Estate Agents don't need more AI - They need AI that makes a difference

There’s been no shortage of conversation about AI in Estate Agency. What it can write, what it can automate and what jobs it might eventually do.

But I think we’re reaching the point where agents need to ask a much more practical question: is it actually making the day-to-day better?

Estate Agents don’t need AI everywhere, they need it in the places where it can remove friction, deliver useful information sooner and give their teams more time to do the things that really make a difference to buyers and sellers. That matters even more when we look at how consumers are feeling about AI.

Our latest Consumer Tracker shows that comfort with Estate Agents using AI has fallen from 47% to 38% over the last six months. Trust in agents generally remains positive, but consumers are telling us very clearly what strengthens it – evidence that their agent is acting in their best interests, regular communication and transparency.

That doesn’t mean consumers are rejecting AI, it means they are becoming more conscious of how it is being used and this is an important challenge for all of us.

Agents want AI to take work away, not take over

When we researched AI as part of our latest ‘The real eSTATE of it’ report, the conversation inside agencies was far more practical than some of the recent news headlines would have you believe.

Agents aren’t rushing to hand valuations, negotiations or client relationships over to AI. They’re looking at the repetitive, time-consuming parts of the job and asking where technology can take some of these tasks on, like admin and chasing things up.

Our research also found that 81% of agents believe the human element of Estate Agency is irreplaceable. That tells you a lot about how the industry itself sees the AI opportunity.

Agents aren’t looking for technology to become the agent; they want technology that helps them be a better one, with more time to win instructions, progress sales and build relationships.

The best uses of AI might not be the most obvious ones

A lot of the first wave of AI adoption across the industry has been highly visible – property descriptions, marketing copy, emails and social content.

Those things have an important role, but I think some of the bigger opportunities sit further within the transactions themselves.

Our mission as a business is to improve the moving experience and make transactions faster for everyone. AI plays a huge part in this. A recent example is our use of AI with Sale Ready to help agents and consumers understand Material Information earlier and act on it sooner.

It’s useful because it solves a genuine problem and creates a better-informed transaction from day one. Agents can deliver faster and smoother sales, and consumers have more visibility.

The same thinking applies to Auction and sits behind our Buyer Information Pack Summary. AI is used to pull the important information about a property into a clear overview, including details around tenure, charges and legal nuances, while retaining human oversight and review for accuracy and compliance. Our latest insights show that 100% of consumers surveyed said the packs helped them understand the information more easily or clearly.

Again, AI isn’t replacing the professional advice or judgement from legal professionals or agents, it is making complicated information easier to navigate.

Consumers care when and where AI is being used

This is part of the AI conversation that the industry needs to pay much closer attention to.

Our Consumer Tracker from early 2026 found that 65% of consumers believe agents should disclose when AI has been used, particularly in communications or property listings. Consumers also told us they really value human oversight and strong protection of their data.

The consumer viewpoint is something we should listen to, because buying or selling a home isn’t a low-emotion transaction. People want speed and simplicity, but they also want reassurance, they want someone accountable for the outcome and when something unexpected happens, they want to be able to speak to a real person who knows and understands them. This is where tools like AI chatbots can cause friction, and it should be carefully considered at what points they’re used within the customer journey.

If AI can spot something buried in a document earlier, or remove an hour of repetitive admin, great. If it can help an agent prioritise their clients or the transactions that need attention today, even better.

But as an industry we shouldn’t be trying to insert AI between the agent and the customer at every stage, it should sit behind the scenes to help an agent deliver a better consumer experience and a faster, smoother transaction.

We also need to avoid making everybody sound the same

There is another risk here which agents raised in our research. They told us that if AI starts to standardise things, agencies risk becoming “bland” and “vanilla”.

Estate Agency has always been a people business, it’s built on local knowledge, personality, judgement and, most importantly, the ability to read a situation and know when a seller needs reassurance or when a buyer needs challenging.

If every agency uses AI to write the same emails, the same property descriptions and the same marketing messages, it becomes harder to stand out.

That’s why I think the next stage of AI for our industry should be less about generating more content and more about generating better insight. Helping agents know where the opportunity is, helping them spot risk earlier and understand what needs their attention today.

Sometimes automation is enough

There is another point worth making – not every problem needs to be solved with AI.

Our CRM, for example, already has more than 1,800 ready-built automations which agents can personalise. These deliver stable, reliable workflows with human oversight, rather than AI making all of the decisions. This level of automation solves genuine problems and drives efficiencies for agents’ day to day, the same goes for integrations.

Agents consistently tell us they are tired of multiple logins, duplicated information and systems that don’t speak to each other. More than half of those we surveyed said they would prefer a single PropTech platform.

That’s why our focus is on building one connected platform, with an AI insights layer that can put useful intelligence directly into the hands of agents across winning, growing, retaining and managing their businesses.

It isn’t about adding AI everywhere just because we can, it is about putting the right technology, the right people, or the right automation in the right parts of the process.

The test for AI should be simple

For me, there are four questions agencies should be asking about any AI they are exploring.

• Does it save my team meaningful time?
• Does it improve the experience for our clients?
• Is it safe to use with personal client data?
• And can we confidently explain how and why we are using it to our customers?

If it can’t do those things, it is worth questioning whether it belongs in the process at all.

The future of Estate Agency will keep building around AI and agents expect blended human and AI workflows to become part of their day, but I don’t think success should be measured by how much AI an agency uses. It should be measured by what the technology does, like helping agents to deliver faster transactions and a better experience. However sophisticated the technology becomes, people will still move people.