REAL AI: Year of the AI Agent, AI facts, headlines and AI quote of the week

By Kevin Hawkins with Korey Hawkins | Vol. 3 Issue 1

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. Please subscribe here!

2025 is the “Year of the AI Agent”

We predicted that “AI Agents will be the next big thing” eight months ago at the beginning of May 2024. The following month, Apple announced Apple Intelligence at its developer conference, which we covered here, validating our forecast.

AI agents will do more than talk to you like ChatGPT. They act to get things done for you. An AI agent is like having a behind-the-scenes digital assistant that does stuff for you: it can automate routine tasks that will save real estate agents time.

Here are a few AI Agent examples that Apple gave last June that real estate agents would benefit from:

• Need to find something in an email a client sent you? Or was it in a text? No worries, as Siri searches for both.
• The Photos app will help you avoid seeing unwanted content, like screenshots and receipts.
• The Safari browser will create highlights and summaries from Web pages (Google beat them to it).
• Siri will no longer be stupid. Siri will help you fill in a PDF form, including tasks like searching your photo library for a picture of your driver’s license, scanning your DL number, and inputting it in the right spot.
• Free ChatGPT will take over when a question is too complex for Siri to answer, but it always asks for permission first. Privacy features mean this data is not stored in ChatGPT or used to train ChatGPT. No ChatGPT account is needed, but you’ll get access to even more features if you have one. Also, expect other chatbot integrations in the future.
• Ask Siri, “When does my out-of-town buyer’s plane land?” and Siri hunts and retrieves the answer.
• Eventually, Siri will answer questions using the context of what’s on your screen.

None of these features are fully available – yet. And that’s the big challenge for AI in 2025. Getting AI Agents out the door that do what they are supposed to do this year, not next.

Many other AI agents for real estate were previewed as “coming in 2024” but never made it to the market. We believe 2025 will be different; it must be for AI to begin to live up to all of the noise.

We agree with Inman’s Craig Rowe, real estate’s top tech reviewer, when he wrote in this piece yesterday:

“If 2024 was the reconnaissance period artificial intelligence needed to prove it can change the real estate industry, then 2025 is going to be the year we get assimilated.”

We would put it somewhat differently: 2025 is the time for AI to put up or shut up.

Seriously, the amount of AI hyperbole and bravado is deafening. To paraphrase something, Ben Caballero, an industry award-winner for innovation from Dallas, Texas, might say, “So far, AI has been a lot of hat and no cattle.”

Advancing from chat to tasks

Admittedly, the impact of Generative AI – and ChatGPT in particular – on real estate is massive. AI helped the real estate industry break from its reputation of being a tech lagger of new tech adoption to being an AI adoption leader.

Real estate’s first AI survey by Delta Media showed how quickly and ubiquitously Gen AI was being used by brokerages and their agents coast-to-coast. Released last January, the study found that 75% of leading real estate brokerages in the United States had already adopted artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.

In contrast, a Reuters Institute and Oxford University study in May last year found that only 7% of Americans use ChatGPT daily.

Our big prediction for 2025 is that real estate agents will as aggressively adopt AI Agents as ChatGPT, and it could be as pervasive by the end of the year.

Fingers crossed, breath held, hopes high.

AI Facts and Stats

68% of recruiters surveyed said AI could remove biases from the hiring processes – Zippia
23% of Americans believe AI may not be as effective as humans in identifying well-qualified job applicants – Pew Research Center
14% of AI-picked candidates are more likely to pass a job interview – Forbes
24% of mid-market companies plan to invest in AI-powered recruitment tools – Statista
44% of HR executives have fully implemented AI into payroll processing and benefits administration – Business Solution

Source: DemandSage (-Korey)

AI Headlines

5 new technologies to watch (and implement) in 2025 | 1/2/25 Realtor.com
Learn more about the AI tools that Realtors should embrace for the new year.

AI agents might be the new workforce, but they still need a manager | 12/30/24 ZDNET
The human element is still needed to keep AI agents in check.

Consumers are changing. In 2025, proptech may finally start to notice | 1/2/25 Inman
This could be the year where AI is geared towards improving the consumer experience.

‘Unfiltered’: Real estate’s ‘biggest opportunity’ in an AI future | 1/2/25 RealEstateNews.com
The Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered podcast discusses how real estate agents can leverage AI for their businesses.

Meta plans to flood social media with AI-generated users and content | 1/1/25 SiliconANGLE
Meta continues to deliver unneeded AI sludge to its Facebook and Instagram platforms. (-Korey)

AI Quote of the Week