What brokerages must do to ‘leverage the future of AI’ 

As artificial intelligence becomes more embedded in the day-to-day business of real estate, industry leaders are increasingly tasked with evaluating how to implement new technology effectively.

"It's not, 'Can AI help us?' Obviously, it can," said Rajeev Sajja, Bright MLS' first-ever chief AI and product officer, during a panel discussion at last month's T3 Leadership Summit.

"The question really is, 'Are we preparing our data infrastructure to have AI help us at the highest level?'" Sajja continued.

The companies that "get this right," he believes, "are the ones that prepare their data effectively so AI can actually be that true intelligence layer, versus just having this one-off solution which has AI built onto it."

Sajja was joined by Emily Girard, CEO of Austin Board of Realtors and Unlock MLS, and Laura Ellis, who was recently promoted to chief revenue officer at Baird & Warner.

What brokerages can't afford to give up: Ellis said there are "three distinct data groups that we cannot lose sight of" to "maintain our relevance in the transaction": consumer behavior, agent and broker coaching systems, and data flow within a firm's ancillary services.

The "most important thing" agents can do for consumers is "create as friction-free of a process as possible," Ellis added. "I don't think most consumers have an issue with paying us commissions. They have an issue with what they get for that investment."

The importance of data governance: Brokers today need to be "thinking critically about data governance, what your relationship is to the vendors that you rely on, and what parts you actually own," Girard said. "You need a lot of clarity around that if you're going to leverage the future of AI."

Brokerages "need to have a better relationship" with their data, Sajja agreed. "It's really knowing where your data is going, getting value from it, and who's building intelligence on top of that."

AI can't simply be viewed as an add-on tool, Sajja said. "We've lived with IDX in the internet era. I think we really need to look at governance in the AI era."

"If AI agents are going to talk to AI agents, what does that look like?" he wondered. "I don't think we've really given it enough thought to come up with something. I think we owe it to ourselves to have that conversation."

Establishing new guardrails that work: The industry must revisit the infrastructure already in place and "think about what the right guardrails are" for this new era — a process that will "need everyone's help," Girard said.

"What holds us back today is a legacy system, a legacy structure and legacy technology — and a general avoidance of hard issues," Girard added.

What AI should — and should not — do: AI can handle some transaction management and lead generation tasks, Ellis said. But "we cannot outsource our agent coaching, our productivity systems" or the "data that we're getting across multiple businesses."

Brokerages should be creating an environment where "the most highly productive agents can do as much business as they possibly want" because the processes that support them become easier to navigate, Ellis added.

Tips for success: Brokerages that aspire to transform with AI "need to have an enterprise agentic AI platform that helps you build, govern and deploy AI agents" to "automate the ordinary so [agents and brokers] can personalize the extraordinary, which are your client relationships," Sajja said.

"My biggest advice would be: Build a system," Ellis said. "But don't build just a list of tools. Build a system that works together."

Editor's note: Real Estate News is an editorially independent division of T3 Sixty.