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New York’s OneKey MLS has selected AI productivity solution Sidekick to be a new software option for its members, Inman has learned.
A July 22 press release said the parties agreed on the application’s benefits to the 45,000+ agents that are part of OneKey. Sidekick was spun out of independent brokerage Avenue 8, which recently shuttered operations to focus resources on the growth of the AI workflow enhancement product.
Michael Martin
“We are thrilled to join forces with OneKey MLS to support the way their members leverage AI to conduct and grow their businesses,” said Michael Martin, co-founder and co-CEO of Sidekick, in a statement. “Expanding Sidekick’s customer base to New York is a moment we’ve been excited about since we first started building the product.”
The company recently locked up deals with the San Francisco Association of Realtors (SFAR), MIAMI Realtors, BeachesMLS and The MLS in Greater Los Angeles.
Released in November 2023 as an in-house workflow catalyst, Sidekick’s influence on Avenue 8 agents grew quickly and allowed for rapid, direct feedback, which is especially productive for a generative AI model.
“It is critical that agents demonstrate value across two vectors: specific knowledge and speed,” Martin said to Inman in November. “Many have the former, but the latter is a constraint. Even if you’ve been working in the industry 20-30 years, the ability to quickly generate, analyze, and assemble information across a variety of modalities is incredibly challenging. It’s not about having a personality or a face or a name — it’s about functionality and speed.”
For the layman, Sidekick largely manifests as a task request prompt able to handle complex discussions and access third-party data resources to complete its many varied chores. It can create social media posts from raw data, generate market reports, CMAs and a host of other critical but time-consuming agent projects for marketing, client service and transaction management. There’s also a tremendous advantage to training it with internal, proprietary datasets.
Richard Haggerty
The OneKey team is also excited about its new software partnership, indicating in the release that it plans to leverage the technology to help its members better understand the power of artificial intelligence in the modern real estate workplace.
“Our mission is to empower our real estate professionals to achieve greater success in their business endeavors,” said Richard Haggerty, CEO of OneKey, in the release. “By partnering with Sidekick, we are equipping our members with the most advanced AI tools available, enabling them to work smarter, faster, and more efficiently.”
Sidekick is built on top of OpenAI’s product but it’s not merely a re-wrapped offering; instead, it offers a custom deep integration with its users’ systems.
As Martin stated in November, Sidekick’s true value is realized in its expediency. While the idea of “speed to lead” is traditionally rooted in being the first to respond to a potential client, it’s not enough to just be quick, especially given how prolific CRM-based response automation is today. Value has to be delivered, too, and is the reason Avenue 8 became exclusively a software company.
