By Kevin Hawkins with Korey Hawkins | Vol. 2 Post 42
REAL AI is a human-created weekly roundup of all things related to artificial intelligence in real estate and emerging AI innovations in other sectors likely to impact our industry. We post a new edition every Friday, and our free newsletter is delivered every Monday.
AI for a better home search
The typical way almost all buyers search for a home online has remained the same since property listings appeared online. AI is about to turn search on its head.
Over the decades, many attempts have been made to “reimagine” home search, and none have stuck. Proper data fields are the culprit, limiting the search to pull-downs and checked boxes. Buyer search is about price range, number of bedrooms and baths, and a few other features to help narrow down what they want to buy.
But the results and the experience sucks. Looking for a home online too often feels like trying to find the proverbial needle in the haystack.
Two AI companies look at home search differently: Restb.ai, real estate’s computer vision leader, and Lundy, the voice-driven property search leader. Both deliver a very different kind of search with AI.
This week, these two hot AI real estate startups teamed up to deliver a better – and very different – search experience to their MLS customers.
The news coverage focused on the great things Lundy is doing with voice search and their Herculean efforts to bring data accessibility to the MLS.
But the bigger story is the piece that Restb.ai delivers to property voice search: Yes, it’s an enormous benefit for the visually impaired, but it’s also a massive benefit for everyone else, too!
MLSs that are using Restb.ai’s full computer vision capabilities will unlock property search once combined with Lundy’s Finding Home Pro (which connects to Amazon Alexa).
Restb.ai tech provides more than 700 search insights for the property photos agents upload into their participating MLS. Instead of home shoppers being limited to the data fields locked into the MLS for search, they can search with incredible specificity and for homes with only certain features – hundreds of features that are not found in the fields of the industry’s data standards that fuel digital search.
If a buyer wants to look only at homes with light oak Kitchen cabinets, homes with chef kitchens, hardwood floors, or beamed ceilings, with this new AI partnership, voice search can deliver results.
Here’s what needs to happen next: agents and brokers need to bug the heck out of their MLSs to add these Restb.ai-Lundy features. Just about every MLS in the country can, as Restb.ai is available from all the major MLS tech platforms, but many just use their data checking tool. That’s great, as deploying the full power of computer vision is what will change search forever.
We are excited about two things: watching the movement towards voice-driven AI versus text and seeing search data boundaries disappear. One day soon, home search will stop sucking. (-Kevin)
ChatGPT non-content uses
This week, I hosted a webinar exclusively for real estate journalists and reporters on “8 Surprising Ways Journalists Can Use ChatGPT… Besides Content Creation.” It was a packed session and provided the specific AI prompts and results for each of the eight non-content items covered.
The inspiration for the Webinar grew from the feedback I received in Austin when I was on an AI panel at the National Association of Real Estate Editors. A top real estate journalist approached me afterward and said he avoided ChatGPT like the plague. His concern was that he didn’t want to accidentally use plagiarized content from a publication like The New York Times. “I don’t want to get fired over using AI.”
However, after I gave examples of non-content ways to use ChatGPT, he realized that avoiding AI was not good. I got the same reaction when I spoke about AI to real estate agents at the Florida Realtors Annual Convention a couple of months ago. When I covered other ways to use ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude, the reaction was a universal “wow.”
Some of the areas covered in the Webinar include how to use ChatGPT to crunch survey results, read a PDF white paper or research paper and provide bullet point summaries, organize unorganized text and export in different formats, organize and calculate information that is a jumble of text and numbers, pulling the highlights and the top 10 quotes out of an interview transcript, and more.
Afterward, based on feedback from veteran journalists who attended – including “My mind exploded,” I realized we need to do more AI webinars, panels, and speeches. So, if you are interested in exploring what AI information we can educate your organization about, hit me up. You can email me here. (-Kevin)
AI Practical Videos
Kevin Stratvert
Descript – Video Editor Tutorial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk1TxDKzb68
Helena Liu
Google One-Click Podcast Tutorial (NotebookLM)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FJHo1C16yE
Apple
Apple Intelligence in 5 min
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_EYoV1kZWk
Marketing Against the Grain
Open AI Canvas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_VRnLZ0vK4
AI Uncovered
Meta’s New Video Creator
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1eKfpLom5A
Bonus: Tesla
We, Robot | Tesla Robotaxi Unveil
https://www.youtube.com/live/6v6dbxPlsXs?t=4326s
(Note: some robots featured in this video are human-controlled. -Korey)
AI Headlines
Restb.ai partners with Lundy to deliver voice-driven property searches | 10/16/24 HousingWire
These two AI startups make MLS search more accurate and accessible for the visually impaired.
How can AI accelerate the decarbonization of real estate? | 10/16/24 Fast Company
Explores AI’s role in energy efficiency and consumption reduction.
Gmail users, beware of new AI scam that looks very authentic | 10/14/24 ZDNET
AI scams are becoming more realistic and harder to spot.
FTC Final Rule Cracks Down on AI-Generated Fake Reviews | 10/14/24 RISMedia
Banning the creation, selling, and purchasing of AI-made reviews.
Inman announces its inaugural class of 2024 AI Award winners | 10/15/24 Inman
Shoutout to Revive for the “Most Innovative Use of AI” award. (-Korey)
AI Quote of the Week
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Content suggestions welcomed: email korey@wavgroup.com
