Small indie brokerages are industry’s last AI ‘holdouts’ 

As artificial intelligence has moved from niche to necessity — with real estate professionals embracing AI at a rapid rate — brokerage leaders have increasingly jumped on board. 

In a recent comparative analysis, Delta Media Group reviewed three years of data from its annual Real Estate Leadership Survey, which includes responses from more than 100 brokerage leaders across the U.S. 

Since 2024, the main takeaway has become "less about who is trying AI and more about who still has not," Delta Media Group Owner and CEO Michael Minard said in a news release.

"That second group is nearly gone," Minard added.

Resistance weakens: Nearly 1 in 4 brokerages (24.8%) said they weren't using AI at all in 2024, a share that fell sharply to 11.9% last year and dropped again in 2026 to 3.9%, the analysis found.

But the speed of AI adoption has varied by company size, with large brokerages (500+ agents) and small brokerages (11-50 agents) showing the biggest changes in usage over the past three years. Adoption has increased from around 75% to 97% at large firms and from 70% to 93% at small ones, Delta found.

Mid-sized (51-100 agents) and mid-large brokerages (101-500 agents) reported a similar trend, with AI use climbing from 77% to 93% and 81% to 94%, respectively. 

The smallest firms — those with 10 or fewer agents — have also increased usage, but they reported the largest non-adoption rate in 2026 (9.1%).   

Real estate tech's 'rounding error': When asked in 2024 about their technology outlook, about 1 in 10 brokerage leaders (10.6%) said their firm was not planning on adopting AI in the year ahead. That share of AI "holdouts" dropped by more than half (to 4%) last year and fell further to 1.9% in 2026.

While AI non-adoption "was a real category" a few years ago, it has now become "a rounding error," Minard said.

Small indies are 'meaningfully behind': Brokerages with over 100 agents and those with 11-50 said 100% of their agents used AI in 2026, compared with nearly 91% of agents at smaller mid-sized firms.

In contrast, independent firms with single-digit agent totals are "still meaningfully behind" and serve as the focus of "the remaining adoption work," the analysis said, as brokerages with 10 or fewer agents reported just 81.8% of agent AI use this year.

AI use increasingly important: With other recent surveys finding that AI use is now common among agents and that consumers are increasingly turning to AI for research, Delta Media Group's analysis noted that nearly half of survey respondents ranked AI's importance as an "8" or higher on a 10-point scale — almost double the share that ranked AI that high in 2025.

Another notable trend among brokerage leaders is the value they place on having a unified AI system. "They are consolidating around partners who can deliver it as part of one connected platform," Minard said.