Are Estate Agents Jobs Safe from the AI Takeover?
In a new episode of The Home Stretch podcast, Ben Sellers, Co-Founder of Starberry and Brand Director at nurtur tech, joined CEO of The Guild of Property Professionals, Iain McKenzie, and his co-host, Holly Hibbett, to discuss the benefits of utilising AI in estate agency as well as addressing hesitations from the industry.
Hibbett opens the conversation by commenting, “Iain and I were keen to get you on to talk about artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning because some agents are a little bit worried about it, while some agents want to learn more, and other agents know nothing at all about it. I went on a webinar recently and one of the quotes that stuck with me was ‘AI won't take your job but someone who knows how to use it might.’ So, the overarching thing for me is that we all need to learn how to use it a little bit. So, Ben, what's been your experience lately with AI?”
Sellers responds by referencing recent news from Elon Musk, in which he exclaimed that in the future AI will create a situation where no job is needed, “obviously, there's a bunch of news going on over the past week with the AI Safety Summit, and a certain Mr. Musk, but I think in reality they're great tools and it is all about the data you put in. We are the humans who are putting in the data for the foreseeable future. It reminds me of the internet. My brother and I were selling it in 1994 and no one knew what email was. AI is sort of a bit like that except for it's like a rocket ship!”
With Musk unveiling Grok, an AI chatbot to rival ChapGPT, this week, and OpenAI introducing the option to create custom versions of ChatGPT without any coding required, Sellers went on to discuss the benefits of implementing a strategy to utilise the software to improve efficiencies in business. “ChatGPT was launched in November 2022 and within five days it had a million downloads. It took two and a half years for Netflix to get a million customers - that just gives you an idea of the speed. We're now at around 150 million users of just ChatGPT,” Sellers comments. “I do think there's this sort of nervousness that everyone has this. Am I cheating? Should I use this? Shouldn't I use this? Is it accurate? There are so many questions.”
Hibbett goes on to ask how agents can implement the technology day-to-day. Sellers responds saying, “AI can start writing their listings. It does a fantastic job. You put in some detail around the listing, create your prompts, which is literally bullet points of information, and then say, can you write me a really upbeat, informative piece of content to describe this property. And before you know it, it's done. Let's remember descriptions are a great one, but it doesn't really stop there. If you want to write an email, if you want to write a brochure, if you want to write social posts, if you want to write some SEO - it's literally pretty well anything that you would like.”
McKenzie joins the conversation by asking what all this means for listeners of The Home Stretch podcast, stating “there will be some listeners saying, I get it and am already using it, and there'll be other listeners that'll be saying, I'm not so good at emails, let alone thinking about AI. What's the message to those that aren't using it? How do they start? Do they need to start?”
Sellers responds “technology has that hurdle. I would just recommend anyone to just start typing something, start asking a few questions, anything of interest whatsoever. It is better than writing an email and it is far more exciting and far more immediate.” Sellers concludes by proclaiming his excitement for the future of AI, “we should be excited, this, in my mind, is bigger than the internet.”
To hear this conversation in full and find out how and why agents should consider broadening their knowledge of the benefits of AI, visit The Home Stretch podcast.
