AI and Real Estate: How Real Estate Pros Can Use AI Without Losing the Human Touch with Olgierd Minkiewicz

Speaker A: I've seen people trying to substitute all the real estate agents with like this, automated auctions. There are some platforms now that can buy a home. You don't need an agent. The more AI comes part of our lives, the more people will want that human factor again. Today's guest is Olgierd Minkiewicz, President of Polymathy Inc. And relationship Manager USA at CC Global Advisory. He shares how he's using AI to streamline property management and modernize the real estate experience for owners and tenants alike.

Speaker B: The definition of AI has become so broad that it's like, oh, if there's a tool that can help me, I'm going to call that an AI. Literally, you could have your AI responding to generic emails that are asking standard questions that you get all the time.

Speaker A: There's a balance here because like when you say about the agentic AI responding to some emails, sometimes we only have one shot at the response. If that feels artificial or inauthentic, people can just walk away thinking that this is like another one of the computerized responses.

Speaker B: You bring up an excellent point. There's a corollary to this that's interesting. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the AI for Business Owners podcast. I am m. Your host, Jeff Torello. Obviously the podcast is sponsored by Syngen AI. Like always, if you're uh, an SMB and you're curious about AI or looking for a strategy or ways to answer questions, head, uh, over to Syngen AI and get in touch with uh. This is going to be a fun conversation. Um, my guest today is ogrd. We had a really good pre conversation. I'm super excited on where we end up today. Olgerd, go ahead and introduce yourself, tell the folks a little bit about you.

Speaker A: Thank you, Jeff. It is a pleasure to be here with you. We did indeed have a great first conversation. So I am ready, I want to continue. It was very organic. It's not authentic. So I'm happy to be here. So I'm tuning in from New York. We're having some rain and snow today and I've lived here for 19 years and I'm a real estate professional and a, ah, residential expert here in New York City and a, uh, global advisor when it comes to real estate. So real estate is my, my thing.

Speaker B: I'm actually excited to see how we push real estate and AI together in this conversation, which would be very fun. You said residential. So you're selling individual properties or your buyer's agent one? Both of those. Is that what you're doing?

Speaker A: All of them, yes. Um, Representing sellers and buyers and investors in residential properties here in New York City. So anything from selling co ops, condos, townhouses, multifamily, ah properties to buying them to advising on how to do that. It's a multifaceted process and uh, that's why I'm very curious to see how we can incorporate an eye. And I've been already AI in so many of those things. But we will talk more about this.

Speaker B: Oh no, we will. I'm originally from the Northeast. I never lived in Manhattan but I have the impression like everybody, I suspect that Manhattan is ludicrously expensive, et cetera. So is it a challenging market to be a real estate uh, professional in? Is it easy? Like what's the dynamic? Obviously I wouldn't know, but maybe the audience wants to know too.

Speaker A: I wouldn't call it easy. No, I, I think it is a very challenging and competitive market. There's a lot of people here, right on this island of Manhattan we have 2 million people uh, living and commuting from all over too. And it's also limited market with when it comes to land, right. Everything goes up. But it's a very exciting market and I love it. I love every little thing about this. I know the little street and every little. My 19 years when I really was on, I've been in real estate for over 10 years now. I've been you know, very happy to help numerous people and first time home buyers which I love so much, well excited and they've entered this home ownership just realm and then it feels different right than renting for years and now they own it, it's theirs. And also like working with investors who want to like it's a little different approach of course, but the same for me is the same. I treat everybody professionally kindly and it's, it's about them for me it's about the client and it's a client centric uh, world that I operate in. But yes, it is a challenging market because there's again there are so many of us here and there are so many other agents and some of them are better than others. But it's not easily like you got to like you got to stand out. And I've been working on it in it for, for so long now that I do have some reputation. Uh, but I also still need to do the same things I did at the beginning. You know, still need to learn every day. I still don't know everything.

Speaker B: Good. Well that's good. It keeps it entertaining though. You don't want it to get Boring.

Speaker A: No, not.

Speaker B: I promise we're going to talk about AI in a moment. But I have one last question because I'm just a curious kid. Is it in the Manhattan specifically, is a higher floor more desirable or more expensive or a lower floor? Like I have no way of answering this, but I'm very curious.

Speaker A: It's a very good question. And the views are uh, you know, important to a lot of people. So the higher you get, the better review you have. And of course we can talk about those 94 towers that are out there that you can see the whole Manhattan from. Uh, that's a different story. But like for. Usually yes, the price rises and it depends. If it's a condominium of like 20 units, the price might rise about 25,000 just because it's on a higher floor. So each floor 20, um, 5,000 more. Conversely, if you have a ground floor apartment, you may have a backyard which is also something sought after, you know, very, very creative.

Speaker B: Right, yeah.

Speaker A: You're from South Carolina, is that.

Speaker B: I'm in North Carolina, yeah.

Speaker A: Right, North Carolina. So you probably have plenty of backyards. That's nothing unusual, but here of course we don't. And ah, so if you get the little ground floor or like a duplex with a basement, finished basement, you know, we have this beautiful outdoor space for yourself. Well, that can also be of course needs to be factored in the price and people realize, and some people seek that, you know, it's a different market, that's for sure. I doubled with some other markets to a little bit. Uh, but I tend prefer to refer. So I specialize in Manhattan. But yes, people have backyards, people have forests out there.

Speaker B: That's great. Okay, thank you. Just my curiosity. I appreciate it. All right, so I assume that you are personally at least using AI in some fashion. Give me an idea of how you got to using AI and sort of the things that you currently are doing with it that you think is helping you being valuable for you.

Speaker A: Absolutely. So it's interesting because I thought about like the whole origin of AI and like we had this a little bit in our conversation and then AI has been here for quite some time. Right. Even like a digital camera is some form of an AI, Right. That sets the exposure and knows how to kind of adjust it to the light and other. That's already AI. So we've. I've been using this, you know, for a while even and just taking photos, but specifically for real estate. I also started thinking like, uh, what about the tools that I have available to me and are they AI or not? And a lot of them, of course, are used on my computer. Therefore that's already some form of artificial intelligence, right? It's not. I don't have notepads on, like post it, but I write them, I type things into my computer and that the first thing that comes to mind is the idea of a CRM, right? Groups and puts together some of the contacts of people I interacted with. And for example, suggests to me, oh, you haven't reached out to this person in a month, or you haven't interacted with that person. That's the first thing that KI kind of gives me. Like I have this whole beautiful platform that I'm using and it tells me or suggests who I made contact, who I haven't touched base with. Um, in this business, we have to stay top of mind because people may forget there are some other people who are doing this. So that's important to stay, stay in touch and keep following up.

Speaker B: Uh, what's interesting about that, and I thank you. I Part of what happens as I do the podcast is I end up with so many different, uh, views and opinions. And what I like about it is that they're all valid and that they are different. And that seems like it wouldn't be compatible, but it 100% is compatible. As an example, you know, one definition of AI is different from another definition of AI, and none of them are wrong. I've said many times on the podcast that I consider the words artificial intelligence to just be a very convoluted way of spelling software, because in the end, it really is software. People are creating AI tools, AI capabilities, using AI to do things. And what they're using is in the end, underneath the hood, M is software. It doesn't need to be called software. I don't need to change its name. That's not what I mean. But for example, you're describing where you have a CRM tool that's able to give you reminders and suggestions and other things, and that to you is AI. And I love that it is, and that's great. But 10 years ago you could have had a similar CRM that did that. It would just have been called automation. It's the same thing again. There's no right or wrong. What I like about this is that the definition of AI has been become so broad that it's like, oh, if there's a tool that can help me, I'm going to call that an AI. And that's perfectly valid. You know, that we get to a Point where at some point someone might say, well, my phone's AI. Well, pieces of it probably are, yeah. Especially as these assistants get a little bit more intelligent. I don't think I would call the assistant on an iPhone very intelligent today, but I know it's coming. I know they're working on it. So perhaps by this summer, the end of this year, we'll see a more intelligent AI driven assistant. I'm trying not to say that name. I don't want to queue it anywhere. But there's another group of folks who think that AI really means like automation, that they sort of fire and forget. They create this thing and then it goes off and does stuff for them and they never look at it. And that's also AI.

Speaker A: Absolutely. I feel, yes. The way I started with that basic idea of AI of the software. Right. Or something that does something for you already. But you still need to do a lot of work, be taken to this place where AI completely substitutes some of us, our jobs. Uh, we talked about this briefly in our first conversation about this agentic AI, Right?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Something that just completely takes over. And where will that lead us? What will happen with some of the jobs? What will happen with my job? And I thought about this too, and I'm not scared. I would say that because there's the real estate process or like any big financial decision. It's not, you know, it takes so much. Right. That people that not are not here in Manhattan. One bedroom apartment, $1 million. Right. It's not. You don't go to a, uh, grocery store and

Speaker B: one would hope not.

Speaker A: No. Giving that completely to something yet. I mean, I can't foresee it yet that this will just take over of all those nuances, all those negotiations. Like, I'm also a therapist in real estate. I really am like a psychologist now. Well, uh, nothing like that as a therapist or psychologist, but it feels like sometimes I have to sit down and explain and talk and walk people through it. Is it what walking away from this based on a principle that like that is a little bit like that they wronged you. Like, they do not come with the apartment, they do not come with this problem. I don't know if AI can do that and will be able to do that. So I'm personally not worried about this, but I would love to back to the original point of AI taking over some of the work that I'm doing to be automated and, and I think we're getting there.

Speaker B: I would agree. And again, our, our pre. Conversation a little bit touching on the Agentic piece is certainly where I think folks are going to start to get more impact. So I'll make a little progression to talk about it. You know, maybe in the beginning with ChatGPT or, or whatever, Copilot or Gemini, it doesn't matter. You would start out, you would have a conversation, maybe you would say to it, hey, give me some suggestions or some samples of topics I could post on social media to gain a little bit of visibility about my business as a, as a realtor, whatever, it doesn't matter. But, and so you would get back some snippets and you'd look at them and be like, oh, one of those is kind of corny, but I like these two and maybe I'll use them. Cool. Then you move forward in time and the AI gets smarter. 1, uh, of my catchphrases for a lot of my clients is that, you know, today's the, the dumbest AI will ever be because tomorrow it'll be smarter and it'll continue to get smarter, et cetera, et cetera. Bear that in mind. When it makes a mistake, you look at it and go, oh, you're like a kid, you gotta learn. And that's kind of where the tools are at the moment. But you now can get to the point from an agentic perspective that you can provide a really good quality prompt that says to the AI agent, I want you creating social media content for me. Here's what I am, here's my business, here's like my brand values, the things I want to highlight, the things I don't ever want to talk about, that sort of stuff. So you give it guardrails and then it is creating regularly content for you. If you want to, you can use some tools that are pretty inexpensive to actually have it automate pushing that content out to your social media. And so it can be making regular posts and, you know, keeping up with that, all the, you know, the social algorithms like you better if you post more frequently, et cetera, et cetera, right? And then you can get a little bit further down the road if you invest a little bit more time and some skill set there where you can actually get approval over everything that your AI agent is going to do so that you can at least keep your eye on what's happening and control the quality. But literally you could have your AI responding to generic emails that are asking standard questions that you get all the time, right? And you could either ask for, you know, show me what you're going to say and approve it, or you can let it go. And eventually, over time, I think folks will lean towards the, you know, let it go.

Speaker A: I think there's a balance here because like, when you say about the agentic AI responding to some emails, sometimes we only have one shot at, uh, the response.

Speaker B: Indeed.

Speaker A: And if that, if that feels artificial or inauthentic, people can just walk away thinking that this is like another one of the computerized responses.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: There are some people here, like in real estate in New York City, who, who love to do that. Exactly. Have things set up and content, social media, everything keeps going and be being blasted. And it's not necessarily bad because they continue. Like if, you know, if you receive from Bloomingdale's every week, you know, there was a sale here after, like, 20th time, you may think, like, oh, there was something there. Maybe I want to explore and see. So if they didn't do it 20 times, maybe they wouldn't get to you. So people like to kind of go for it and put the content out. I personally, I come from a creative background, and even my tagline, as you'll see, says elevating real estate to an art. I like to approach things a little differently with this little human touch, with this little melody and cadence. Right. With something a little different. So, yes, it does take some more time for me to put some content out or maybe reach out to people, but when it does, I get some responses from people like, I love how you presented that, or different than every other agent here in the city and work with you. So it's both ways. I think the balance is here somewhere. Uh, that, yes, like some completely mundane tasks or responses, agentic AI can take over, but that human factor and that flavor of a personal touch needs to be preserved.

Speaker B: You bring up an excellent point, and I think there's a corollary to this that's interesting. Different folks need different things and a, uh, trigger off of different things. And I believe that that's part of why there's this variety in the marketplace. There's variety of service providers, and people choose a service provider more about interaction and relationship and vibe, if you will, than they do explicitly on skill. Uh, like, yes, there are going to be people who are skilled at being a realtor and people who are not. And I don't mean to suggest that it's unskilled, but what I mean is, given two realtors that you know that you've dealt with or that you have a rapport with, they probably have similar skill, but their approach is different. And which one works better for you? Becomes your realtor and the other person becomes someone. And there's no right or wrong.

Speaker A: Right, Right.

Speaker B: Just a little corollary ancillary, I guess. I was looking at first aid supplies and first aid kits for things like traveling in a car and that kind of stuff a couple of years ago, and I went to a website and I bought a little sampler from this particular company because it showed you a couple different products and stuff. And I was like, okay, let me check it out. Like, especially with first aid, like, you could get some really inexpensive band aids that are just not worth purchasing. And I didn't want to, you know, go down that path. So the package arrived and I was like, okay, this is pretty cool stuff. And I kept, you know, researching what I wanted to do. I must have received, I think I, if I remember it right, uh, 21 separate emails from that company in one week, which is a, uh, lot. A lot, A lot, a lot, right. And I unsubscribed and was like, yeah, uh, this is not my company. This is not for me. But I have a friend who. This is his company. And. And I was just like, how could you possibly deal with this volume of. I have my own proclivities. It's fine. His response was simple. I get so much trash email. I can't manage my email. So whenever I'm looking for something, I just go to my email to see if there's a coupon or a deal or whatever from whoever's sent me messages last. And these guys happen to be at the top, um, regularly, so he uses them often. And I believe that's really the strategy. But again, for the specific customer that they're targeting, which is this type of person who doesn't manage the whatever. Okay, Right. Not for me. Perfect for him. And it's the same vibe. And what I wanted to say to you is the way I think this will go if I predict out into the future, is that we're going to have personal agents, like a iron, uh, Man Jarvis kind of thing, that do things for us that we're currently doing today that we just would consider to be something that I don't even want to have visibility with. I'll give you a simple example. I've used this a few times on the podcast, but it tends to make sense. How much time is a human being wasting? Rescheduling a meeting with three or four different people by trying to manually go coordinate all these calendars and find a window where we can all talk and then setting up a zoom or Whatever. Why can't. And this is what I mean by having agents. Why can't that just be automated where the system looks at each person's, figures out a good time and then schedules it? And like, I don't need to know that you had a conflict and had to go do something important. And our meeting moved from Tuesday to Thursday and it's now from 1 to 3pm so what? The meeting's on my calendar. Thursday at 3. Let's go. And I didn't have to be involved in that minutia. And that is sort of a, a level of automation that we want to get our agents to. And part of that for me is your agent will then know, uh, how to respond as you. The fact that you personally want the personal touch and you want to have it framed this way, and you don't want this visibly automated answer, et cetera. And you may approve every single message your assistant will send, and that's okay. And like my assistant knows to get rid of all the junk mail that I never want to see, et cetera, et cetera. This is where I think we're headed. Right.

Speaker A: Well, it's interesting you said respond as you because I had a conversation with a company that wanted to create my AI avatar that will look like me, talk like me, and it'll feel like me. And I thought about this a lot and I actually haven't done it yet. But now after this conversation, I'll explore a little more. It's interesting because yes, you can make a copy of your, your digital copy. Yes. Of you and that. And see that copy over time, how your mannerism. Right. Your responses, your little, like those small, little uh, things in your voice, I guess also, but also in your emails and your responses, how you phrase things. And that thing will then learn that second me m. That have a how to respond to people. And it could be a very efficient way to have that first touch so they can see who, for example, people are dealing, who, uh, they're dealing with without knowing them first. Like that would be like the introductory me. Right. And like it can go further and like we can schedule a real call. But I like that idea. Like on Amazon, thinking out loud, it could be really helpful to, to have like that representative. That's how I think about AI now. Agentic AI until it learns, until we get to this place where AI can be plugged into your head or something, which I'm, um, not super excited.

Speaker B: I mean, people are working on it. Yeah. But I don't know how quickly it's going to happen.

Speaker A: The transhuman to dystopian yet for me, but then I still need to be there. Like, uh, my creativity, my approach will need to be there. But that first introduction, that little, you know, like, hey, this is me. My name is Olgierd. I'm AI, representative of real Olgierd that is there available for you, ready for you, excited to work with you. But you just know I wanted to say hello and see how you, uh, you know, is there any simple questions that I can respond to you, uh, with, uh, you know, and then I'll connect you with him if this is the right fit.

Speaker B: Yeah, there's another alternative, just a different view for you to take into account. And I think this is probably where things will be, at least in the beginning. I think it's curious to note that there are different generations, right? Gen X, Gen Z, Boomer, whatever. There's all these different classifications of folks based on their grouping. The people that are willing to purchase a car on their phone, right, they'll go to the jukebox, uh, Carmax or Carvana or whatever from an app on their phone, and they'll literally do the credit app on their phone and they'll say, yes, I agree. I'll deliver the car to me, right, on their phone. And there are a whole bunch of folks who are like, what? I would never, ever do that. Okay, so that's one grouping of customer, right? Then there's customers that we put in the middle who's like, I would never use my phone to buy a car, but I'd use my computer and go with a web browser to the Carmax or Carvana, it doesn't matter, right? I don't care about the brand website. And I would complete the process and transaction there. And that's literally just a different group, right? I don't know which group is which, but I'm sure the audience can figure it out and they're comfortable with it. And then there's a group who are like, what, I drive to the car dealership to buy a car. I would never buy a car with a computer. And that's a completely different audience. So now maybe the question is. Or, uh, maybe the approach is, hey, if you're. If you want to have a digital conversation with my avatar, click here and we can do everything right now if you instead want to actually have a, you know, want to call me, I'm right here. Call me. Here's. If you'd like to meet for coffee, click here.

Speaker A: And now it offers choice. And that's what. I'm very excited about that part. Yes. But I'm all about transparency and authenticity. Right. It's just like. You get me, you get. I will tell you how it is. I don't like waste to waste anybody's time, especially my clients. And it's a big investment. It's a lot of money. Like, we. Let's be serious about this. You know, uh, we can fun. We joke. I'm usually friends with them forever, but like, when we get to the process, let's, let's be serious. It's a serious matter. But yes, giving them a choice. And as you said, there are some people who will buy a car via phone because already the algorithm or the AI did so much work. And I can see the same thing happening in real estate when, you know, there is a full scan of the property and we know exactly like we pulling out all the, all the permits, all the different things that happen to the property and we have it. That's already. We were already doing this. Like I was thinking how I'm, um. For example, when I schedule a tour with somebody, like there was a buyer out of town coming to New York City, wants to purchase a $2 million condo because they want to move to New York. Their dream. Right. They lifted Florida. Now the kids went to college and they like, we want to be in New York. Go to Broadway and Lincoln center, you know, and I'm like, let's go. So we have one day. I already. We want to see five places I can put in my AI, in my platform, how to do the store in the most efficient way. Map it out for me, show me where I'm starting, where we're finishing. Break it down into the time, how much time we need to spend here so then we can get out of this place to get to another one. And factor in getting an Uber and getting there in the traffic. This is great. This is. Helps me do my job better. But the job is there still that, you know, like, I got to be there. I got to see and feel and hear if I to be the most helpful. That's. Yet I don't think it's going to go away because, you know, I. I've seen people trying to substitute already real estate in agents with like this automated, you know. Yes. Uh, auctions, like right there. There are some platforms now that can buy a home. You don't need an agent. Well, real estate agents have been here for over a hundred years now. There's a reason why the. What. Why that happens. I feel like the more humanity there is. I mean, maybe the other way. The more AI becomes part of our lives, the more people will want that human factor again. It may take another five to 10 years. This will just get so much into our face that we won't know what's real or what's not. I don't know sometimes what's real, what's right now.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think, um, just to give you the example, right, in 2007, there was no such thing as a smartphone. We had phones that could make phone calls and occasionally do a really poor version of what we refer to as texting. Now with T9 Foolishness, where you were using the letters on the numbers and boy, oh, boy, I don't think anyone's whining to go back, but that was 2006, pre, uh, iPhone. 2007, Android explodes to compete. And you look around now and no one would think about doing most of the things that we do today without a phone in their hand. And there's nothing wrong with that, but it's an aberration from where we were. Right. But if you were born after 2007, it's not an aberration. It's the only way you've ever done. And that's why buying a car is no big deal, because that's not weird as an example. So what I would say to you is, in this particular case, from a real estate perspective specifically. But honestly, this probably applies to a bunch of other businesses. I've purchased a couple homes over a few decades. There are, in my opinion. I'll simplify this really dramatically, and it's gross. But what I mean is there are a couple different types of real estate agents. There's an agent who's kind of like, yeah, pick the houses you want at the MLS and tell me when and I'll meet you there. And you don't get a lot of personalized service. You kind of get a. I'm just. I'm here for the numbers. And, you know, they're turning a crank and everybody's met something like that. And that some people go about their job that way. That's just not only just realty. There's plenty of. Right. There are other realtors, and you're a better example of this, who are in it for a relationship and are in it to build rapport and respect and will tell the buyer, I'm not sure this is the right house for you. Which some realtors would never once say, because they just want the sale, whereas you want a lifetime engagement. And so Your approach is different and that's okay. And there's nothing wrong with it and there's really nothing wrong with the other side because they'll find their clients, right? They'll find the person who's like, I don't want to be bothered with the hassle, just help me. Right? Okay. Everybody needs their thing. What I see is that the uh, AI eventually can get the automation part to a level where if someone's looking for a rapport and respect driven engagement in process, they're going to look for that. And the automation is a secondary factor and like it helps them. But that's not where they were shopping for. They were shopping for someone to trust to. Is this the right area? Do they have a good school? Like they want information. They'll do their own research, of course. But part of what you do, and this is going to sound strange, but just like a hairstylist is a little bit of therapy and consulting, right? Not just. I see, you want this picture of a haircut not a good fit for you, right? Try this instead. And there's a little bit of therapy involved, as you mentioned earlier. And you do the same thing. You may not do it about hairstyles, but you do the same thing about, here's the things that are important to you. You're going to miss it here, but you're going to get it here. I would tell you, think about this. You don't make the decision for them, but you, you help them. I'll stop telling you what you do and you can comment.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Uh, this tailored experience is what distinguishes a good agent from the one who just opens the doors. You know, glamorized in those TV shows, this new real estate job as just like, you know, you go and open the door and show where the kitchen is and the bedroom is. Everybody can see that. You know, everybody knows what a kitchen consists of. But so much more underneath, so much behind the doors. Um, so much little, uh, m. You know, building the team, facilitating the team, knowing who to reach out to. There are attorneys involved. If it's financing, there are banks involved, title companies, insurance companies, contractors, architects. Those are the relationships that we build. And those matter really. And people may not even realize how much they think that this is like finding a place. Money's always, yes, money, the higher price probably will get you the. But not all. I'll tell you why. I'll give you an example that AI couldn't substitute me at this moment because I always, for example, when I work with first time home buyers, I ask Them to write a bio about themselves with sells their place where they raised their children. Right. And they have some emotional attachments to. I want to present my clients, my buyers in a human way. Right. Not just like, oh, ah, we pay the money. Like, but why will this be something that they will cherish for years to come? Why is it important to them that this bedroom is this way, facing and not that way? Or well, you know, like things like that for their future family. And uh, that pulls a little bit of those heartstrings and it's nothing uncommon. But I come again, for me it's just about the people, the relationships, the long term. I'm here for a long run. I'm not trying to get the things done. I may not have that yet. Of course, maybe it will one day. You know, the heart, kindness, the heart. And I'm wondering how. But I also don't want to sound that, you know, like that against AI. That's definitely not what I'm saying. I am actually it's in my life, I use it. It's a big part of my life and I actually look forward to some of the things that this will do for me so I can do the things that I do best. Meeting people, uh, and building relationships.

Speaker B: Yeah. I think one of the roles that AI can fulfill and is going to become very good at is taking care of the mundane or the minutia and the lower value added tasking that still needs to be done, but that may not add better rapport, may not improve your income or help the buyer with less, you know, any of the things that are just sort of okay, well we've got to fill out this paperwork and it's really foolish. But if you upload your documents, the AI can handle filling in most of it. That kind of thing, that sort of automation helps everybody. The other side. And you sort of mentioned it in briefly there, but I want to bring it back because I think it's valid, especially in your particular business which is really relationship based selling. One of the values is your network. And here's why you already mentioned that it's there, but there's a difference and I want to make sure we call it out because your approach is, you know, rapport and trust and relationship building, respect building. The people in your network are going to be the same. You're not going to refer one of your clients to a, uh, I'll uh, make it up a plumber. It doesn't matter who's not going to take care of them. Well, because that tarnishes your reputation and your view from the client, and you'll never do that. So you're only going to make long term relationships and referrals with people that are like you, that approach things the same way. And so your network is similar to you, and a person engaging with you now knows they can trust your network. And the opposite of that is you go to an automated realty bot, you don't know anything about it, it's just crunching. And okay, maybe it'll get you a 10% discount if you bid on this apartment for whatever. Okay, fine, that might be the case. And if that's what you're in the market for at that moment, it's the right answer. Cool. But when you're ready to step up from renting and you're looking for something better and you'd like to buy into a network, you're a better ploy. But if your website also offered, you know, the virtual ogrd, ogre bot, whatever, I don't know what the right answer is there. Um, to answer the general questions and to get some, you know, who am I dealing with? What's your experience? What have you done? Show me some existing, the FAQ kind of stuff. And then the folks say, okay, well, let's maybe meet him for coffee and see if we get along and if he can help us with stuff. Okay, fine. Best of both worlds. Perhaps.

Speaker A: Perhaps. And part of me is a little hesitant to relinquishing myself to something. Yet the question of safety and privacy comes. Yes, yes, people a lot about this. How will they say something that I would never have said? Will they, uh, represent me in a way that I would represent myself if I was there? Or also they, um, is this also safe for the future of, you know, me and my family? And to do that, you know, those questions of safety, probably. Again, you talk about this. I've seen some of the episode I've heard about. People seem concerned. So tell me a little bit more how you see the safety of the future of AI. And it's particularly in real estate, but, uh, you know, when it comes to big decisions and transactions that so much money is involved.

Speaker B: Indeed. Well, I'll, uh, say this. There's risks in everything. And, you know, there's risks in installing an app on your phone because you don't really know anything about that app. And it might look like it's the Wells Fargo app, but it could be, you know, nefarious version of the app. And you really don't know if you're not paying enough Attention, et cetera. The app stores are supposed to defend against that. They don't all do a great job. Sometimes it gets slipped through. My point is simply that you really can't ever. Diligence is required. You really can't just trust, okay, everybody will take care of everything. For me, you really have to put your own diligence in. What I feel like will happen at the personal level is when we get to this agent model, uh, you will have a lot of control over what your agent does and doesn't do, what information it is able to utilize to provide, you know, give to a vendor, et cetera. Think of it again, back to my mantra, right? It's just software. So think of like an app right now. If you have a banking app installed on your phone, real security folks don't like, I don't have any banking apps because that would be not a good idea. But if you have a banking app installed in your phone, you have the ability to control the security of that app. Do you use face id? Do you use your fingerprint? Do you use a passcode? Do you just unlock the app? It won't let you do that. But. Right, so you're already doing the personal security steps, Right. So just think of your AI agent as the same thing. But now there'll be a longer list of security things you have to think about. Will your agent here, I'll jump all the way to the deep end. Just to give you an idea of how this is going to go, there are a couple protocols that have been created over the last 12 months or so that are in the process of being worked, that are known as agentic purchasing protocols. So you could eventually say to your AI chat tool, please show me the top selling pens from the last three months that are, you know, blue ink, ballpoint, whatever, and it will show you, let's say, three links. And you will then be able to say, okay, buy me 12 of the first one and then go on to the next thing that you want to do. And that will be the conclusion of the transaction. The agent will then use a secure transaction model. Just like when you go to a website and you get the little lock and you type in your credit card, same structure, but it will negotiate with whichever vendor ended up being that top vendor on the list and will make the purchase and have it shipped and it'll show up. Now there's a whole bunch of things in there we can talk about. One of the things I want you to potentially think about is if you're able to purchase Things through your assistant, uh, your agent. Are you going to go to the vendor websites much in the future? Is there value to go to Amazon or Walmart or whatever in order to. If your agent can show you the listings and show you reviews and comparisons and what's the score from the, you know, the review score, whatever. If you can do all that right inside your chat with your agent, what's going to happen now is the individual websites have become less and less important and now it'll be which agent did you select and who. You know, what relationships are there behind the scenes. And you can do things like, you know, don't ever show me this company's product. I don't want to buy from them. I'll buy the product, but I won't buy it there. I'll buy it over here, whatever. Again, back to your settings, your etc. I don't know if those are things you've actually tried to think about or I throw a whole bunch of new stuff at you.

Speaker A: But, um, the problem here is that, yes, I mean, where are we going as the human race, to a place where we'll be sitting automated home with tubes, you know, coming through the windows and just right here, right, because now we have all those delivery services that they say that it's under five minutes.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Is it long? If it's seven minutes, is it, like too much? Why don't everything need to be so fast and so immediate? I'm, um, maybe a little bit old school here. Maybe an old soul. I love classic, uh, literature and I like to sit with 800 pages sometimes, not always. It's not always easy. Sometimes it takes me a long time. But the journey that takes me on is so priceless, so timeless that I don't want, ever want to substitute that with something immediate, automated, and right now. But some of the work, yes, if that serves the client, if that serves the purpose of getting somebody, like in my profession, getting them the dream home on, um, the best terms possible. Sure. Let me give some of that to that agentic AI who will do some of the work. But I think that the question here is because we started talking about privacy, better glasses come to mind. Now if they were saying right here, know that I'm being recorded. I know that, that if we continue, if there are some certain regulations and approach to this whole AI taking over or taking care of some of our jobs. But it's clear this is AI now you're dealing with. You know, I don't know, sometimes I spoke with some phone calls, I Get all the time. And I spoke to somebody and for the first minute I thought, I'm talking to a human being. And it turns out this, this thing does not know that. Uh, and I'm like, wait, you did that? I am a little like, why are we putting this on our side? Let's take, you know, but again, two different types of customers. So people want to have a pad here and just like. Or the whole, the idea of smart homes back to real estate and AI, all of that. Hey, you know, turn the lights, uh, on. Turn the, turn the lights on. Close the blinds. This is fun. I like that. This is like exciting, but like taking over of everything for me. So I can, what, sit and not move and not do anything. That's much.

Speaker B: Yeah. The theory is that you automate out the mundane things so that you focus on the value add. That's always been the case. Uh, that's always been the mantra. In the same way that, you know, Microsoft Word, uh, creates productivity versus a typewriter or initial word processor. If you're old enough to know what word processors are, not everybody will. But it's fine, Okay. I buy that to a certain level and then I get to. Sure. There's features in Word that I've never used in 25 years and I never will use. I didn't need. Maybe some part of the customer base needed. Sure, fine. Once, uh, we got to the point where I could type words in and maybe spell checking or whatever, I was probably good. The automation, for automation sake is a problem is what else can I automate? Because the companies are looking for more revenue streams, so obviously they're going to do that. You had some really good comments in there. Uh, I'll just share some quick thoughts. Pizza delivered in 30 minutes or it's free. That used to not exist. At one point in time, that was not a thing. At one point you went and picked up a pizza or you went and ate the pizza and then it was, oh, we can deliver it and we can do it. And there's a crowd that wants that and there's a crowd that's like, uh, no, I want to go out and sit in the restaurant and have an I want that vibe. I want that. Right. I think that'll always be the case where it becomes strange. One of your other comments, right? When you call into any sort of customer service or support structure, doesn't matter what it is now, and you fight to get to a human to have a communication with, and the system now gets almost abrasive and says, but I can do a lot for you. You don't have to talk to an end, right? And it doesn't quite sound what I just sounded like, but. But it basically says, sure, I'll do that. But also I can, you know, think about, like, calling a pharmacy to look at a prescription or a referral, renewal or whatever. And it's like, don't, don't bother everybody. Just, I'll do it for you. No, you can't. I have a question and you can't answer it, so stop. But that level of becomes, uh, a little invasive, a little intrusive. Right? But I can tell you I've watched my daughter deal with that and like, it just doesn't phase her. She's like, yeah, yeah, whatever. Click, click. I'll just keep pressing the button. Eventually they'll let me through. And I'm like, getting irate about it. And then I look in the mirror and go, that seems like the problem's. You didn't. Doesn't it? Um, so I get back to, there's different people and they have different priorities. I feel like we've gone in a circle. We've actually said the same thing, because

Speaker A: we are and we do. But that's good because as many of us, that many opinions, uh, that many things that we think are good for us or not, that we want, that we don't. I think what I'm saying is that we should be careful. Maybe that's a question like I'd like to ask to be careful. I don't, whoever listens to this, to just be careful. Do not forget that, um, you know, we're. I would like, you see, I think that this is going to be like a big platform that everybody will hear right now, but maybe not, but maybe they will. I'd like us to, like. I'd like to think of future as, uh, back to some basics, back to the relationships, back to sitting and having dinners or, uh, by the table, you know, with your family. AI can help us maybe because they will take some of the things that we would do otherwise to not have time for that. But then will we get to this point where we get where we sit down and that's the choice, well, each one of us needs to make individually.

Speaker B: I agree. I actually, from the perspective of a positive view, I think these are all pendulums. I think people swing towards automation at the moment and take things off my plate and help de stress and all those things and social media and I don't have to go out and see my friends. I can Just look at their pictures, et cetera. And I honestly think that starts to get to the point where people go this doesn't feel genuine and real. I miss going out and seeing my friends being in person, et cetera, in it. Then I think that pendulum will start to swing back and what we'll probably see if I sort of try to predict a rosy future. What we'll probably see is automation that helps with some of the mundanity and helps with taking care of things that we are spending time on we don't need to worry about and a prioritization of interaction with humans at the same time. So my automation takes care of these things because I don't need to interact and I don't need to waste my time and I focus on these things over here because these are where I think there's value and where I enjoy our refresh and that would be where I'd like us to land. I'm trying to paint a roadie picture though, but hopefully that's the case.

Speaker A: I hope so too. But I wanted to quickly add, before we finish, uh, to talk a little bit about what we spoke about this Persona and AI and ChatGPT. Right. Adding I've been using that more since our last conversation. Telling a prompt, giving that you are this right and use this database or this idea or understanding of the world. It's fascinating how that changes the responses. I get that you can add now you can use a specific person to pull out from like Jeff Bezos and like you're a uh, mind of a just Jeff Bezos. So no, maybe let me give you the helm and say anything else that you feel could be helpful to people watching or to you.

Speaker B: Given the context of our conversation, I think what I would end with is there's plenty of opportunity for useful automation and useful adoption of AI while still maintaining some humanity and some personal touch and that if framed correctly and implemented correctly there's certainly opportunity for us to take advantage of cool things AI can do for us while we then focus on the things that are either value add for us or that we're passionate about, that we that provide the right answers to our customers or just the thing I like doing and you know, different folks for everybody, that's fine. Secondarily there's a big audience out there. If you're a service provider of some sort and you can then decide if you want to specialize in I only want to cater to folks who want to have face to face interactions and if the folks want a bottle, I'm not doing that. And that's okay. That's your choice. You should be able to do that or the opposite. I'm doing bot all the way because I want to automate this stuff, because that's the vibe I want. Okay, then you'll pick your clients from that and then some hybrid in the middle that says, pick your path, you know, choose your journey. I see no reason why that wouldn't be the case either. I think long term there'll probably be some additional cost in trying to be the hybrid where you're doing both. But look, the number of people who get their news from a News program on TV at 6pm Every day is dwindling rapidly. And the number of people who get their news from a social media feed is probably quite a lot more. And I don't know that that's the right shift because I'm not sure the social media feed is News than the 6pm Entertainment shows that are currently referred to as news because unfortunately, all of it's been a little bit perverted by the algorithms. Right. So maybe the wisest choices, we should all sort of step back a little bit and kind of question, is all this automation great, or should I pick and choose my automation? I don't know. I like that.

Speaker A: That's a beautiful end to, I think, to our conversation and I really appreciate you, Jeff, and the time that I had here with you.

Speaker B: Thank you. It was a good conversation and I'm really glad we got a chance to talk, so thank you as well.