From scheduling to photo editing and everything in between, there’s a lot of ways AI can boost your business. Here’s how three Metroplex agents are incorporating a variety of artificial intelligence applications into their day-to-day real estate operations.
AI as a smart workhorse
David Maez, VIVO Realty
Favorite AI tools: ChatGPT, Canva, Midjourney
As the owner, broker of record and chief marketing officer at Plano-based VIVO Realty, David Maez treats AI like a big workhorse — it does the tedious, time-consuming parts of his job for him.
Maez considers himself to be at the forefront of the AI revolution in real estate. An instructor at Champions School of Real Estate, he formerly taught an AI course for agents. Back then, chatbots and the Amazon Alexa were the height of AI technology for the everyday user. But today, more sophisticated technology is right at agents’ fingertips.
A former copywriter, Maez heard about AI through the marketing world. He used to use JarvisAI to help him with copywriting and SEO optimization, but it felt like a luxury tool that he couldn’t really use that much.
“You had to be an engineer to use Jarvis,” Maez said. “When ChatGPT came out, I realized it was the next level of this. It’s super easy to pick up because ChatGPT did a good job of making the UX really simple.”
One of the main ways Maez uses AI technology is for marketing copy, specifically drip campaigns. He gives ChatGPT prompts for the copy he wants, instructing the engine to make the output SEO optimized. He then goes back and tweaks the output, ensuring that it fits his marketing needs.
“It’s hard to be creative on days when you’re not creative,” Maez said. “But there’s no excuses anymore. If an agent doesn’t have an idea, ChatGPT is a great tool to get started.”
Maez says you can even prompt the engine to write like a certain person — or like yourself.
“Tell the engine it sounds too much like ChatGPT,” Maez explained. “I want it to sound conversational — like me.”
Certain AI companies even offer personalized avatars that can supply detailed outputs in the user’s voice, cadence and writing style. However, working with a company that provides these tools can cost upward of $1,200. ChatGPT, however, is a good resource for agents who don’t have that kind of budget.
Maez also uses AI as a teaching tool, instructing ChatGPT to explain a bridge loan, for example, like they’re talking to a high schooler, or as a tool to quickly summarize articles and datasets.
In addition to using AI for copywriting and teaching tasks, Maez says ChatGPT can actually go through his client database and communicate with it. It can eliminate bad leads and single out good leads that are actually interested in buying a house. He says the possibilities are endless.
His agents, meanwhile, have been using ChatGPT to help write their bios and listing descriptions.
“I think the agents that use it to scale their business are going to be leaps and bounds ahead of agents who aren’t,” Maez said. “Writing 100 emails is a daunting task, but if I can have ChatGPT help with it, and I can go in and tweak, that’s going to save me a lot of time and effort.”
“Brokerages need to be abreast of what’s happening,” he added. “If you’re not aware, other brokerages will surpass you.”
AI as a forced multiplier
Nick Bristow, United Real Estate
Favorite AI tools: ChatGPT, Canva, Captions app, computer vision
As regional vice president and managing broker of United Real Estate Dallas, Nick Bristow oversees more than 700 of the company’s over 28,000 agents, and he serves as the national training director. He also considers himself an innate problem solver — and AI is becoming a big component of that.
Bristow uses AI for developing agent training, copywriting, photo editing, scheduling and more — but he also encourages his agents to use it as a tool to build their brand.
“Most agents don’t understand how to use [AI]. They don’t dig into, ‘How can I use this for my business,’” Bristow said. “When I talk to my agents about getting help, I’m wondering why they’re inputting their own paperwork. AI can replace a lot of tasks agents are doing and keep them on their lead gen and client care, which AI can’t do.”
For example, Bristow says AI can automatically manage your schedule better than a smart calendar. It can fill out contracts for you. It can take notes for you and highlight the important information. In the past, these were tasks agents would have needed to do themselves, or hire support staff for. “It pulls you away from manual tasks,” he explained.
Bristow says you can also have AI write your MLS descriptions and make sure they’re compliant with NAR and ADA. However, he warns that AI is currently only as smart as what it can find on the internet. It’s not going to innovate — it’s only spewing out current data.
“You can’t depend on it or replace your knowledge,” said Bristow. “You have to have the knowledge, but you can enhance what you do or speed up the process.”
Bristow refers to AI as a “forced multiplier” — in other words, it allows professionals to accomplish more than they would have been able to without it. “You can move dirt with a spoon, but you’ll be able to do it a lot faster with a shovel,” he explained.
However, Bristow said it’s yet to be seen if AI will affect agents’ ability to break the real estate mold — for now, businesses will still be built on interpersonal relationships and hard work. But the technology can get agents off the phone or computer and back into the field in what he refers to as their “six-figure role,” spending less time doing admin work and more time with clients. “It’s going to start doing things agents hate to do,” he said.
“The jury’s out on whether or not [AI] will really enhance the business,” Bristow added. “It can set you apart if your marketing looks even better — but no one typically chooses an agent just because they have good videos. My biggest producers are still doing well because they meet people and because they are respected in their communities. But it’s going to impact how we conduct business.”
AI as a personal assistant
Robert Wagner, CENTURY 21 Judge Fite
Favorite AI tools: ChatGPT, Descript, Grammarly, D-ID
A relative newbie to the real estate industry, Robert Wagner has broken into the industry faster than many. He started as a dual-career agent about four years ago, then left his job in 2023 to focus primarily on real estate. Since then, he’s established himself as a leader and mentor for newer agents and does real estate training both inside and outside of his brokerage.
So what’s his secret? The business mogul uses AI as his own personal assistant.
“People come to me because they’re trying to grow themselves or their business,” Wagner explained. “My job is to educate and help them scale a more personalized customer experience.”
AI is becoming an increasingly larger part of that — Wagner is a big proponent of encouraging agents to use AI as their own personal assistant, as well.
There are several overarching ways Wagner uses AI to scale his own business. That includes everything from lead generation and client communication to research, summarization and classification. For example, he uses AI to quickly go through inspection reports, instructing the engine to summarize while extracting important data. He also uses it to write listing presentations, or to help him prepare for difficult conversations with clients.
Ultimately, Wagner says he uses AI in “every aspect” of his day-to-day real estate operations.
While Wagner, an author and public speaker, has long been a user of a range of AI technologies — he uses Descript to edit his podcast, Grammarly to check his books for grammar and syntax, and D-ID to create training videos — ChatGPT is the tool he uses most.
Prior to the dawn of ChatGPT, Wagner would use Wordtune to make his property descriptions more casual and conversational. However, AI technology has come a long way in a short time.
“I got word of ChatGPT about a week after it launched and spent tons of hours digesting it, seeing what it does,” he said. “It’s shifted and changed for the better since then.”
Nowadays, Wagner incorporates AI into the creation of his social media marketing campaigns as well as his social media content creation.
“I’ve learned that the more specific your prompts are, the better the output,” Wagner said, giving the example of instructing ChatGPT to provide him with a seven-day social media campaign. “Tell it your personal style of learning and embed that into your AI so it speaks and talks just like you. Feed it content you’ve already written to analyze your style and speaking style.”
These personalization options aren’t tools that cost a ton of money, Wagner added. These are tools that are available to anyone in the free version of ChatGPT.
Of course, there are ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ that Wagner tells all the agents he trains to be mindful of.
“If it’s a ‘don’t’ for ethics and housing, don’t do it in ChatGPT,” he said. “Protect your clients’ information.”
Wagner also said it’s unwise to rely on AI technology completely — it’s important to do your due diligence. “Everything on the internet is not 100% correct,” he reminds AI users.
Wagner encourages agents to take the plunge and leverage the technology that’s available to them — while there’s a learning curve to using AI well, it’s a quick one if you take the time to dive in and learn. The industry is changing, and agents who embrace that change will be better off.
And while AI is certainly not going to replace agents or take their jobs, Wagner said, those who are leveraging the technology will be more effective than those who aren’t.
“If you’re trying to comb through a lot of data, you might spend up to 8 hours. It takes time,” he said. “Or you can send it through an AI server, and it will take 5 minutes, and you can get back to the work that’s generating income.”