F
all House Hunt

    New tech gives agents more time to help you find the home of your dreams.

    The robots—well, their algorithms—are poking around your open house. Please hold your panic.

    That’s exactly what the robots and Big Tech would want us to think. But the people building and policing this tech say the story here is upgrade, not upheaval: Artificial intelligence is making the process smoother without shoving brokers out of the frame.

    AI now suggests listings that feel right, tags the farmhouse sink and the skylights for MLS listings, and turns 3‑D scans into floor plans with a tap. If that reads like the first act of a takeover, agents can exhale. What AI isn’t doing—at least for the foreseeable future—is replacing the human who morphs from broker to de facto therapist after the home inspection.

    Think of it as an accelerant and a guide, not a stand‑in for judgment. The wins so far are decidedly tepid but very real: time saved and confidence gained. The demos of yesterday—from virtual tours to interactive floor plans—now hum under the hood of mainstream platforms, helping buyers and sellers make better calls faster.

    “Just because I have a Roomba doesn’t mean that I still don’t have to wipe the baseboards,” said Sarah Gustafson, president of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors.

    At Zillow, AI powers natural‑language search (so you can now find listings along the lines of “three‑bed with a big backyard near a park” instead of just looking for three‑bedroom homes in Wellesley), recommendation engines tied to your saved homes, and increasingly vivid digital previews. The company has been layering machine learning into its products for years; the “new” part is how much more intuitive it feels to shoppers.

    “AI can help broaden the horizon and help people move smarter,” said Julia Kanter, senior director of product, AI, and experiences at Zillow.

    For example, AI assists in turning drone footage into smooth, interactive exterior views so you can decide more quickly whether a house merits an in‑person visit.

    Redfin is following a similar arc. Decade‑old models still estimate value and recommend listings, but new language model features change how people interact with all that data. A chat interface can answer detailed questions about a property; Redfin Redesign lets consumers and agents quickly visualize different finishes in a kitchen or swap out flooring virtually.

    “It’s still a price estimate; it’s just a better one,” said Redfin chief technology officer Bridget Frey in reference to today’s models interpreting photos and text more accurately.

    Beyond the shopper experience, AI is clearing drudgery from agents’ days. Those interviewed highlighted auto‑drafted listing descriptions, call summaries with suggested next steps, and “smart” client messaging as examples that free up time for human conversations.

    Some would argue the industry’s adoption has cooled from last year’s “AI everything” hype to more practical needs.

    “There are tons of opportunities to utilize some sort of AI,” said Dan Weisman, director of innovation strategy at the National Association of Realtors. “But you should focus on what problem you’re trying to solve first, and most likely there’s an AI product that will help you do that.”

    Despite the broader AI conversation across all industries, real estate remains physical and deeply personal. New England—where a 19th‑century farmhouse can sit next to new construction—exposes the gap between neat data and messy reality, Gustafson noted.

    Algorithms can’t smell pet urine or intuit why a room’s proportions feel off. There’s also the human dynamic. Moves are often driven by life events: joyful, stressful, or both.

    “I still think people want that agent to just sit down with them and say, ‘Yes, this is the house for you,’” Frey said.

    AI can equip that agent with sharper information faster, but it doesn’t eliminate the need for empathy, negotiation chops, or problem‑solving when the inspection turns up surprises.

    Housing’s legal and ethical stakes are high, but companies say they’re building in checks. Zillow has an internal responsible AI review and open‑sourced a Fair Housing Classifier to flag biased language in real estate conversations and reduce the risk of illegal steering. Platforms also stress controls around user data, with consumer dashboards to review and adjust what’s stored.

    For buyers and sellers, the smarter stance is to treat AI as input and not a verdict. Several banks and financial planners have issued their own reminders this year that budget calculators and affordability bots can’t see your full financial picture. Use them to frame scenarios, then verify with a loan officer or adviser who knows your balance sheet and risk tolerance.

    Weisman echoed that caution more broadly: AI models still inherit bias from historical data, and generative tools sometimes sound right while being wrong. Ask your agent which tools they use, what the tool decides versus what a human will review, and how your documents and personal data are protected across e‑signing, notarization, and mortgage steps.

    AI won’t end open houses, but it will change who walks through the door. Expect pre‑tour filtering to get better as scanning tech turns a single walk‑through into multiple outputs via dimensioned floor plans, a navigable 3‑D “dollhouse” model, and tagged photos that reliably call out materials and systems. That helps buyers rule homes in or out without burning a Saturday and helps sellers attract better‑matched traffic.

    It also broadens horizons when affordability bites. If you tell a portal you need three bedrooms and a yard, next‑gen recommendation tools can nudge you toward a similar neighborhood five miles away that fits the brief at a better price while noting the trade‑offs, so there’s no surprises.

    “What we’re seeing is a race between efficiency gains and consumer expectations,” Frey said.

    Consumers still want a fierce advocate who can strategize in a bidding war, manage from offer to close, and handle the curveballs bots can’t. Kanter’s view from Zillow lands in a similar place: Make the process “more seamless, more intuitive, more personal,” and leave the depth and accountability to humans when it matters.

    If you’re buying or selling this fall, treat AI as the scout, not the closer. Above all, be mindful with your data. AI can make the process faster and clearer, but it isn’t replacing the human who gets you from the “Love It or List It” phase to keys in hand.