In these times, double down — on your skills, on your knowledge, on you. Join us Aug. 8-10 at Inman Connect Las Vegas to lean into the shift and learn from the best. Get your ticket now for the best price.
Tech-forward real estate brokerage Real is known for its combination of in-house software development and third-party partnerships.
That tactic continues with its latest use of GPT, or generative pre-trained transformer, a form of artificial intelligence, and the basis for the popular application by Open AI.
Real will use the popular automation software to augment reZEN, its transaction management solution. The tool, tagged “Leo,” will be leveraged as an ever-present concierge for agents and brokers.
Real is publicly traded in Canada and the United States under the symbol “REAX.”
“We are excited to see how Leo will enhance the work of our agents,” said Chief Technology Officer Pritesh Damani in a statement. “With the power of reZEN’s data and the bot’s advanced capabilities, we are confident that our agents will be better equipped to serve their clients and achieve their goals.”
Leo will be tasked with helping users quickly pull information on deal status post-contract, where consistent client communication is at its most critical. It will be programmed to answer “complex queries,” the company stated, and like other iterations of AI, will improve as its use increases.
“Leo also will be customized for each agent, allowing it to understand and cater to their unique needs and working style. This personalized approach ensures that each agent receives the precise support they need, when they need it, making their job easier and more efficient,“ Real said.
Starting later this second quarter, Leo will be in beta mode.
Real listed a number of specific tasks the AI feature will execute in the announcement, namely answering questions regarding an agent’s professional information, current and past transactions, equity programs, events, revenue share, commissions and finances.
As a result, it will alleviate demand on Real’s customer support resources.
Artificial intelligence has quickly become a prominent thread in the fabric of proptech, weaving its way into marketing tactics, multiple listing service (MLS) data and consumer home search.
Zillow and Redfin, the industry’s two most trafficked home search destinations, have launched enhanced search tools that allow for the use of long-tail requests, or search queries that respond to more natural speech patterns. Doss, a brokerage and technology founded by Bobby Doss, has used this technique in its voice-search app for years.
Computer vision company Restb.ai is finding its way into the code of MLSs. Its software reads still images to extract an array of actionable data points. One use case is the faster and more consistent population of property data into databases.
Real’s brand is built on its wide-scale adoption of technology products to support agents’ practices without letting it dominate the way they sell. Its website’s homepage header reads, “The ease of streamlined technology with the trusted guidance of the agent-led experience.” And it has been growing aggressively under that mantra.
After acquiring 90 agents from Canada’s Redline in November, Real grew its agent count by 82 percent in 2022, surpassing 7,000. Yet, it lost money last year.
In March, Real raised agent fees to offset $20 million in losses. It cranked up the fee for incoming agents to $249 (up from $149) and is raising its annual brokerage fee from $500 to $750, among other changes to its model of sharing revenue with agents. The details were first reported by The Real Deal.
The charge-ups were no doubt a tough message to send given the company’s very agent-first strategy.
