‘Playmakers’: Zillow exec on ‘liberating agents,’ rethinking rules 

Editor's note: The Playmakers podcast explores the biggest shifts in real estate with those who are shaping the industry's future. Check out our top takeaways and watch the latest episode from host Andrew Flachner, co-founder of RealScout.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in the Playmakers podcast belong solely to the podcast creators and guests.

On this episode of the Playmakers podcast, Zillow Chief Industry Development Officer Errol Samuelson said that while the housing market has been slow, he believes there are "great reasons to be optimistic" about the future.

"This is an industry that is essential to the structure of our society," he said.

And when it comes to new technology, the future is now. Agents and brokers who want to stay competitive should "lean in, try the new things" and "apply them to your business," he urged.

"I think that people who have that growth mindset are absolutely going to pull away from the pack."

Turning conversations into search results: The industry's push toward AI is enabling buyers to get personal — and Zillow's "incredibly powerful" new integration with ChatGPT makes the process even easier, according to Samuelson.

"We're moving from search to converse," he said. "Now we can simply talk to the machine and explain to them what I need. 'I need a fenced-in backyard because I have a large dog'; 'I don't want an unfinished basement.' And what our app that sits inside of ChatGPT does is it takes that conversation with Zillow and then turns that into search results."

So what's the "real significance" of this new tech? "Conversational AI gets you from the top of the funnel down into the funnel much more quickly, because what you're discovering now are actually the underlying needs of that consumer," Samuelson said.

Creating a 'magical' experience for consumers: The idea of Zillow's "super app," which refers to the array of services available through the company's app, is "a metaphor or shorthand for a completely digital transaction," Samuelson said — something that over 90% of consumers want, he added.

"The idea is that everybody who's involved in that transaction can collaborate through their own interface," he explained, with agents using Zillow Workspace and consumers using the Zillow app. Five years from now, Samuelson believes the experience of buying or selling a home will be more digitized and more personalized.

"I think it's really going to be magical for consumers, and this whole process is just going to feel a lot easier," he predicted.

Zillow's AI strategy: Samuelson said Zillow's AI tools aim "to liberate the agents" from the more repetitive components of their work and "have the AI assist them as a partner."

AI tools can make suggestions, he explained, but it's ultimately the agent who's in charge of making decisions. "When you combine the power of the human and the AI, that's pretty remarkable. These are the agents who are going to leave everybody else behind."

IDX evolution needed: IDX rules didn't anticipate smartphones, much less AI, Samuelson noted. As time goes on, "we would be well served if we modified IDX so that it talked about the principles — you must give attribution to the MLS — but don't be prescriptive about the platform that it operates on," he said.

If the industry isn't careful about how it proceeds, "the rules that are meant to protect the data end up inhibiting innovation."