Three things happened in the same week of estate agency news. One franchise group took a 25% stake in a conversational AI firm for agents and brokers, with a three-year deal as preferred provider. An agency software company launched an AI tool that builds web-based valuation proposals. And a supplier reported that nearly half of agency enquiries arrive out of hours.
Read together, they describe three ways for an agency to get AI: buy into it, build it, or rent it as a feature of the software you already use. The out-of-hours figure explains the rush. An enquiry at 9pm that waits until 9am is a lead that may have gone elsewhere.
For an independent MD the test is the same for all three. What does the AI see, and who owns what it sees? An assistant answering a 9pm enquiry from your own listings is useful, but it can't tell the person that the house next door belongs to a landlord with eleven properties, or what sold on the street in July, because that isn't in your system.
Regulated work has an equivalent rule: you can use a supplier's tool, but you answer for the output. So I'd choose an AI by looking at its inputs before its interface. That's the reasoning behind Propalt AI working alongside the CRM an agency already uses, rather than inside one.
Co-founder of Propalt and a property investor and developer for 20 years
