.” It can create realistic images of real or imagined people, and is also being widely deployed on social platforms such as TikTok. The platform can also animate images from other AI platforms such as Midjourney.
- Here’s a useful tutorial on how a bunch of these AI platforms can work together to create video content.
- Runway: Runway can generate images, but is included here in this section on more exotic platforms because it additionally builds videos based on text prompts. The company has dozens of AI products, several of which also let users edit images and videos.
Update: This story was updated after publication with additional information on the real estate firms using artificial intelligence.
